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Faculty
Michael B. Blank, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry
mblank2@mail.med.upenn.edu
Dr. Blank’s research and writing focus on integration of health and mental health services delivery systems including treatment for co-morbid illness such as HIV/AIDS. Other areas of interest include informal care and it's impact on consumers and families, rural mental health, ethics in prevention, and applications of technology and computer-assisted care in mental health service delivery. Dr. Blank holds appointments as a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics, and the Schools of Nursing at Penn and the University of Virginia.
Dennis Culhane, PhD
Research Professor in the School of Social Policy and Practice and a Professor of Psychology at the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research
culhane@mail.med.upenn.edu
Dr. Culhane's primary area of research is homelessness, about which he studies the dynamics of public shelter use, health care use, the geographic and housing market factors associated with housing instability, and the design and evaluations of homelessness prevention programs. His projects include studies of the neighborhood origins of homelessness in Philadelphia and New York City. The mental health and substance abuse service histories of homeless adults, and the costs of homelessnes to society.
Jeffrey Draine, PhD
Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy and Practice
jdraine@sp2.upenn.edu
Dr. Draine's primary interests are rehabilitation and recovery oriented services for people with mental illness involved in the criminal justice system. He is also interested in how policy enables or limits self-determination among consumer/survivors. He co-directs the Center for Mental Health Services and Criminal Justice Research, an NIMH funded research center based at Rutgers University, which includes an NIMH and NIDA funded post doctoral training program. He is also involved in the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program , an educational collaborative of prisoners, academics, students and interested others
Trevor Hadley, PhD
Director, Center for Mental Health Policy & Services Research
Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry
thadley@mail.med.upenn.edu
Dr. Hadley's background as a mental health center director, State Mental Health Commissioner, consultant to public mental agencies, and services researcher gives him a unique perspective on the relationship between policy and services research and provides him with the understanding to move between the public mental health policy and research environments. Collaboration with public mental health systems to conduct services research poses logistical and organizational difficulties and requires the long-term maintenance of these relationships. Dr. Hadley serves as a management/system change consultant to several states and national organizations and is responsible for conducting a wide variety of mental health service system research projects focusing on utilization, cost, benefits and staffing of mental health programs.
Edna Kamis-Gould, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor
egould@mail.med.upenn.edu
Dr. Kamis- Gould's areas of expertise include needs assessment, performance and outcome assessment, management planning, and information systems.
David Mandell, ScD
Assistant Professor
mandelld@mail.med.upenn.edu
David S. Mandell, ScD, is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine’s Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research and Associate Director of the Penn/CHOP Center for Autism Research. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, an Associate Scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, a Research Affiliate of the University of Pennsylvania Population Studies Center, a member of the Pediatric Research Generalist Group, and a Senior Fellow in the Center for Public Health Initiatives. Dr. Mandell’s research focuses on the organization, financing and delivery of services to children with autism, and provides the basis for the development of interventions at the individual, provider and system levels to decrease the age at which children with autism are recognized and enter treatment, and to improve the services and supports available to them and their families. He is the recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) career development award to understand why the diagnosis of autism is so often delayed, and principal investigator on an NIMH-funded study to examine the relationship between states’ policies and their delivery of health services to children with autism. He is the author of more than thirty-five peer-reviewed scientific publications, many of which examine correlates of unmet need among children with psychiatric and developmental disabilities and strategies for reducing disparities. Dr. Mandell co-chaired the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Autism Task Force from 2003 to 2006 and consults with the Department of Public Welfare to help them develop appropriate policies to meet the needs of families of children with autism. He also served as a member of the core team for the City of Philadelphia Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Children’s Behavioral Health in 2007. Dr. Mandell is the Chair of the Mental Health Section of the American Public Health Association. He holds a bachelor of arts in psychology from Columbia University and a doctorate of science from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, where he received the Paul V. Lemkau award for outstanding performance in doctoral studies.
Aileen Rothbard, ScD
Research Professor
rothbard@mail.med.upenn.edu
Aileen B. Rothbard, Sc. D., is a Research Professor at the School of Social Policy and Practice and the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Dr. Rothbard received her academic training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in the area of Operations Research. She also has had varied prior administrative and research experiences in the field of mental health services. Since coming to Penn in 1987, she has served as Associate Director of the Policy Modeling Workshop, a research unit in the Department of Public Policy and Management at the Wharton School. In that capacity she managed numerous projects in mental health systems research funded by NIMH and foundation grants.
Dr. Rothbard's research examines the impact of public policy decisions on service and pharmacy utilization, cost and outcomes of care for people with serious mental illness. Her studies have involved the evaluation of state hospital closures and community programs with respect to cost efficiency and effectiveness, mandated managed care for persons with SMI and its effects on access, service intensity and cost, and the effect of co-morbid conditions such as substance abuse and HIV/AIDS on the care of persons with SMI. She has recently been investigating patterns of psychotropic drug use, their effectiveness and cost, as newer antipsychotic and antidepressant medications have become increasingly important as a major treatment modality for this population. Evaluating models of integrated service delivery for individuals with SMI and a co-occurring condition such as substance dependence, obesity and diabetes, and determining the potential cost tradeoff between psychiatric symptoms, metabolic disorders and infectious disorders for individuals using newer atypical medications has also emerged as an important area of research that she is currently pursuing.
Dr. Rothbard has overseen the development of an 18 year longitudinal database on services to public sector Medicaid clients with mental health disorders receiving care in the Philadelphia behavioral health system. The database can be linked to information on criminal justice involvement, residential and homeless shelter use and related health and welfare service participation and provides a rich resource for many services research studies.
Select a link below for more information about Dr. Rothbard's work in a specific area:
Mark Salzer, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry
salzer@mail.med.upenn.edu
Mark Salzer, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Dr. Salzer is the Director of the University of Pennsylvania Collaborative on Community Integration: The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) Promoting Community Integration of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities (www.upennrrtc.org). This Center is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research with the mission of conducting state-of-the-art community integration research that is used in training efforts with consumers, providers, administrators, and other stakeholders to ensure that people with psychiatric disabilities live in the community and are part of the community.
He is also the Associate Editor for Mental Health Services Research journal and has published more than forty research articles and book chapters on the effectiveness of psychiatric rehabilitation services, particularly employment and education services, peer support services, and research methodology.
Dr. Salzer is also the Director of Evaluation and Research at both Horizon House, Inc., a large mental health service provider in southeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware, and the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, a large consumer-operated service and advocacy organization.
He is currently the Principal or Co-Principal Investigator on the following studies:
- A randomized study of Internet peer support for women with breast cancer funded by the National Cancer Institute
- A randomized study examining the effectiveness of a telephone-based self-care intervention for people diagnosed with schizophrenia and major depression funded by the Department of Health, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
- A randomized study of Internet peer support for people with psychiatric disabilities that is funded through the RRTC
- A study of peer supports for students with a psychiatric disability funded through the RRTC
Sara Ann Steber, PhD
Director, Technical Assistance and Education Center
ssteber@mail.med.upenn.edu
Dr. Steber held a faculty appointment in the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research from 1989-1994. Ms. Steber is a former policy and program development specialist for the Pennsylvania Office of Mental Health and a consultant for state and local mental health, substance abuse, and aging programs. She is experienced in planning, program development and evaluation activities related to the improvement of community-based services through system change. Dr. Steber conducts management and system change training for mental health and substance abuse professionals and has been principal investigator on several federally and foundation funded research training and community development grants.
Cynthia Zubritsky, PhD
Research Associate
cdz@mail.med.upenn.edu
Dr. Zubritsky is involved with national and state research projects involving mental health needs, and drug and alcohol abuse with elders and adolescents.