Bianca Albers is director and partner at the Family and Evidence Center (FEC) in Copenhagen and takes part in the dissemination and consolidation of evidence-based practices in Denmark. In her role as leader, program developer and change agent at the FEC, Ms. Albers is confronted with the challenges of QA and implementation in social work on a daily basis. She has a bi-national background and thus is familiar with typical implementation issues in the central European and Scandinavian welfare models. As the former Program Director for evidence-based programs at the Danish National Board of Social Services, Ms. Albers has worked to help implement a variety of child and family evidence-based practices in the Danish setting and make them accessible and practicable for Danish providers.
Thomas E. Backer, PhD is president of the nonprofit Human Interaction Research Institute. Founded in 1961, the institute uses behavioral science strategies to help nonprofits handle innovation and change. He also is associate clinical professor of Medical Psychology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine and senior fellow at UCLA’s School of Public Policy and Social Research for the 2003-2004 academic year. He has written more than 500 books, articles and research reports, including two books on health communication campaigns. A licensed psychologist in California, Dr. Backer holds a doctorate in psychology from UCLA. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and a member of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence. He has been president of APA’s Division of Consulting Psychology and of the Knowledge Utilization Society.
Frank Bennett was a clinical psychologist for 35 years working primarily with children and families. He served as a therapist, manager, and for the last 20 years of his career as the director of family services at Aurora Mental Health Center. He was active in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and he led the effort to implement Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Child Parent Psychotherapy, and Parent Child Interactional Therapy at the Center. Since his retirement five years ago, he has remained active in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network where he currently serves on the Steering Committee, the Colorado Child and Adolescent Mental Health Coalition where he is serving as president for the third time, and the Colorado Coalition of Adoptive Families, where he serves on the board.
David Bernstein, MSW is director of The Center for Effective Interventions (CEI) at Metropolitan State College in Denver. In this capacity he has worked with communities interested in beginning Multisystemic Therapy programs as well as developed an infrastructure to support MST teams in six Western states. CEI has expanded to promote two other evidence-based models, Functional Family Therapy and Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care, in pursuit of a goal to promote evidence-based therapeutic services for families, children and youth. Prior to his present position Mr. Bernstein had his own training and consulting business and worked in the public sector for 20 years developing child welfare and human services programs in several metropolitan counties in the Denver area. He has presented at various national conferences on the implementation of evidence-based programs in human services. He also is the director of the Child and Family Evidence-Based Practices Consortium, a group comprised of professionals dedicated to large scale implementation of data driven successful human service programs.
Karen A. Blase, PhD has been a service provider, educator, researcher, program evaluator and published author in the human service field for over 35 years. Dr. Blase received her doctorate in developmental and Child Psychology from the University of Kansas with a focus on school-based interventions, teacher training and community-based services for high needs youth. She is a senior scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a co-director, along with Dr. Dean Fixsen, of the National Implementation Research Network. Dr. Blase and Dr. Fixsen also are co-directors of a federally funded Office of Special Education Program Technical Assistant (OSEP TA) Center for State Implementation and Scaling of Evidence-Based Practices (SISEP). She has a wealth of practical experience in human services having worked in juvenile justice, child welfare services, education settings, and in developing community-wide and agency domestic abuse intervention and prevention services. As part of a research team, Dr. Blase was involved in completing a major review and synthesis of the implementation literature. This extensive review of implementation strategies and proposed frameworks is providing guidance for the adoption and use of evidence-based programs and practices in education and child welfare.
Jacquie Brown, MES, RSW is a senior manager/leader, facilitator, and presenter with a broad range of experience and knowledge in development and management in complex systems. She has been involved with services for children, youth and families for over 30 years. Ms. Brown utilizes a collaborative, inclusive, integrated approach and an innovative and creative solutions-focus in supporting capacity building in communities and organizations. In the last ten years she has successfully provided leadership for major community and organizational change initiatives. Ms. Brown has most recently worked internationally in the implementation of evidence-based/informed practices and programs for children, youth and families in developing countries.
Eric J. Bruns, PhD is a clinical psychologist and associate professor in the Division of Public Behavioral Health and Justice Policy at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Bruns spends most of his time researching the impact of community-based services and supports for children with complex needs, and asking how we can make these services better. Much of his research has focused on developing the wraparound process, a widely-implemented care coordination model for children and youth with complex mental health needs. He is also recognized for his research on school mental health services, services for youth in foster care, and family peer-to-peer support services.
Amy T. Campbell, JD, MBE is an assistant professor in the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at Upstate Medical University and at the Syracuse University College of Law (courtesy). She is also associate faculty in the Bioethics Program of Union Graduate College-Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Ms. Campbell received her law degree from Yale Law School and her Master's in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Terje Christiansen is a senior advisor at the Norwegian Center for Child development - Department of Child Program Development, University of Oslo, where he, since 1999, has been a member of The National Implementation Team for Parent Management Training the Oregon model (PMTO). He has worked with implementation of both PMTO and Multi Systemic Therapy (MST) and is now specially devoted to the implementation of a prevention program diverted from PMTO targeting children with risk of developing conduct problems. Mr. Christiansen holds a Master of Social Work and is a trained PMTO specialist. He has in his professional career had a special focus and interest in improving Child Welfare Services for children while working in child welfare at community- as well as government level.
Bernadette Christensen is clinical director at the Norwegian Center for Child development - Department of Youth Program Development, University of Oslo. Since 1999, Ms.Chistensen has worked with the implementation of Multi Systemic Therapy (MST), Functional Family Therapy (FFT) and Multidimentional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) . Norway has 30 teams working with these methods, covering all the major cities in the whole country. In collaboration with the developers of these methods, she has developed a team of senior advisors and consultants giving support to all the teams in the implementation process in Norway. Ms. Christensen is a specialist in clinical psychology . She has in her professional career had a special focus on the development of good treatment models for youth and adults with problems relating to drug abuse and serious behavior problems in both Mental Health settings and in Child Welfare Services. Ms. Christensen has published articles and book chapters on these topics and has presented at a range of conferences both nationally and internationally.
Kari Collins is the policy advisor to Kentucky’s Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities. She also serves as manager for the newly established Outcome Transformation and Education Branch within the Department where she leads system transformation efforts, including the planning and implementation of evidence-based and best practices. Prior to this she served as director of a statewide CSAT adolescent substance abuse infrastructure grant (SAC). She and her colleagues developed and utilized a tool based on the monograph entitled Implementation Research: A Synthesis of the Literature, Dr. Fixsen and his colleagues (2005) - the National Implementation Research Network. This tool continues to assist groups in developing a blueprint that guides the effective implementation of an effective program, practice or initiative. She now works with the Reclaiming Futures national program office located in Portland, Oregon as an implementation coach for the model. She was recently awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kentucky Adolescent Substance Abuse Consortium. Ms. Collins is an active member of Kentucky’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Board, Center for Safe Schools Board and the administrator of the State Inter-Agency Council – a policy board comprised of commissioners from various child serving agencies, family and youth representatives.
Peter Fajans, MD, MPH works with the Technical Cooperation with Countries team of the Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization (WHO), where he leads work related to the implementation of the WHO Strategic Approach to Strengthening Reproductive Health Policies and Programs. This is a process that over 30 countries have used to assess community and service delivery needs and priorities, field test packages of interventions that address identified needs, and then scale up successful innovations for wider impact. This work led to the development of ExpandNet, a small global network of public health professionals devoted to promoting the science and practice of scaling up health innovations. Dr. Fajans is a member of the ExpandNet Secretariat and has co-edited a book and three practical guides related to scaling up. Prior to his work with WHO over the last 16 years, Dr. Fajans was assistant professor of Population Planning and International Health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. This followed ten years of working in Indonesia on diverse health issues including family planning, reproductive and child health, nutrition, primary health care and sexually transmitted infections, HIV and AIDS prevention in a variety of programmatic settings, including provision of technical support to several scaling-up initiatives.
Dean L. Fixsen, PhD is a senior scientist at FPG Child Development Institute. Dr. Fixsen is Co-Director of the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN), Co-Director of the State Implementation and Scale up of Evidence-based Practices (SISEP) Center, and Co-Chair of the Global Implementation Conference. Dr. Fixsen is an implementation research consultant on 6 NIH RO1 grants and serves on several national advisory boards. He began his career in human services in 1963 as a psychiatric aide in a large state hospital for children with profound developmental delays. He has spent his career developing and implementing evidence-based programs, initiating and managing change processes in provider organizations and service delivery systems, and working with others to improve the lives of children, families, and adults. Over the past five decades, he has co-authored over 100 publications including the highly regarded monograph, Implementation Research: A Synthesis of the Literature. He has served on numerous editorial boards and has served as an advisor to federal, state, and local governments.
Deborah Ghate, PhD is the former founding director and chief executive of the Centre for Effective Services(CES). CES was established in 2008 in Ireland and Northern Ireland by a partnership of government and philanthropy. The Centre is independent and not-for-profit, and promotes and supports the application of an evidence-informed approach to policy and practice by connecting the design and delivery of services with scientific and technical knowledge about what works. It is one of a new generation of intermediary organizations concerned with applying the tools and techniques of implementation science to the human services. She is the author of a large number of publications that cover the fields of family and parenting support, parenting and child maltreatment, evaluation methods and implementation science.
Holly Hagle, PhD has been actively working with providers since joining the Institute for Research, Education and Training in Addictions (IRETA) in 2003. She is the director of the Northeast Addiction Technology Transfer Center (Northeast ATTC) and as such oversees all of the training and educational initiatives and serves as the curriculum developer for IRETA and the Northeast ATTC. She has worked for the Northeast ATTC since 2003 and is a member of the Technology Transfer workgroup as well as other ATTC committees. Dr. Hagle oversees the curriculum development and project coordination for the Heath Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) federally funded project with the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing since 2006. Dr. Hagle has been an adjunct professor at Point Park University, Pittsburgh, PA and trainer. Dr. Hagle has her BS in Psychology, MA in Curriculum and Instruction and PhD in Education, Instructional Management and Leadership.
Rob Horner, PhD holds the Alumni-Knight Endowed Professorship in Special Education at the University of Oregon. Dr. Horner directs research focused on positive behavior support, instructional design, applied behavior analysis, and systems change. Dr. Horner currently collaborates with Drs. Sugai, Fixsen and Blase on efforts to implement evidence-based educational practices on scales of social importance.
Robert J. Illback, PsyD, is deputy CEO at Headstrong – The National Centre for Youth Mental Health (Dublin, Ireland) and CEO / senior evaluation researcher at REACH of Louisville (Louisville, KY). From 1982 through 1998, he was professor of Psychology in the clinical psychology training program at Spalding University, where he now supervises doctoral research in an adjunct capacity. In addition to numerous journal articles related to children and youth, he has co-edited several books, including Integrated Services for Children and Families: Opportunities for Psychological Practice (APA Books, 1997) and Emerging School-Based Approaches for Children with Emotional and Behavioral Problems: Research and Practice in Service Integration (Haworth Press, 1996). Dr. Illback has served as principal investigator for several large-scale systems of care change initiatives in the United States and Ireland. His professional and research interests include systems of care in youth mental health, school-based and school-linked integrated service programs, implementation science, community psychology, program planning and evaluation, and planned organizational change. Dr. Illback is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. In 1990, he was named the inaugural recipient of the Donald R. Peterson Prize in recognition of career contributions in professional psychology.
Patrick Kanary is the director of the Center for Innovative Practices (CIP), the Begun Center for Violence Prevention at MSAA, Case Western Reserve University. CIP is a Coordinating Center of Excellence, supported in part by the Ohio Department of Mental Health. The Center’s mission is the identification and dissemination of youth and family focused evidence-based and effective practices within the behavioral health system. In addition to Multisystemic Therapy, the Center is also facilitates the dissemination of Intensive Home Based Treatment; resilience; and an emerging promising practice, Integrated Co-occurring Treatment, a model for youth with dual diagnosis of substance abuse and mental illness and involved in the juvenile justice system. CIP is also provides technical assistance in the areas of research and evaluation. Mr. Kanary is on the Board of the Georgetown Children’s Mental Health National Technical Assistance Center. He is also a program reviewer for SAMSHA’s National Registry of Evidence Based Programs and Practice.
Aaron Lyon, PhD is serving as a facilitator for the researchers practice group. Dr. Lyon’s research is focused primarily on the implementation of evidence-based psychosocial assessment and intervention practices in community settings that are accessible to chronically-underserved and at-risk youth, with the goal of reducing mental health problems and increasing functioning. His work places particular emphasis on services delivered in the education sector.
Ian Manion, PhD, CPsych is a clinical psychologist and scientist-practitioner who has worked with children, youth and families presenting with a variety of social, emotional, and behavioral problems. He is a clinical professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa, and a visiting professor at the University of Northumbria (UK). Dr. Manion is the executive director for the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health (the Centre). He is the inaugural chair of the National Infant, Child and Youth Mental Health Consortium, co-chair of the Canadian Child and Youth Health Coalition, and the principal lead for the National School-Based Mental Health and Substance Use Consortium.
Jan M. Markiewicz, MEd is the director for training and implementation for the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress at Duke University(NCCTS). In her role she oversees activities to promote the successful adoption and implementation of trauma interventions and practices throughout the NCTSN. She is one of the primary developers of the NCCTS Learning Collaborative Model, an adaptation of the IHI Breakthrough Series Model, which has an integrated focus of promoting both clinical and implementation capacity within organizations. Prior to her position at Duke, she was clinical faculty at the University of North Carolina in the Social Work School, consulting and training across the state with local mental health agencies to promote a system of care for children and families. She is a licensed family and child therapist and worked in a variety of mental health agencies for seventeen years.
Robyn Mildon, PhD is the director of knowledge exchange and implementation at the Parenting Research Centre, an independent, non-profit research and development organization based in Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Mildon’s work focuses on two main areas: the use of innovative and effective knowledge translation and dissemination strategies aimed at improving the utilization of evidence-based information and practice in parenting education, family support, and child welfare programs; and closing the gap between ‘what we know’ and ‘what we do’ by improving the science and practice of implementation in relation to the use of evidence-based practices and programs.
Brian A McNulty, PhD is the vice president of Leadership Development for The Leadership and Learning Center. Dr. McNulty brings more than 30 years of experience as a nationally recognized educator in leadership development. Prior to the Leadership and Learning Center he served as the vice president for Field Services at the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL). Before coming to McREL, he was an assistant superintendent for Adams County School District 14, and the assistant commissioner of education, for the Colorado Department of Education. An author of more than 40 publications, his most recent books include, Leaders Make It Happen with Laura Besser (a 2011 AASA member book) and School Leadership that Works: from Research to Results, an ASCD best-selling publication co-authored with Robert Marzano and Tim Waters. Dr. McNulty is well known as a researcher and a keynote speaker, although his primary work has focused on long-term intensive partnerships with schools, districts, state education agencies and educational service agencies in applying the current research to field based problems. His recent research has focused on developing continuous improvement frameworks based on data and inquiry.
Robert Murphy, PhD has served as executive director for the Center for Child & Family Health (CCFH), a consortium of Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central University, dedicated to research, training and intervention related to child traumatic stress, since 2004. Dr. Murphy is an associate professor in the department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine and adjunct associate professor in the Department of Maternal & Child Health at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health University.
Terje Ogden, PhD is research director at the Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development, Unirand (from 2003), and professor at the Institute of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway. The aim of the Center is to integrate research and practice in order to increase multi-disciplinary knowledge and enhance clinical competence in the prevention and treatment of serious behavior problems among children and youth. Dr. Ogden has been the director of the research program on the national implementation and evaluation of empirically supported programs for the prevention and treatment of serious behavior problems in children and youth in Norway (e.g. Parent Management Training, Multi-systemic therapy and PALS a school-wide intervention program based on the Positive Behavior Support model). Dr. Ogden also is the project leader of a longitudinal prospective study of the social development of children in which the development of approximately 1200 children are followed from 6 months to 4 years (The Behavior Outlook Norwegian Developmental Study – BONDS).
Abel C. Ortiz is director of the Evidence-Based Practice Group at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The group’s work is based on a set of strategies designed to assist public child-serving agencies select and sustain evidence-based programs, policies and practices that directly impact core services and benefit the largest number of recipients. Prior to joining the foundation, Mr. Ortiz served as a policy advisor to Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, providing policy guidance in health care, human services and juvenile justice. Before joining the Perdue administrative staff, he gained extensive experience in health and human service administration in Utah, where he served as the state’s deputy director of the Division of Mental Health and the Division of Child and Family Services. He provided leadership in development of the state’s child protective services policy and coordinated the development of evidence-based preferred practice guidelines for the mental health services provided through the local community mental health centers. In 2000, Mr. Ortiz was awarded the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Children and Family Fellowship, an executive leadership program for accomplished professionals designed to increase the pool of diverse, visionary leaders with the competence to lead and sustain major system reforms and community change initiatives. His focus during the fellowship was systems transformation in human services and juvenile justice. Mr. Ortiz earned a law degree from Drake University Law School, an MSW from the University of Utah, and BS in social work and corrections from Weber State University.
John Øvretveit is director of research and professor of Health Care Innovation Implementation and Evaluation, The Karolinska Institute, Medical Management Center, Stockholm, and was previously professor of Health Policy and Management at Bergen University Medical School, Norway and at the Nordic School of Public Health, Gothenburg, Sweden. His work is based on the belief that organization and management can bring out the best and worst in people, and that the right organization design is critical for effective healthcare. His current research examines implementation of management and organization improvements, and clinical care coordination for safety and lower costs. Mr. Øvretveit research publications on leading value improvement explore the costs and savings of quality improvements. Some earlier work describes action evaluation methods for giving rapid feedback for service providers and policy-makers to improve their services, and assessing the role of context on implementation.
Phyllis Panzano is an industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologist and visiting professor at the University of South Florida. Ms. Panzano also operates Decision Support Services, Incorporated, a research and consulting firm in Columbus, Ohio. Ms. Panzano completed her doctoral work in I/O psychology at The Ohio State University where her academic interests in organizational decision-making, innovation processes, and healthcare planning ultimately dovetailed into her current research and consulting portfolio which focuses on the adoption and implementation of innovations by individuals, organizations and systems. In the past ten years alone, she has served as principal investigator, co-investigator, or senior implementation research consultant for a dozen research studies, and grants funded by federal and state agencies, and private foundations. These and previous investigations have examined adoption and implementation processes pertaining to a variety of phenomena ranging from laws and policies to products, programs and services. Ms. Panzano’s work is considered innovative in its own right and has been recognized for excellence on multiple occasions by the Academy of Management. Her current role on a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration funded integrated healthcare grant, and the work she is about to begin on a federally-funded workforce development study reflect Ms. Panzano’s emerging interest in the development and implementation of best practices within the context of primary and behavioral healthcare integration.
Marian Quinn’s career has been focused on children, young people and families. She has worked in the voluntary sector, as well as the health service executive and the Department of Justice. On moving to Dublin, Ms. Quinn worked as a youth and community worker, before taking on the coordinator role in a Youthreach Centre for early school leavers. During her time there, she wrote a crime prevention programme which eventually became the Copping On National Youth Crime Prevention Initiative. Ms. Quinn coordinated this programme for five years, providing training and support to practitioners throughout Ireland. She was also central to the establishment of Breaking Through, the All-Ireland Network for Youth Practitioners, whose committee she chaired for three years. She has published a number of academic articles and contributions in relation to youth crime, spoken at conferences in several European countries as well as the USA, and lectured on a number of courses at NUI Maynooth.
Vestena Robbins, PhD is an associate director in the Outcome Transformation and Education Branch within the Kentucky Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities where she serves as lead staff for system transformation efforts, including evidence-based and best practices planning and implementation efforts for the state. She has worked in the children’s mental health services field as a system of care services researcher, program evaluator, and program administrator for over 15 years. Prior to her career as a services researcher and evaluator, Dr. Robbins worked as a preschool educator and an elementary school counselor. Currently, she is co-principal Investigator and evaluation director for Kentucky’s CMHS-funded system of care cooperative agreement, a statewide initiative aimed at improving the service delivery system for young children (birth to 5) who have serious social, emotional, or behavioral challenges. She served as principal investigator of Kentucky’s NIMH-funded Evidence-Based Practices State Planning Grant and as co-coordinator of Kentucky’s Transformation Transfer Initiative focused on increasing the fidelity of wraparound implementation in the state. Dr. Robbins serves on the Evaluation Team and Steering Committee of Kentucky’s Family Peer Support Initiative and is a member of the Kentucky Center for Instructional Discipline’s State Leadership Team. She is a long-standing board member of the Kentucky Council for Children with Behavior Disorders and serves on the planning committee for the Kentucky Behavior Institute. Dr. Robbins is a member of the International Evidence-Based Practices Consortium, is on the editorial board of the Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, and taught an online course in Program Planning and Implementation in the University of South Florida’s Children’s Mental Health Graduate Certificate Program.
Jennifer Schroeder, PhD, is an independent consultant and evaluator focusing on evidence-based practice, implementation science, systems evaluation, and the integration of health, mental health, education, and juvenile justice systems in improving outcomes for children and families. Dr. Schroeder is currently conducting statewide evaluations focusing on the systems-building work of early childhood councils and the scaling up of the Incredible Years program in Colorado. Dr. Schroeder has served as a senior research associate at the Center for Systems Integration in Denver, Colorado and as associate director at the Connecticut Center for Effective Practice of the Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut where she worked to improve the statewide mobile-crisis services system for children and youth and conducted a statewide evaluation of in-home services for juvenile-justice referred youth.
Leif I. Solberg, MD is a family physician who is currently associate medical director for HealthPartners Medical Group and Clinics (a 750-physician multi-specialty group practice), senior staff for HealthPartners (an 850,000-member health plan), and director for Care Improvement Research for HealthPartners Research Foundation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Dr. Solberg is also a clinical professor at the University of Minnesota Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI), a Minnesota collaborative for quality improvement that has become a national leader. He is internationally known for his research on organizational aspects of quality improvement and implementation, chronic disease care (including depression), and clinical preventive services delivery. He has published over 200 papers and books/book chapters in these areas and his main interest is in learning how to improve the quality of care provided in the primary care setting. Currently he is PI of a major National Institute of Mental Health-funded implementation study of a statewide initiative to improve primary care for patients with depression and is on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality AHRQ Stakeholder Advisory Group.
Michel Wensing, PhD is medical care researcher and professor of Implementation Science at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Scientific Institute for Quality of Healthcare, the Netherlands. He studied social sciences (M.Sc.), quality of care (PhD), health economics (Diploma, University York), and medical care research (Habilitation, Heidelberg University). Dr. Wensing research focuses on knowledge implementation in healthcare practice, particularly in primary and ambulatory care. Research questions concern (1) the quality of current healthcare practice, (2) how to improve healthcare practice, (3) how to sustain improvements. The studies concerned a range of diseases and various health professions. Key themes are: chronic illness care, out -of-hours primary care, mental healthcare, safety of primary care and pharmaceutical care, quality assessment and transparency, including patient perspectives. Dr. Wensing has co-authored more than 200 scientific papers and supervised 20 PhD theses. He is co-editor of the handbook ‘Implementation of innovations’ (with Grol, Eccles and Davies), which will have a new edition in 2012. He has been principal researcher in a number of European studies. From 2011 on, he is project coordinator of an international four year study concerning tailored implementation interventions in chronic illness care. Dr. Wensing is also associate editor of the journal Implementation Science.
Sharon Witherspoon has been in charge of the Nuffield Foundation’s research in social science and social policy since 1996, and became deputy director of the Foundation in 2000. She has contributed to the development of significant programs of research on children and families, and on empirical research in law, as well as a wide range of projects on social welfare, including work on the finances of old age, and poverty and inequality. Before she joined the foundation, she was a senior researcher at the Policy Studies Institute and at the (then) Social and Community Planning Research, (now the National Centre for Social Research). There Ms. Witherspoon was responsible for the design and statistical analysis of various large scale representative studies of public behavior, family life and the regulation of professions, as well as being one of the original researchers for the British Social Attitudes Survey series. Ms. Witherspoon is a member of the Strategic Forum for the Social Sciences, housed at the British Academy, and various other strategic bodies supporting rigorous social science research. She was awarded an honorary MBE for services to social science in 2008.