Our Team

Sara Becker, PhD, is the Alice Hamilton Professor of Psychiatry and the inaugural director of the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science. Trained as a clinical psychologist, Becker conducts programmatic research integrating both dissemination and implementation science methods. To date, she has been the principal investigator or scientific lead of 10 projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, all of which have focused on increasing the uptake of effective health services in community or clinical settings. Twitter/X/Bluesky: @sjbeckerphd

Rinad S. Beidas, PhD, is chair and Ralph Seal Paffenbarger professor of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Rinad’s research leverages insights from implementation science and behavioral science to make it easier for clinicians, leaders, and organizations to transform the quality and equity of care. As an internationally recognized implementation scientist, Rinad has published approximately 300 peer-reviewed publications and has served as MPI or PI of 11 NIH grants totaling approximately $31 million dollars.

Nanette Benbow, MAS is a research associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is co-Director of the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research’s Behavioral, Social, and Implementation Science Core, and co-PI of the NIH-funded Implementation Science Coordination Initiative (ISCI). She was formerly Director of the Chicago Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) - STI/HIV Surveillance, Epidemiology and Research Section and Deputy Commissioner of the CDPH STI/HIV Services Bureau. Her research includes use of implementation science methods and frameworks to support implementation and dissemination of HIV evidence-based prevention and care interventions in public health department and HIV service organization settings. 

Cory D. Bradley, PhD, MPH, MSW is an assistant professor of Medical and Social Sciences at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and core faculty in the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science.  He earned his PhD in the social and behavioral sciences of public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and he completed a postdoc in dissemination and implementation science at Washington University School of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases. His methodological work blends transdisciplinary and participatory approaches to design and evaluate strategies that advance systems and social transformation to improve population health equity. His scholarship aspires to situate dissemination and implementation science as a tool for justice-making.  Twitter/X: @1stluvd 

C. Hendricks Brown, PhD, is professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Preventive Medicine, and Medical Social Sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. As an internationally renowned expert in implementation science methodology, he has served as the lead methodologist on more than a dozen implementation and hybrid randomized trials, directed a NIDA Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology, and led virtual grand round presentations of the Prevention Science and Methodology Group for over 30 years. He has served on numerous federal blue-ribbon panels and National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine committees, and is currently on the leadership team of two NIDA Centers housed at Stanford.

Allison J. Carroll, PhD (she/her) is a research assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is a clinical health psychologist with a focus on implementing interventions to promote behavioral health and chronic disease prevention and management in clinical and community settings. She is a co-investigator on implementation trials that include improving hypertension detection and management in various settings (e.g., CIRCL-Chicago, HH4M, OptIMISe), delivering collaborative care for depression in primary care settings (the CBHP study), and improving symptom management and health behaviors among cancer survivors (e.g., IMPACT, STELLAR). Twitter/X: @ACarrollPhD

Kira DiClemente-Bosco, PhD, MPH, is a research assistant professor of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and serves as a senior project manager overseeing MIMIC, MIMIC2, Parent SMART and ARCH. She will assist in grant consultations, providing expertise in community-engaged approaches to implementation research. She works in the United States and in South Africa. Twitter/X: @KDB_PhD

Andrea Graham, PhD (she/her), is Assistant Professor and Chief of the Division of Implementation Science in the Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where she also is Co-Director of the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies. Her program of research focuses on the design, optimization, and implementation of digital mental and behavioral health interventions. She applies human-centered design methods to design digital tools that meet users’ needs and implementation plans that support the integration of digital interventions into practice. Twitter/X: @andreakgraham

Sarah Helseth, PhD, MS, is an assistant professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and a core Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science faculty member. She is an NIH-funded researcher and licensed clinical psychologist who develops, implements and disseminates effective behavioral and technology-based interventions for mental health and substance use. She is the principal investigator of a K23 evaluating a scalable digital health app called TECH (Teen Empowerment through Computerized Health) to address marijuana use in court-involved, non-incarcerated youth and serves as a co-investigator on Parent SMART. Twitter/X: @sarah_helseth

Lisa Hirschhorn, MD MPH is professor of Medical Social Sciences and director for the Ryan Family Center for Global Primary Care at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Trained in medicine and HIV, Dr Hirschhorn uses implementation research to study and improve the quality and equity of care in resource limited settings in the US, Africa and other areas across the lifespan from newborn care to non-communicable diseases, HIV and healthy aging. She is PI for D43s building research capacity and serves as implementation scientist on multiple NIH and foundation funded work. 

Ashley Knapp, PhD, is an assistant professor of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences and core faculty at the Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science and the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies. Her research is focused on youth digital mental health broadly, with a particular interest in designing and implementing accessible, community-based digital tools with marginalized youth and those youth most experiencing inequities. Dr. Knapp is currently supported by a NIMH-funded K01 award, where she is partnering with a public library and their teen patrons to co-create a digital mental health service for anxiety to be implemented into the public library’s teen services. Twitter/X: @AshleyAKnapp  

Dennis H. Li, PhD, MPH, (he/him) is an assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and core faculty at the Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science as well as the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. Trained in public health, Dennis is a methodologist with expertise in health promotion program development and implementation science. His work aims to help end the HIV epidemic in the US by conducting research to improve the delivery of HIV interventions and models of care and by developing tools to support others’ engagement in HIV implementation science.

Brian Mustanski, PhD (he/him) is a tenure professor of Medical Social Sciences, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medicine-Infectious Diseases, and Psychology. He is director of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing and the NIH-funded Third Coast Center for AIDS Research, as well as a core faculty member for the Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science. Brian leads the Implementation Science Coordination Initiative (ISCI), which is funded by NIH to support the use of implementation science to help end the HIV epidemic, which has supported over 250 NIH funded projects and provides trainings and tools to build capacity.

Kelli Scott, PhD, is an assistant professor of Medical Social Sciences and a core Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science faculty member. She is a clinical psychologist and implementation science methodologist focused on enhancing evidence-based practice implementation in community mental health and substance use treatment. She is principal investigator of a National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded K23 testing the implementation of measurement-based care in opioid treatment programs (the MBC2OTP Project) and serves as a co-investigator on MIMIC, MIMIC 2 and the New England ATTC. Twitter/X: @KelliScottPhD

Faith Summersett Williams, PhD, is a research assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and holds a joint appointment through Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs as a faculty fellow. More specifically, she is trained as a pediatric psychologist, and currently works as an implementation scientist in the Potocsnak Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine (DAYAM) at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital where she leads the research program for DAYAM's Substance Use and Prevention Program (SUPP) and the Implementation Science + Health Equity Advancement Lab (I+HEAL). Her academic and clinical interests are focused on health equity and justice to center the values and needs of historically marginalized communities.

Zabin Patel Syed, PhD, MPH, is a research assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and a core Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science faculty member. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Miami and completed her internship year at UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior in the general child track. Her research interests include evidence-based assessment methods, strategies to improve youth access to mental healthcare and improving the effectiveness of mental health services for children and families. Twitter/X: @zabinps

Amelia Van Pelt, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Medical Social Sciences, core Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science faculty member, and Associate Director of Research for the Ryan Family Center for Global Primary Care at the Havey Institute for Global Health. She is an implementation scientist and epidemiologist who focuses on increasing the uptake of evidence-based practices for infectious diseases in resource-limited settings, primarily in low- and middle-income countries. She is the principal investigator of an Ending the HIV Epidemic supplement project and co-investigator on multiple NIH-funded implementation research projects. Twitter/X: @AmeliaVanPelt  

Wouter Vermeer, PhD (he/his) is a research assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a core faculty at the Center for Dissemination. He is a methodologist using simulation modeling and network analysis as methods for improving health related decision making. His current focus is on HIV prevention and reduction of opioid related deaths. Wouter is part of with the NIDA funded Center for Dissemination and Implementation at Stanford (C-DIAS) and HEAL Data2Action (HD2A) Research Adoption Support Center (RASC), were he serves as core methodologist and studies the use of Agent-Based Modeling to support local decision making to reduce opioid related death.

Callie Walsh-Bailey, PhD, MPH, is an assistant professor of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and core faculty in the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science. She earned her PhD in Public Health Sciences with a specialization in dissemination and implementation science from Washington University in St. Louis. Her research intersects health equity, implementation science, and chronic disease prevention and control. As a methodologist, she is interested in integrating a greater focus on health equity into implementation research tools and methods to improve the delivery of chronic disease control interventions and approaches to address health-related social needs. She is supported by a K12 career development award which aims to develop and test a team-based approach for designing and tailoring equity-focused implementation strategies.

Chisom Obiezu-Umeh, PhD, is a Medical Social Sciences and Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science postdoctoral research fellow. She received her PhD in Behavioral science and health equity from Saint Louis University. Chisom’s research interests primarily focus on implementation science and global health, particularly utilizing community-engaged approaches to develop, implement, and sustain evidence-based interventions aimed at improving the health of individuals and communities in low-resource settings.

Byrd is a research study coordinator for the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science. They graduated in 2023 with an MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Maryland. During graduate school, they completed an internship in data management for a nonprofit HIV clinic and a capstone research project. In their current role, Byrd is a member of an Ending the HIV Epidemic supplemental project working under Dr. Amy Van Pelt.

Emily is a research study coordinator in the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science for the Parent SMART study. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Bates College with a BA in Sociology, where she studied inequities in the U.S. healthcare system and the social determinants of health. In her current role, Emily is responsible for family recruitment and conducting assessments with both teens and parents in the Parent SMART study.

Christopher is a Research Assistant in the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science working on the TECH and FreSH projects. He graduated from Binghamton University with a BA in psychology, where he worked in a psycholinguistics lab studying reading and memory. Prior to his current role, Christopher served as a lab manager at The University of Chicago, contributing to research on interventions aimed at enhancing children’s math learning. In his current role, he is responsible for participant recruitment, data collection, and data coding for the TECH and FreSH projects.

Janese is a research project coordinator at the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science. Janese brings over a decade of clinical and administrative experience spanning various roles in behavioral health, public health research, policy analysis, quality assurance, and project management. In her current role at CDIS, Janese will be responsible for project coordination and parent coaching for the Parent SMART research project.

Nanette Hannah is a senior program coordinator in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and administrator of the Center for Dissemination and Implementation at Stanford (C-DIAS) and Prevention Science and Methodology Group (PSMG) Virtual Grand Rounds supporting a network of over 1,400 researchers and methodologists aimed to advance the field of prevention science and support the implementation of evidence-based prevention programs. She received her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies. In her current role, Nanette assists with writing manuscripts, grant application submissions and grants management, including the NU Provost Diversity grant and the NIMH R01 SGM Synthesis grant, and handles responsibilities in finance and budgets as well as HR related duties.

Mika is a research project manager in the Center for Implementation & Dissemination Science for Parent SMART and the New England ATTC. She worked for several years as a high school mathematics teacher before joining the team. In her current role, Mika is responsible for coordinating with community partners and providing overall project oversight.

Ani is a research study assistant in the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science for the MBC2OTP Project. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a BA in psychology and a minor in Brain and Behavioral Health, where she assisted in implementing measurement-based care in a children’s OCD clinic. In her current role, Ani is responsible for supporting data collection and project management for the MBC2OTP study, including working with community opioid treatment programs.

Emma is the program coordinator at the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science. She possesses extensive administrative experience in the realms of psychiatric research and sales, and she is working toward her MS in statistics from Texas A&M. In her current role, Emma is responsible for helping coordinate and oversee center administration and events, communication, strategic planning activities, new faculty recruitment, grants/contracts invoices, and implementation of HR policies.

Sarah is a research project coordinator in the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science for Project MIMIC. She graduated from the University of Michigan, where she served as a research assistant focusing on behavioral economic interventions for individuals with substance use disorders. In her current role, Sarah is responsible for providing daily support to opioid treatment program leaders and providers in the MIMIC2 study.

Hannah is a research assistant in the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science for Project MIMIC. She graduated from Northwestern University with a BA in biological sciences and anthropology. She previously assisted with psychology research in a teen health lab at Lurie Children’s Hospital. In her current role, Hannah is responsible for providing daily support to opioid treatment program leaders and providers in the MIMIC2 study. 

Hannah is a research project coordinator on the Parent SMART study. She graduated from McGill University with an honors BA in psychology, where she studied how interventions can be effectively designed and implemented to positively impact the course of various psychopathologies. In her current role, Hannah is responsible for family recruitment and conducting assessments with both teens and parents in the Parent SMART study.  

Jordan is the program assistant for the Center of Dissemination & Implementation Science. She graduated from the University of Arizona with a BS in Public Health with a concentration in Global Health. Through her academic and professional experiences, Jordan has developed interests in disease surveillance as well as health intervention planning and development in order to ensure improved outcomes and controls for particularly vulnerable populations. In her current role, Jordan is responsible for assisting with the coordination of special projects and events as well as administratively supporting the center's overall function and growth.  

Tessa is a research assistant in the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science for Project MIMIC. She graduated from Northwestern University with a BS in Education and Social Policy. She previously served as an ESL Teaching Assistant, as well as assisted with the Northwestern Study of Lives Research Group. In her current role, Tessa is responsible for providing daily support to opioid treatment program leaders and providers in the MIMIC2 study.

  Matthew is a research study coordinator in the Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science for the Parent SMART study. After graduating from Lawrence University with majors in psychology and music and a minor in neuroscience, he worked on multiple social-emotional research studies at Rush University Medical Center. In his current role, Matthew is responsible for family recruitment and conducting assessments with both teens and parents in the Parent SMART study.