3cisd

3C Institute

WEB-BASED TRAINING AND NETWORKING TOOL TO PROMOTE BROADER DISSEMINATION OF MENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH TRAINING AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

NIMH
ID: HHSN271200774100C
PI: MELISSA DEROSIER, PHD
TERM: 05/07 – 04/10

Every year, a wealth of information related to mental health research is delivered through specialized in-person training and education programs. These multi-day programs support the transfer of scientific knowledge and expertise from senior investigators to promising early or mid career scientists, helping them make the transition to independent scientists. In addition, training and career development programs often include senior scientists who agree to serve as mentors to trainees. These mentor-mentee relationships foster joint research ventures (e.g., joint grant applications, joint publications) that not only advance the early scientists’ careers, but also advance science through collaboration.

While the advantages of training and educational programs in mental health research are many, the ability of these multi-day, in-person programs to reach potential researchers is limited. Only a select number of trainees are admitted to these programs, and constraints on time and travel can impede participation.

In Phase I of this project, a website prototype to more broadly disseminate training programs was developed and tested with early and mid-career researchers, and with training directors and their staff. Participants strongly supported continued development, and provided recommendations for making the website a usable, highly valued tool.

Phase II continued the research and development of this suite of website tools and services that support training dissemination needs of research scientists. Over the course of this project, customized websites were created for four diverse training conferences, and quantitative and qualitative data were collected over 9 months from all users (trainees, staff, and directors).

This project resulted in the launching of Interlink.

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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.