John B. Reid, PhD, Executive Director
John’s career was dedicated to the research, treatment, and prevention of youth antisocial and delinquent behavior. He founded and served as the Executive Director of OSLC. He was the Director of the Oregon Prevention Research Center (1990–2005) and the Director of the Pathways Home: Reducing Risk in the Child Welfare System Center (2003–2008). Since receiving his doctoral degree from the University of Oregon in 1967, John focused on the investigation of factors promoting healthy development and preventing problem and health-risking behaviors, observation methodologies, and the design of randomized intervention trials. His prevention program, Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers, received national recognition. He served on private, state, and federal task forces studying the most effective interventions for youth and families. Most recently, he served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Representation of Minority Children in Special Education, served on the Planning Board and Peer Review section of the Surgeon General’s Report on Youth Violence, and was a Contributing Expert to the National Institute of Mental Health report, Taking Stock of Risk Factors for Child/Youth Externalizing Behavior Problems. John passed away in February 2012, he will be greatly missed.

Patricia Chamberlain, PhD, Senior Scientist
Patti developed and founded the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) model in 1983. She has conducted a number of randomized clinical trials on MTFC with youth and families referred from the juvenile justice, mental health, and the child welfare (CWS) systems. She has authored three books and more than 70 journal articles and book chapters on evidence-based treatment approaches, treatment processes, outcome research, methodology, and foster care. She founded OSLC Community Programs (www.osclccp.org), a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing services to Oregon children and families, and is a Senior Research Scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center (www.oslc.org). Patti received the Research to Practice Award from the Society for Prevention Research in 2007 and is a Fellow in the Academy of Experimental Criminology. She is also a consultant to the Andrus Family Foundation, and a co-investigator on numerous projects including the Advanced Center to Improve Pediatric Mental Health Care Grant at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center in San Diego, California and on the BlueSky program with the Casey Foundation and the New York Foundling. She is currently the Principal Investigator on three grants, two funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and one by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Philip A. Fisher, PhD, Senior Scientist
Phil developed and directs the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers (MTFC-P) program, which has been in operation since 1996 and is the focus of an ongoing randomized efficacy trial funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Phil has published extensively on MTFC-P and has presented and conducted trainings on the MTFC-P program nationally and internationally in Canada, Central America, and Europe. Phil is a Research Scientist at OSLC, where he focuses on foster care, the effects of early stress on neural systems, and the prevention of health-risking problems and strengthening of parenting in American Indian communities. Phil is a licensed psychologist in Oregon State, a member of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Workgroup of Native American Researchers and Scholars.

Leslie D. Leve, PhD, Senior Scientist
Leslie received her doctorate in Developmental Psychology from the University of Oregon in 1995. She is a Research Scientist at OSLC, is an Affiliate Scientist on the Parents and Children Laboratory (University of Pittsburgh), and holds a courtesy faculty appointment at the University of Oregon. Leslie’s work has focused on the development of effective treatment models for youth in foster care and youth in the juvenile justice system. She has served as an investigator on 12 research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, including longitudinal studies of normative developmental processes and randomized preventive intervention trials with at risk populations. Currently, Leslie directs a randomized intervention trial designed to prevent the onset of delinquency among girls in foster care as they enter middle school, and a longitudinal study of adoptive children and families. She has published numerous articles and chapters in the areas of child development and MTFC.

Peter Sprengelmeyer, PhD, Scientist
Peter is the Executive Director of OSLC Community Programs and a Research Scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center in Eugene. For his graduate training with Charles Borduin (University of Missouri-Columbia), he worked closely with the Multisystemic Therapy Project. He has been with the Oregon groups since 1996, working with Treatment Foster Care and Intensive Home-Based Services programs. Peter is involved with the direct provision of services, training, supervision, and evaluation. In addition to clinical work, Peter is also involved in training and dissemination efforts. Peter’s current research interests involve working to include motivational interviewing for families of adolescents referred for out-of-home care and looking at empirically validated approaches to treatment of conduct problems in adolescents.

Lisa Saldana, PhD, Scientist
Lisa joined the Center for Research to Practice in 2006. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia, in 2003 with a research and clinical emphasis in child maltreatment and evidence-based practice. Her research interests include development and validation of empirically supported interventions for intentional and unintentional child injuries, methods of providing services for disadvantaged children, and development of interventions for substance abusing families. Lisa currently is the PI on a NIDA funded K23 award to develop an integrative treatment for maternal substance abuse and child neglect, on a subcontract with Douglas County to evaluate cross-system collaborations to address families involved with methamphetamine, and with Lane County to evaluate their use of evidence-based practice. She currently is working in collaboration with others on research related to substance abusing females involved in foster care, the KEEP foster parent training curriculum, development of adherence protocols, evaluation of adaptations of Multisystemic Therapy, economic evaluation of effectiveness trials, and a large-scale trial evaluating the uptake of evidence-based practice.

Katherine C. Pears, PhD, Scientist
Katherine C. Pears is a Research Scientist at the Center for Research to Practice and the Oregon Social Learning Center. She received her BA in Sociology from Princeton University and her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Oregon. She studies a number of early childhood predictors of behavioral and social problems with the goal of developing preventive interventions. Specifically, Dr. Pears is interested in the effects of maltreatment and other early adverse circumstances on children’s social and academic development. She has examined theory of mind and emotion understanding abilities in high-risk and maltreated children and the association of these skills to early adverse experiences. She has also examined the school readiness skills and early school adjustment of high risk children including maltreated children in foster care. Currently, she is the principal investigator on two randomized efficacy trials of a school readiness intervention for two groups of high-risk children: maltreated children in foster care and children with developmental disabilities and co-occurring behavioral problems. Additionally, she is co-investigator on a 10-year longitudinal, three generation study examining intergenerational transmission of antisocial behavior and substance abuse in a group of high-risk men and their families, and has examined the intergenerational transmission of abusive behaviors in this population.

David S. DeGarmo, PhD, Scientist
Dave received his doctorate in sociology at The University of Akron in 1993 and was a postdoctoral fellow of the NIMH Family Research Consortium on Risk and Resilience. He is currently a scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center. His current interests are understanding individual and contextual factors promoting effective fathering and understanding the independent impact of fathering on child adjustment. Dave’s research funded by the NICHD focuses on fathers’ how fathers support networks and fathering identity affect father and child longitudinal adjustment following divorce. Applying a generative fathering perspective, he is currently developing intervention approaches for improving divorced fathers’ parenting and for engaging and promoting quality fathering involvement in the child welfare system. His methodological interests focus on evaluation of preventive interventions, understanding mediating mechanisms of interventions, and factors associated with variance in effective implementation. Dave currently serves on the editorial boards of Parenting: Science and Practice and Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.

Jacqueline Bruce, PhD, Research Scientist
Dr. Bruce received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Rochester and her Ph.D. in Child Clinical Psychology from the University of Minnesota. She is a Research Scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center and Center for Research to Practice. Her research focuses on the impact of early adverse experiences (e.g., child maltreatment and multiple caregiver disruptions) on the development of young children. She is particularly interested in the development of inhibitory control, or the ability to voluntarily regulate one’s attention and behavior to meet the demands of different situations. Dr. Bruce’s research is also concerned with the biological processes involved with inhibitory control. For example, she has examined children’s brain activity during tasks requiring the regulation of attention and behavior. A number of emotional and behavioral problems, such as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorders, involve difficulties with inhibitory control. Thus, it is hoped that a better understanding of inhibitory control will lead to improved interventions for children with these difficulties. Currently, Dr. Bruce is principal investigator on a study examining the neural substrates of inhibitory control in former foster children and nonmaltreated children. She is also a co-investigator on an ongoing randomized efficacy trial of the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers (MTFC-P) program and a randomized efficacy trial of a school readiness intervention program for children with developmental disabilities.