Day 2: 2023 National Forum On Overdose Fatality Review

Maranda Lynn Williams

Maranda Lynn Williams, MD, is the guest speaker to the Tennessee Opioid Abatement Council, the council developed to distribute opioid settlement funds, and an invited guest speaker to the East Tennessee Opioid Conference.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Andrew Jimenez

Andrew Jimenez, MPH, CHES®, is responsible for developing and implementing the Riverside County, California, Overdose Data to Action Program’s Strategic Plan and ensuring that activities align with the California Department of Public Health/California Opioid Safety Network’s strategies. He also coordinates the overdose fatality review team meetings to inform overdose prevention efforts. In addition, he supports the Inland Empire Opioid Crisis Coalition in implementing its work plan. Mr. Jimenez has more than 8 years of public health experience working on various prevention programs and initiatives.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Wendy Hetherington

Wendy Hetherington, MPH, is responsible for leading the Epidemiology and Program Evaluation Branch, which includes the Health Equity Program and the Riverside County, California, Overdose Data to Action Program. She manages a team of epidemiologists and research specialists who analyze data, prepare reports and presentations, and use statistics and a geographic information system to guide program and policy development, as well as a team of program coordinators and health education assistants who use the data to collaborate with community partners to advance health equity. Ms. Hetherington also manages the Office of Vital Records, whose team is responsible for registering all births and deaths that occur in Riverside County.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Michael Meulemans

Michael Meulemans’ core responsibilities are managing the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC)–Division of Community Correction’s nearly $200 million budget, which includes all staffing, programming, and property expenditures related to the Wisconsin adult community supervision system. Mr. Meulemans earned his bachelor of science degree in criminal justice from Northern Michigan University in 1994. In his 26 years of public service, he has held positions of probation and parole agent, corrections field supervisor, program and policy analyst, and director of reentry disability treatment services. He is a co-chair of the Wisconsin DOC Opioid Response Steering Committee and manages the statewide DOC’s opioid addiction program and harm reduction-related services. Mr. Meulemans has presented on behalf of the Wisconsin DOC to audiences in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., and Florida on topics related to Wisconsin’s state-level response to the opioid epidemic.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Alisha Kraus

Alisha Kraus, MSW, LCSW, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, a clinical substance abuse counselor, and an independent clinical supervisor. She currently works as the Office of Program Services Director for the Division of Adult Institutions (DAI) within the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC). She has been working for the Wisconsin DOC for 10 years and has held various roles throughout her career, including alternative to revocation social worker at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility, Licensed Clinical Social Worker at the Taycheedah Correctional Institution, corrections program supervisor at the Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center, and treatment director at DAI. Ms. Kraus co-chairs the Wisconsin DOC’s Opioid Response Steering Committee and has led DAI initiatives combatting the opioid epidemic. Ms. Kraus holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Holly Stanelle

Holly Stanelle began working for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) in 2008. She has held various roles working with evidenced-based programming over the course of her career. She is currently the clinical supervisor and manager of the new treatment unit for the Division of Community Corrections (DCC). In her many roles, Ms. Stanelle has worked on several committees helping to implement department-wide initiatives. She has also played a key role in substance use disorder treatment programs, providing clinical supervision and facilitating the design of evidenced-based treatment programming throughout the state. In her current position, she has developed an evidenced-based treatment unit for DCC, worked on many opioid-related initiatives, and is the chair of the Wisconsin DOC Opioid Advisory Team. Ms. Stanelle holds a bachelor of science degree in human services from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. She is a Certified Social Worker, a Clinical Substance Abuse Counselor, and an Independent Clinical Supervisor.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

MaryClare Clark

MaryClare Clark, MSW, is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Allen County Drug & Alcohol Consortium, Inc. (DAC). She has worked in psychiatric assessment, inpatient psychiatry, long-term care, critical care, rape crisis, and child welfare and with mothers with substance use disorder (SUD). She is the facilitator of the Allen County, Indiana, Overdose Fatality Review and sits on the Indiana Maternal Mortality Review Committee, the Pediatric Suicide Subcommittee of Indiana Child Fatality, and Mission Motherhood’s Maternal SUD Committee. Ms. Clark works purposefully to provide a safe, accessible, inviting, supportive, and loving space for collaboration, innovation, and planning. DAC has more than 130 partner agencies who assist DAC in meeting its mission to decrease the negative impacts of SUD on the community. Ms. Clark’s core values are integrity and authenticity, which guide her societal ambitions and work in macropractice. She has a bachelor of science degree in psychology from Purdue University and a master of social work degree in leadership from Indiana University.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Anita Welch Lossiah

Anita Welch Lossiah is an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). She is the Governmental Affairs Policy Analyst for the Office of the Principal Chief, a Cherokee police commissioner, a board member for the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, and a former tribal council representative. Ms. Lossiah brings 18 years of experience within the EBCI tribal government. Her work focuses on policy development, strategy, and results-based implementation within the top governmental priorities.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Clinton Alexander

Clinton Alexander, MPH, has worked in the public health field for more than a decade addressing health inequities among American Indian communities in both rural and urban settings. With an emphasis on social justice, he has worked extensively with local, state, federal, and tribal authorities to form a groundbreaking collaboration using a coalition-based approach focused on harm reduction and public health programming to prevent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), sexually transmitted infections, and overdose fatalities. His focus has been his work with cross-collaborative teams leveraging resources to effectively mitigate disease and death utilizing evidence-based interventions, including harm reduction philosophies and indigenous practice-based evidence, such as traditional ceremonies and teachings. Mr. Alexander received his master of public health degree with a specialization in American Indian health from North Dakota State University and currently serves as the Director for the Behavioral Health Division with the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota. Prior to his current role, he worked as the harm reduction integration program manager focused on the integration of public health and substance misuse prevention strategies. He has served as the public health advisor for the White Earth Health Division. He was a member of the City of Fargo’s Native American Commission for almost 6 years, serving as the chair for 3 years. Mr. Alexander grew up on the White Earth Reservation and is an enrolled member.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Kevin Marino

Kevin Marino was the chief of police of the Pueblo of Isleta Police Department in New Mexico for more than 7.5 years. He has more than 20 years of law enforcement experience capitalizing on supervisory experience, operational management, staff development, administrative and finance management, motivational leadership, and decision making. He served as the liaison between the Pueblo of Isleta, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and surrounding law enforcement agencies to build relationships and related to community safety. He has been working closely with diverse teams to successfully receive federal grant funding, implement memoranda of agreement, develop policy and procedures, and implement and manage the Sex Offender Registry Program. Mr. Marino has numerous credentials, certifications, and licenses in result of continued education, including Chief of Police Executive Officer Training. He has been an associate with the National Criminal Justice Training Center of Fox Valley Technical College for the past 13-plus years and joined the team as a full-time project coordinator, providing instruction and hands-on training services for tribal police departments implementing components of Tribal Oriented Policing Strategies. Mr. Marino is a graduate of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, the New Mexico Corrections Department Academy, the BIA Executive Leadership School, and the Leadership for Law Enforcement Executive School.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Julius Dupree

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Jared T. Stokes

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.

Mallory O’Brien

PhD, MS, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mallory O’Brien is trained as an epidemiologist and has worked in the field of overdose and violence prevention for the past 25 years. She has a long history of working at the intersection of public safety and health. She is currently serving on to two interagency personnel agreements, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting overdose prevention, overdose fatality review, and public safety and health interventions. During her time at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard University she worked on the development of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2005 she developed the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), a real-time, multi-agency multi-disciplinary case review process, using data to drive policy for violence prevention, primarily firearm violence. Educating other jurisdictions on the MHRC process, Dr. O’Brien developed a national training and technical assistance curriculum for the US Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services. In early 2016 she began the development of an overdose fatality review process for Wisconsin, bringing together the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Dr. O’Brien has been honored with awards from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director’s Community Leadership Award) and the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods (Outstanding Contribution by a Researcher). Dr. O’Brien earned her BS, MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is an Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alice Asher

RN, PhD Senior Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alice Asher, RN, PhD, is a senior health scientist in the Prevention Programs and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She oversees prevention activities in the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action program, coordinates a Data to Action workgroup, and serves on multiple federal committees working to address the overdose epidemic. Dr. Asher is a subject-matter expert in harm reduction. She previously worked as a senior fellow in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB Prevention. Before joining the CDC in 2016, Dr. Asher served as the project director for research studies with people who inject drugs, including a clinical trial testing a hepatitis C vaccine, and was a nurse at the San Francisco, California, Needle Exchange for 8 years. Dr. Asher received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s studies from Grinnell College and her advanced nursing licensure and PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

A. Elizabeth Griffith

Associate Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Elizabeth Griffith is an Associate Deputy Director of the Courts, Communities, and Strategic Partnerships team at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). BJA is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which administers national criminal justice policy and grants as well as training and technical assistance (TTA) for state, local, and tribal justice systems. Ms. Griffith leads cross-cutting strategic efforts such as hate crime prevention; community violence initiatives and other violent crime and place-based initiatives; tribal justice; courts and adjudication including treatment courts, conviction integrity, wrongful conviction, and enforcing the Sixth Amendment; coordination of TTA; efforts to prevent overdose and increase access to justice and treatment; and integration of research and data into program and policy development. At BJA, Ms. Griffith has also served as the Deputy Director of the Planning Office and the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems, working on the issues of courts, corrections, substance abuse/mental health, and tribal justice. She started her career at DOJ in the National Institute of Justice as the Director of Development. Before that, she worked for more than a decade on criminal justice issues at the local level, serving as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where she advised the Mayor and managed criminal justice initiatives and grants, including the development of the Baltimore Drug Court Program and the Comprehensive Communities Program. Ms. Griffith is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Melissa Heinen

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Melissa Heinen is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing overdose fatality review training and technical assistance. She has more than 20 years of experience working in injury and violence epidemiology and prevention at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Lauren Savitskas

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Lauren Savitskas is a senior research associate for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). She is responsible for providing training and technical assistance on overdose fatality review. Lauren has more than seven years of experience working in injury and violence prevention and programming at the local, state, and national levels. Previously, she was the suicide and OFR program manager with the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), where she led the coordination, facilitation, and implementation of the Indiana Suicide and Overdose Program for over four years.

Nava Bastola

Public Health Analyst, CDC Foundation

Nava Bastola is a public health professional, skilled in health education and behavioral health sciences, providing subject-matter expertise at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to this role, she was a program analyst at the Institutional Review Board of Rutgers University. She has worked with maternal and child health agencies, locally and globally, in reducing health disparities. Ms. Bastola is the Program Coordinator and Overdose Fatality Review Specialist for the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). The ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help communities reduce overdoses. Ms. Bastola supports agencies and organizations in building partnerships and developing overdose data sharing and response efforts. As an overdose fatality review specialist, she supports the ORS program and external partners in overdose prevention by promoting national standards and supporting training initiatives across sectors.

Ben Ekelund

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Ben Ekelund is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). He oversees a portfolio of three demonstration projects for COSSAP: the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), Partnerships to Support Data-driven Responses to Emerging Drug Threats, and Tribal Responses to Drug Overdoses initiatives. In his role, he provides coordination and support to communities in the planning, implementation, and assessment of data sharing, partnership development, and rapid responses to address drug overdoses.

Kathy Rowings

JD, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Kathy Rowings, JD, is a Senior Research Associate for Justice and Public Health Initiatives at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). Ms. Rowings serves on the Interagency Response to the Opioid Crisis team funded under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP), providing technical support to BJA initiatives designed to transform criminal justice and treatment responses to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on rural communities. Previously, she served as Associate Program Director for Justice at the National Association of Counties, where she managed the organization’s work helping counties reduce the number of individuals with mental illnesses in jails, utilize data and evidence in justice system decision making, improve pretrial systems and processes, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and collaborate effectively across systems and agencies. Ms. Rowings also worked at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she assisted with class-action litigation under the Fair Housing Act, and as an editor and reporter for five years. She has a law degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Miami University of Ohio.

Michelle White

Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Michelle White is currently serving in dual roles as both a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as well as a Senior Program Advisor for the State Justice Institute (SJI). At BJA, she supports the statewide grantees of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) along with work in the areas of prosecutor and court diversion programs, child welfare activities, harm reduction strategies, and support for rural communities across the portfolio. At SJI, she strengthens, supports, and guides the work of local and state court grantees across numerous program areas and monitors national trends in justice and their potential impact on the state courts and their justice system partners.

Kimberly Reilly

MA, LPC County Alcohol and Drug Coordinator, Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency, Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department

Kimberly Reilly, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor for New Jersey and has been working in public health for the past 11 years. Ms. Reilly oversees the Department of Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Opioid Dependency at the Ocean County, New Jersey, Health Department.

Tim Jefferies

Senior Policy Advisory, Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Tim Jeffries serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for Drug Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), coordinating all BJA drug policy-specific programming. He has provided drug policy services for the last 20 years at the Office of Justice Programs through the Drug Court and Residential Substance Abuse programs and now assists in the delivery of the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) site-based training and technical assistance program. Mr. Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his master’s degree in social work. 

Sam Robertson

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Sam Robertson is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). He works on the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). His responsibilities include the development and provision of training and technical assistance to COSSAP grantee sites on stigma and harm reduction initiatives to prevent drug overdose. Prior to joining IIR, Mr. Robertson was the community overdose prevention coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH

Jessica Wolff

Lead Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jessica Wolff is a lead health scientist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Overdose Prevention and oversees the public health arm of the Overdose Response Strategy, a collaboration among the CDC, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program.

Meg Chapman

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Margaret (Meg) Chapman is a policy advisor supporting the Corrections, Reentry, and Justice Reform Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. She has spent the past 25 years working in a variety of social science research, policy development and analysis, and program evaluation roles. Her portfolio of work is focused at the intersection of behavioral health and corrections and includes informing policy related to the identification of individuals with behavioral health disorders at the point of detainment, the assessment and provision of evidence-based treatment to individuals while in custody, and continuation of care upon release.

Julius Dupree

Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

Julius Dupree is currently a Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he is responsible for overseeing and managing projects that provide financial and training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to the criminal justice field. The initiatives within his portfolio provide assistance to states, localities, and federally recognized tribes to strengthen justice system capacity, protect public safety, and rehabilitate justice-involved individuals. Areas of focus include the Tribal Justice System Infrastructure Program; Tribal Reentry TTA; Tribal Community Supervision TTA; Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Tribal TTA; and the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Prior to working for BJA, Mr. Dupree was a program manager with the Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. In 1996, he began working for DOJ as an employee with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Mr. Dupree holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jared T. Stokes

EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, Public Health Advisor, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy

Jared Theron Stokes, EdD, MA, MPH, CHES, is a public health advisor at the Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy. Dr. Stokes previously worked alongside the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Jerome Michael Adams, at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG). While in this position, he supervised the peer review process for manuscripts published through Public Health Reports (PHR), the official journal of the OSG and the U.S. Public Health Service; managed contracts associated with PHR; and both developed and distributed promotional material for the journal among professional agencies, such as the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy. Dr. Stokes also, in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, developed a report for Congress on opioid use among youth, which provided resources for politicians, health professionals, and parents regarding the matter. Dr. Stokes is a public health professional, specializing in health education. Having invested himself in health affairs for more than a decade, Dr. Stokes understands the importance of health literacy and actively works to synthesize complex scientific information into language understood by the lay public. His career in health education began with working with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Public Health on a health education campaign, which used various media to promote awareness of the link among sodium consumption, hypertension, and stroke and to encourage reduced intake of high-sodium foods. Dr. Stokes has also worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on youth outreach regarding health insurance and Baruch College concerning health promotion within the college campus.