SMART Center People

Eric Bruns, PhD, is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Bruns's research focuses on public child-serving systems, and how to maximize their positive effects on youth with behavioral health needs and their families. Toward this end, Dr. Bruns focuses primarily on two areas with high public health significance. The first is intensive care coordination models for youths with serious emotional and behavioral challenges. In this area, Dr. Bruns co-directs the National Wraparound Initiative (www.nwi.pdx.edu) and the National Wraparound Implementation Center (www.nwic.org), and directs the UW Wraparound Evaluation and Research Team (www.wrapinfo.org). In this area, Dr. Bruns has led multiple federally-funded (NIMH, SAMHSA, CMS) research and intervention development projects aimed at defining and evaluating impact of intensive care coordination models. The second area is school mental health services. In this area, Dr. Bruns is Associate Director of the UW SMART Center, where he leads the Center's Technical Assistance Core and directs its Institute for Education Sciences (IES)-funded Post-doctoral Research Training Program. He has served as PI or Co-I on six Institute for Education Sciences (IES)-funded research studies, on topics such as development and efficacy testing of an assessment, engagement, triage, and brief intervention strategy for school clinicians and counselors, intensive Tier 3 intervention-models for high school students with SEBC, and methods for addressing racial disparities in school discipline.

Dr. Janine Jones’ research focuses on providing culturally responsive school based interventions that address the socio-emotional health of students of color.   Her work is framed around the belief that providing culturally responsive services and promoting resilience within the cultural context creates the path toward serving the “whole child.” Her current projects focus on culturally responsive interventions including the following areas: 1) cultivating resilience through ethnic identity, 2) nature-based education as cultural immersion, and 3) art-based mindfulness in schools.  All three projects investigate the impact of interventions on school engagement and sense of belonging in students of color. She also consults with school personnel on culturally responsive practices that enhance teacher/student relationships and reduce some of the barriers associated with intractable opportunity gaps for students of color in schools. Her ultimate goal is to bridge the gap between research and practice by developing culturally responsive and innovative approaches to emotional and behavioral intervention for all children. Dr. Jones is an Associate Professor and Director of the School Psychology program at the University of Washington, a Licensed Psychologist and a Nationally Certified School Psychologist.

Elizabeth McCauley, PhD, is Acting Director, Child Psychiatry UW/Seattle Children’s and Professor, UW Psychiatry Department, adjunct in Pediatrics and Psychology. Dr. McCauley’s research has focused on the development, prevention and intervention of depression and behavioral health problems in young people. She has developed and/or tested a number of prevention and intervention strategies in clinical, primary care settings and schools.  Dr. McCauley has worked with Seattle Public Schools/Public Health-King County for the last 18 years to provide training and consultation to school-based mental health care providers. As part of that work, she has been PI on series of foundation and federally funded projects, both longitudinal and interventional studies, focused on enhancing mental health services in the schools. She is a founding member of the UW School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center. 

Margaret Sibley, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital. Her work focuses on community and school-based interventions for adolescents with ADHD and related difficulties in attention, motivation, and executive functions. She has authored or co-authored over 70 scientific papers and a book about how parents and professionals can empower teenagers with ADHD. Her school-based models include summer programming to prepare teens with ADHD for the transition to high school and peer-delivered interventions for high schoolers. These approaches integrate motivational interviewing and executive function skill building. Dr. Sibley is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. Her work has been conducted in partnership with the National Institute of Mental Health, Institute of Education Sciences, Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation, and Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD).

Stephanie Brewer is a postdoctoral fellow at the School Mental Health Assessment, Research, & Training (SMART) Center. Dr. Brewer's research aims to promote equitable access to high-quality mental health services for all children and adolescents. To accomplish this goal, Dr. Brewer focuses on school-based mental health and integrates perspectives from implementation science and cultural adaptation of interventions. She is particularly interested in (1) developing school-based interventions that are easy to implement, contextually relevant, and culturally responsive; and (2) improving the implementation of contextually relevant, culturally responsive EBTs in schools. Dr. Brewer was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32) to better understand what modifications are made to EBTs in real-world practice contexts, thereby allowing for future projects to optimize the implementation of EBTs in accessible service settings such as schools.

Kelly Whitaker, PhD, is a Senior Research Associate in the School-Based Health & Wellness division at Education, Training, & Research (ETR) Associates in Oakland, CA. Dr. Whitaker's program of research in child and adolescent behavioral health focuses on developing, implementing, and evaluating integrated behavioral health interventions in school settings. She was a former postdoctoral fellow at the SMART Center and continues to lead the Public Health Seattle & King County school-based health center (SBHC) evaluation. She works with several community-based behavioral health organizations, departments of public health, and school districts in California and Washington State to develop and evaluate school-based behavioral health programs and systems through a community-engaged partnership process.

Ann Vander Stoep, PhD, is a child psychiatric epidemiologist with a joint faculty appointment as an Associate Professor in the University of Washington, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Department of Epidemiology and an adjunct appointment in the Department of Global Health. Dr. Vander Stoep is co-director of the Developmental Pathways Research Program.  The centerpiece of DPRP is a longitudinal epidemiological study of depression and co-occurring disruptive behavior problems in 520 young people.  The Developmental Pathways Project has 8 waves of data that span the developmental period from early adolescence to young adulthood. She also collaborates with clinician/faculty members to develop, implement and evaluate innovative school and community-based child mental health programs. Over the past five years, she has designed and executed a series of workshops in mental health research methods, grant writing and publication writing with faculty and trainees at the University of Nairobi in Kenya.  Dr. Vander Stoep teaches epidemiological methods applied to issues in public mental health in the Department of Epidemiology and quantitative research methods in the Community-Oriented Public Health Practice Program.  She mentors masters and doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty who have an interest in child mental health research.