Directory

Dr. Heinze is an educational psychologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. His research investigates how schools influence disparities in violence and other risk outcomes from an ecological perspective that includes individual, interpersonal, and contextual influences on development. He is particularly interested in structural features of school context and policy that perpetuate inequity in violence and firearm outcomes, but also how these institutions can serve as a setting for intervention.

Prior positions include: senior associate at the Children’s Defense Fund, researcher, UNC Child Health Outcomes Project, the first public health initiative to track key indicators and monitor morbidity/mortality for childhood diseases; director, Head Start Resource Access Project, coordinating health training for 178 grantees across six states; MCH clinical director, Virgin Islands Department of Health; and mainstreaming coordinator, Baltimore City Public Schools. Her most recent publication, Happy, Healthy and Ready to Learn!; Insure All Children was launched by then Dept. of Ed Secretary, John King and DHHS Secretary, Sylvia Burwell. Other recent publications include: Feeding Hungry Minds: Stories from the Field; A Shared Vision to Change the Course of Childhood Obesity in African-American and Latino Communities; and Insure Our Children, Ensure Our Future.

Ms. Adams-Taylor holds degrees from Howard University, The Catholic University of America, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and had fellowships with the Shriver National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. She is married and has two children — Aja and Ife — who make all things possible.

Ron Avi Astor serves as the subject matter expert consultant for the Deterrent Measures subject core. Dr. Astor holds the Marjory Crump Chair Professorship in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, with a joint appointment in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His work examines the role of the physical, social-organizational, and cultural contexts in schools related to different kinds of school violence. His studies have included tens of thousands of students, teachers, parents and administrators, and findings from these studies have been published in more than 150 scholarly manuscripts. His most recent books all published by Oxford University Press include 1. Bullying, school violence, and climate in evolving contexts: Culture, organization and time. 2. Mapping and monitoring bullying and violence: Building a safe school climate and 3. Welcoming practices: Creating schools that support students and families in transition. Currently, Astor is creating an international model for sustainable and scalable infrastructures that support safe and welcoming schools. Astor has won numerous national research awards from the Society for Social Work and Research, American Psychological Association (APA), and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). He holds an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College, is a fellow of the APA, AERA, and SSWR and is an elected member of both the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

Danny Carlson serves as NAESP’s Associate Executive Director, Policy & Advocacy. Prior to joining NAESP, Danny was a policy analyst for the National Governor’s Association Center for Best Practices. In that role, he oversaw the Education Division’s K-12 human capital work, advancing policies to address principal challenges across the country. Danny previously served as an education advisor to a United States Senator and was responsible for advancing her K-12 education agenda. In that capacity, he crafted policy provisions included in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to improve principal and teacher recruitment and retention, address chronic absenteeism, and boost opportunities for STEM education.

Dr. Cornell serves as the subject expert for Threat Assessment. Dr. Cornell draws upon 20 years of experience with development, research, practice, and training in school-based threat assessment and more than 35 years of experience evaluating and working with violent offenders. He developed the only model of school threat assessment subject to controlled studies, authored a detailed manual for school-based teams, and has conducted hundreds of threat assessment workshops across the U.S. He has extensive experience with consulting and training school-based teams as well as creating a train-the-trainer program that prepares trainers to provide high-quality training. He has worked extensively with state and school district partners in Virginia as well as California, Florida, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, among others.

Maura Gaswirth, LICSW, is Director, Practice Improvement for the National Council for Behavioral Health. In this role, Ms. Gaswirth oversees several projects that provide technical assistance and training to behavioral health organizations to drive clinical change, improve quality improvement approaches; therefore, improving the health outcomes for the clients they serve and preparing organizations to transition to a value-based payment environment. Ms. Gaswirth has also served as a coach supporting behavioral health organizations through their transformative work. Additionally, Ms. Gaswirth is the Project Director on a learning collaborative to enhance the professional social work response to the current opioid epidemic and other addiction-related consequences in individuals, families and communities by working with Schools of Social Work across the country.

Prior to joining the National Council, Ms. Gaswirth worked as the Director of Behavioral at in the field at a private, non-profit hospital in Washington, DC. Ms. Gaswirth spent over 6 years working as the Director of Social Work at the District’s public psychiatric facility for individuals with serious and persistent mental illness and prior to that work for the city’s child welfare agency as a case carrying social worker and a supervisor, overseeing a training unit and drug court unit.

Ms. Gaswirth received her Master’s in Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania and her undergraduate Bachelor of Social Work at Saint Mary’s College (IN.)

Kayla Jackson is a Project Director at AASA. She is currently working on a number of projects including a Department of Labor funded apprenticeship initiative and a New York Life Foundation funded childhood bereavement project. She joined the Children’s Program team in June 2011 to serve as the Project Director for the CDC-funded coordinated school health project, Strengthening School Administrator Support for Coordinated School Health. Prior to joining AASA, Jackson was the Vice President of Programs at the National Network for Youth where she had responsibility for all programmatic activities at NN4Y; two federal cooperative agreements; and the annual national membership conference. She has extensive background in women’s and adolescent health, particularly the health needs of women of color, youth, and youth at high risk for negative health outcomes related to reproductive health, breast cancer, mental health, and sexually transmitted infections/HIV. Jackson had an article published in the February 2019 issue of School Administrator titled “Unpacking an Invisible Burden: Children’s Mental Health”. Jackson received her BA in English from Mount Holyoke College and an MPA from NYU.

Rachel Masi, Ph.D. Dr. Masi is the Director of Research at Sandy Hook Promise (SHP), where she oversees studies evaluating the effectiveness of SHP’s programs and utilizes these findings, together with current research, to improve SHP’s program development and delivery. Dr. Masi is also a licensed clinical psychologist who provides treatment to children, adolescents, adults, and their families in a private practice setting. Dr. Masi specializes in parent education, child development, and clinical psychology, focusing on the critical intersection of psychology and education. Prior to SHP, Dr. Masi worked on nationally recognized research projects, including at the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, and in partnership with schools, community organizations and government agencies, to inform practice and create lasting and systemic change. Dr. Masi received her B.A. in Psychology from Duke University, her M.A. in Psychology and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She completed her pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship at ANDRUS, an outpatient community mental health center in White Plains, New York.

Dr. Melde serves as a subject expert in the Law Enforcement and Coordination subject core. For the past 15 years, Dr. Melde has worked with schools and prevention program providers in the areas of training, implementation fidelity, and curriculum review. He has worked on the national process and outcome evaluation of the National Crime Prevention Council’s Teens, Crime, and the Community: Community Works program, served on the curriculum review and redevelopment committee for the Community Works program, the national process and outcome evaluation of the Gang Resistance Education and Training program, as well as the ongoing process and outcome randomized controlled trial of an innovative whole-school change program throughout Genesee County, Michigan. This ongoing randomized controlled trial integrates three evidence-based practices – restorative justice, youth mental health first aid training, and crime reduction through environmental design – to improve school climate and reduce the use of exclusionary practices in schools. Dr. Melde has published extensively in the areas of youth violence and perceptions of crime and victimization risk.

Katherine Schweit is a former prosecutor and senior executive Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who now consults with businesses and organizations to help resolve their most challenging security policies. She was among the teams responding to multiple active shooter incidents including shootings at the Holocaust Museum, Pentagon/Arlington Cemetery, Discovery Channel and the Navy Yard. She developed the FBI’s Active Shooter program and authored A Study of 160 Active Shooter Incident in the United States, 2000 – 2013. She is a Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional with extensive experience in curriculum development and a veteran instructor in terrorism and other national security matters including serving three years on the staff of the FBI?s renowned Counterintelligence Training Center. She is an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University College of Law and Webster University’s George Herbert Walker School of Business and Technology. A recognized expert in gun violence, mass killings and active shooter matters, Ms. Schweit routinely provides commentary for on-air and print media and speaks to professional, government, educational and private organizations. She is a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Michigan State University and a Juris Doctorate from DePaul University College of Law. She now provides consulting, litigation support to large and small businesses/organizations navigating prevention, response, and recovery solutions to targeted violence and crisis communications matters.

@KateSchweit #RunHide #Fight #SeeSomethingSaySomething

Anathea Simpkins is Sandy Hook Promise’s deputy national director of the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System (SS-ARS).

Anathea brings 25 years of education, publishing, and product management to her leadership position. Before joining Sandy Hook Promise (SHP), she worked as a classroom teacher, managed curriculum development at Pearson Education, and served as product director of educational programs for Sylvan Learning for 10 years. At SHP, she manages the SS-ARS team and program operations – including the only 24/7/365 Crisis Center dedicated to school-based anonymous reporting nationwide – as well as the account management of more than 100 districts across the U.S. Anathea’s expertise in education and educational policy coupled with her experience managing educational-technology projects and products make her uniquely qualified for this position. Anathea telecommutes to the Sandy Hook Promise headquarters in Newtown, CT and Crisis Center in Miami, FL, and lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her son Huxley.