INCREASING DIVERSITY IN ADVANCED RESEARCH AND EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP IN MENTAL HEALTH

NIMH
ID: HHSN278200553104C
PI: JANEY MCMILLEN, PHD
TERM: 10/05 – 04/06

Over the past ten years, there has been a significant increase in the number of women and persons of color entering research careers related to mental health intervention, prevention, and services research. However, there has been relatively little growth in the number of women and persons of color awarded advanced programmatic grants or appointed to executive academic positions in the mental health interventions and services sciences. In order to be successful in these endeavors, junior and mid-level scientists need to blend specific scientific/technical knowledge and skills with executive leadership skills tailored to the specific needs of mental health interventions and services researchers.

The primary goal of this Phase I project was to develop and evaluate a suite of training tools and mentoring strategies (workshops, training materials, web-based training, etc.) to enhance the research and executive leadership capacity of mental health intervention and services researchers who were women and/or persons of color. Barriers that hinder career development in junior and mid-level researchers of diversity were examined, as were keys to success. These findings were used to develop a comprehensive plan for training modules, resources, and outreach strategies to combat these barriers.

Phase I findings were used to seek Phase II funding for further development of the training materials and to evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of different combinations of delivery mechanisms. The goal of that research was to identify the delivery method of the suite of training tools and mentoring strategies (in person workshops, training materials, web-based training, etc.) found to most enhance the research and executive leadership capacity of mental health researchers of diversity.

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DEB CHILDRESS, PHD

Chief of Research and Learning Content

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Childress obtained her PhD in psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to 3C Institute, she served as a research associate and a postdoctoral fellow in the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working on a longitudinal imaging study aimed at identifying the early markers of autism through behavioral and imaging methodologies. She has 19 years of autism research experience, during which she has examined the behavioral, personality, and cognitive characteristics of individuals with autism and their family members. Dr. Childress also has experience developing behavioral and parent report measurement tools, coordinating multi-site research studies, and collecting data from children and families. She has taught courses and seminars in general child development, autism, and cognitive development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Expertise

  • autism
  • early development
  • behavioral measurement
  • integrating behavioral and biological measurement

Education

  • Postdoctoral fellowship, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Institutional NRSA-NICHD), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • PhD, developmental psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • BS, psychology (minor in sociology), University of Iowa

Selected Publications

  • Elison, J. T., Wolff, J. J., Heimer, D. C., Paterson, S. J., Gu, H., Hazlett, H. C., Styner, M, Gerig, G., & Piven, J. (in press). Frontolimbic neural circuitry at 6 months predicts individual differences in joint attention at 9 months. Developmental Science.
  • Wassink, T. H., Vieland, V. J., Sheffield, V. C., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., Childress, D. & Piven, J. (2008). Posterior probability of linkage analysis of autism dataset identifies linkage to chromosome 16. Psychiatric Genetics,18(2),85-91.
  • Losh, M., Childress, D., Lam K. & Piven, J. (2008). Defining key features of the broad autism phenotype: A comparison across parents of multiple- and single-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 147B(4):424-33.
  • Wassink, T. H., Piven, J., Vieland, V. J., Jenkins, L., Frantz R., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., … Sheffield, V.C. (2005). Evaluation of the chromosome 2q37.3 gene CENTG2 as an autism susceptibility gene. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 136, 36-44.
  • Barrett, S., Beck, J., Bernier, R., Bisson, E., Braun, T., Casavant, T., Childress, D., … Vieland, V. (1999). An autosomal genomic screen for autism. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 88, 609-615. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19991215)88:63.0.CO;2-L
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Landa, R., Santangelo, S., Jacobi, D. & Childress, D. (1997). Personality and language characteristics in parents from multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 74, 398-411.
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Jacobi, D., Childress, D. & Arndt, S. (1997). Broader autism phenotype: Evidence from a family history study of multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 185-190.