Rinad Beidas
Rinad Beidas, PhD, is the Director of the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit; Founder and Director of the Penn Implementation Science Center at the Leonard Davis Institute (PISCE@LDI); and Associate Director at the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE).
Overview
Dr. Beidas is an associate Professor of Psychiatry; Medical Ethics and Health Policy; and Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Major scientific discoveries have produced scores of evidence-based practices (EBPs) to improve health and mental health. Unfortunately, many of these EBPs never make their way into routine health care delivery. Implementation science is the study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of EBPs into routine care with the broad goal of ensuring that scientific discoveries realize their potential and improve people’s lives.
Dr. Beidas’s research program is designed to improve the quality of health and mental health services through implementation science. To conduct this work, she collaborates closely with key stakeholders, including patients, clinicians, health system leaders, payers, and policy-makers, to develop natural laboratories in which to answer questions of interest. These labs span diverse health care settings, including community mental health clinics in Philadelphia, the network of Penn Medicine clinics and hospitals serving individuals with cancer, health centers providing HIV care, and the Mental Health Research Network, a national practice-based research network of 14 healthcare systems.
Broadly, her work entails three primary foci that draw upon the methods of implementation science: (a) understanding the context in which individuals will implement EBPs, (b) developing implementation approaches that target the factors that may accelerate or hinder implementation, and (c) conducting pragmatic trials to test these implementation approaches. She does this work across disease areas (e.g., mental health, cancer, HIV).
She has been identified as a leading implementation scientist and has published approximately 200 articles in this area. She serves as MPI on 2 NIH Centers on behavioral economics and implementation science (P50 MH 113840, P50 CA 244690) and has a strong record of NIH-funded implementation research serving as MPI or PI of 10 NIH grants totaling approximately $30 million dollars. She is deeply committed to training the next generation of implementation scientists and mentors graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty through a variety of mechanisms including a T32 at the intersection of implementation science and mental health.
She is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies President’s New Researcher Award in 2015; the American Psychological Foundation Diane J. Willis Early Career Award; and the Perelman School of Medicine Marjorie Bowman New Investigator Research Award in 2017.
Education and Training
BA
Colgate University, Psychology
PhD
Temple University
Senior Fellow
Leonard Davis Institute
Alumnus Fellow
NIH funded Training Institute in Dissemination and Implementation
Moving Upstream: A Proactive Approach to Addressing Behaviors and Bullying
Krista Reuther is the Assistant Director of Ohana’s Community Health and Prevention Program. She received her Masters in Public Health and Social Work at UC Berkeley. She comes to this position after 14 years of clinical social work experience at Stanford Children’s Hospital in pediatric oncology, critical care, and bereavement. Her goal is to reduce the incidence of mental illness in children and adolescents in Monterey County.
Dr. Guss is a 35-year veteran educator with a doctorate degree in Educational Leadership. She served as a classroom teacher for 10 years, including two years as a teacher in a bilingual program in South Central Los Angeles. She has also served as a college professor, mentor teacher for new teachers, and a master teacher for teacher candidates completing their student teaching experience. She continues to be a strong advocate for the teaching profession.
Fellowship: Stanford University School of Medicine (1994) CA
Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D. is a consultant, author and psychologist specializing in children and families. He is the supervising psychologist for the Belmont Hill School and has worked in more than seven hundred schools across the United States, as well as in international schools in Central America, Europe, Africa and Asia.
is 15 years old and a sophomore at Marina High School in Marina, CA. Her academic interests include math, history, and psychology. She joined the AIM Ideas Lab in 2021 because she wanted to be a part of something that could have a great impact on her community. Marwa is interested in youth mental health because she has always been fascinated with the human mind and she wants to support those that are suffering who may feel like their challenges in life aren’t important enough or are too afraid to seek necessary help.
Giovanna Panetta is a 16 year old junior at Carmel High School. She has always been called to STEM subjects, specifically biology. The AIM Ideas Lab instantly attracted her attention as a research opportunity. Gia has always comprehended the importance of mental health. She knows that COVID only exacerbated previously existing problems, and that as a community we can try and find the root of those problems. Mental health is an integral part of life, and can impede a body’s ability to be healthy. She strongly believes that life is worth living, and she wants to help anyone that thinks otherwise.
Dr. Friedman completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology from University of California San Diego (UCSD). She went on to complete her masters and doctorate degrees (Ph.D.) in Clinical Psychology from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science/Chicago Medical School. Dr. Friedman completed her pre-doctoral internship at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, and her post-doctoral fellowship training at the VA San Diego Healthcare System. Her clinical training and experience has been focused primarily on comprehensive assessment and effective treatments for anxiety, mood and related disorders. Dr. Friedman has extensive experience in providing Cognitive Behavioral Therapies for anxiety disorders (e.g. worry, OCD, social anxiety, phobias and PTSD), depression, adjustment disorders/life stress, insomnia and body-focused repetitive behaviors (e.g. Trichotillomania and skin picking). She has received training in evidence-based interventions for a variety of specific problems, including exposure with response prevention (ERP) for treatment of OCD, Prolonged Exposure (PE) for treatment of PTSD, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). Moreover, she has specialty training in the treatment of childhood anxiety and related disorders, such as ADHD, selective mutism, separation anxiety, PTSD, depression and specific phobias. In addition, Dr. Friedman has developed an expertise in research on Trichotillomania and body-focused repetitive behaviors, which has led to numerous local and national presentations. Dr. Friedman regularly attends local and national conferences, training seminars and workshops in order to stay informed on the most up to date treatments and apply state of the art science into her clinical practice.
Dr. Piacentini is a board-certified clinical child and adolescent psychologist and Professor in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. He directs the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Clinic and Tourette Association Center of Excellence which provide diagnostic evaluation and treatment (both therapy and medication) for youth with the above problems. He also directs the UCLA Center for Child Anxiety Resilence, Education, and Support (CARES; carescenter.ucla.edu) which provides education and programming to parents, teachers, and clinicians about anxiety prevention and management.
Citlalli Nava is 18 years old and a first year majoring in Psychology at Hartnell Community College in Salinas, CA. She is passionate about understanding how mental health affects how youth think, act, and feel. Citlalli joined the AIM Ideas Lab in 2021 after witnessing the increase in mental health challenges in teenagers and considering the mental health issues they are facing. Citlalli is interested in youth mental health because it is a real problem faced by her generation.
Clinical and community psychologist and health care innovator Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, is CEO of the American Psychological Association, the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. With more than 146,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as members, APA promotes and disseminates psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve lives – a mission consistent with Evans’ life work.
