Day 1: 2023 National Forum On Overdose Fatality Review

Karhlton Moore

President Joseph R. Biden appointed Karhlton F. Moore as Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), effective February 28, 2022. Prior to joining BJA, Mr. Moore served as the Executive Director of Ohio’s Office of Criminal Justice Services, where he oversaw state and federal grants for law enforcement, victim assistance, juvenile justice, crime prevention courts, anti-trafficking efforts, reentry, corrections programs, and traffic safety. In that role, he led Ohio’s grant-making operations, advising the governor and the director of the Department of Public Safety on criminal justice strategies. He also served as the facilitator for former Ohio Governor John Kasich’s Task Force on Community-Police Relations, precursor of the Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board, a multidisciplinary panel that establishes standards for law enforcement agencies as part of the state’s effort to strengthen community-police relations. Mr. Moore also served on the National Criminal Justice Association’s (NCJA) advisory council and executive committee and was president of the NCJA’s board of directors. He also served on the steering committee of the Justice Counts initiative. 

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.

Grant Baldwin

Grant Baldwin, PhD, is the Director of the Division of Overdose Prevention (DOP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. As the scope, scale, and complexity of America’s drug overdose epidemic changed, the DOP was created to serve as an essential focal point for the CDC’s more extensive and diversified work in the area. Dr. Baldwin leads the division in monitoring trends in the drug overdose epidemic and other emerging drug threats, identifying and scaling up prevention activities to address the evolving drug crisis, and supporting local drug-free community coalitions. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Baldwin served for 11 years as the director of the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention, where he helped raise the profile of motor vehicle injury prevention, advanced work in older adult fall prevention and traumatic brain injury prevention, and established the initial CDC response to the prescription opioid overdose epidemic. Dr. Baldwin, who has served at the CDC for more than 25 years, received his doctorate degree in health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan. He received a master of public health degree in behavioral sciences and health education from Emory University, where he is currently an adjunct faculty member. Dr. Baldwin has given keynote addresses and provided remarks at more than 150 state, national, and international conferences and meetings, authored or co-authored more than 75 peer-reviewed publications, and received awards of excellence for his leadership and teaching.

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.

Yngvild Olsen

Yngvild Olsen, MD, serves as the Director for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). She has a long history of working within the addiction treatment field to expand access to care and enhance quality. Dr. Olsen has held numerous senior volunteer leadership positions in the field of addiction medicine. These have included vice president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, president of the Maryland Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, and president of the Maryland/DC Society of Addiction Medicine. She also has served on the boards of the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence-Maryland and Stop Stigma Now and as a clinical expert to the Providers Clinical Support System (PCSS). After graduating from Harvard Medical School, Dr. Olsen completed residency training in internal medicine and served as primary care chief resident at Boston Medical Center. She completed a fellowship in general internal medicine at Johns Hopkins, during which time she received a master of public health degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Olsen has written and lectured extensively on opioid use disorder and its treatments, the stigma of addiction, the integration of behavioral health and medical care, and clinical and policy solutions to the overdose epidemic. She draws inspiration from the opportunity to provide care for people with substance use disorders as an addiction medicine specialist and general internist.  

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.

Shannon Kelly

Shannon L. Kelly is an assistant director with the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the National High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Director. Ms. Kelly has been with the HIDTA Program since 2012 and, from 2015 through 2018, served as its Deputy Director. Ms. Kelly has nearly 25 years of counterdrug experience and worked previously for the U.S. Department of Justice, National Drug Intelligence Center, as a liaison to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the ONDCP. 

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.

Jennifer Skolaski

Jennifer Skolaski, PhD, is the facilitator of Winnebago County Overdose Fatality Review and is the owner of Community & Nonprofit Leadership Consulting, LLC (www.canpl.com). She has been involved with a variety of nonprofits, including organizations and collaborations that focus on environment, education, health care, safety, youth, domestic violence, substance use, and poverty. Dr. Skolaski has taught at both the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and has played various roles in nonprofits over the years, from staff member and board member to intern and volunteer. These experiences have inspired her to continue working in the sector to bring results through working collaborations and making an impact in the community. Since 2018, Dr. Skolaski has facilitated the Winnebago County Overdose Fatality Review, which is a multidisciplinary team that works to prevent overdose deaths through systems change and collective impact work. She continuously looks for opportunities that use her skills, strengthen her personally and professionally, and strive to meet her life goal of making a difference in our communities.

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.

Sandy Shaffer

Sandy Shaffer is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Independent Clinical Supervisor, Clinical Substance Abuse Counselor, and owner of Shaffer Counseling & Consulting LLC in partnership with Collaborative Wellness. After working in the field of mental health and substance use disorder for more than 20 years, she decided to follow her passion of bridging the world of mental health and substance use disorder. She has a passion for guiding others to become the best version of themselves, which provides her the gift of growing both personally and professionally. Ms. Shaffer has been on the overdose fatality review (OFR) team since its establishment in 2018 and is involved with various OFR subcommittees. As part of the Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Initiative in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, she provides substance use disorder and mental health services, both individual and Dual Diagnosis group therapies, in the community. She also serves on the board of directors at Solutions Recovery.

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.

Alex Belville

Alex Belville is a filmmaker from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, who did not start chasing his dreams until he turned his life around in his early twenties. He is passionate about telling stories for businesses, brands, nonprofits, and athletes through his production company, Mirrorless Productions. He has been fortunate to partner with VaynerSports and create videos for Gary Vaynerchuk. He has had projects funded by Mazda and Jeep, and his work has been shared by Harley Davidson. Mr. Bellville and his team have won multiple Telly Awards for their public service announcement short films, and during COVID-19, they helped local organizations raise $1 million by creating virtual event videos to help meet their fundraising needs. Mr. Belville aims to give back when he can by speaking to students in college and high school about pursuing their passions.

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.

Carina Havenstrite

Carina Havenstrite, BS, currently serves as the Program Manager for the Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney’s Office. In this role, she led the development of the Lackawanna County Overdose Fatality Review (OFR) Team and oversees the implementation of recommendations generated by the team, as well as the pursuit and management of several other law enforcement and opioid-related grants. The Lackawanna County OFR Team has been reviewing cases for more than 2 years, has successfully implemented several recommendations, and will be acting as an OFR mentor site this year. Prior to her position with the District Attorney’s Office, Ms. Havenstrite spent 6 years working in the HIV field, which began her journey in public health, grant management, and implementation of innovative programming.

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.

Mark Powell

Mark Powell, District Attorney of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, has made combating the opioid crisis a top priority of his administration. He is the co-chair of the Lackawanna Recovery Coalition, which works to reduce opioid overuse deaths by connecting people with substance use disorder to treatment, implementing lifesaving harm reduction strategies, advocating for long-term recovery, and working to reduce stigma surrounding the disease of addiction. In October 2019, Mr. Powell established an overdose fatality review team to study overdose deaths to determine the root causes of addiction-related deaths and implement evidence-based solutions. He also initiated a Fresh Start program for lower-level drug offenders to supplement the Treatment Court. Fresh Start is a diversionary program that gives offenders the chance to choose treatment instead of jail and avoid having a criminal record. He is also a board member of the Lackawanna County Treatment Court, which established and operates the Recovery Bank in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, a peer-driven recovery support center that focuses on whole-person healing of mind, body, and spirit. Mr. Powell is on the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association’s Executive Board and serves on its Education and Training Committee. In addition, he was appointed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to serve on the Continuing Legal Education Board, which oversees education programs for attorneys statewide. Before being elected district attorney, Mr. Powell was a partner in the Powell Law Firm in Scranton for 27 years. He earned many professional accolades, including the distinction of being a Board-Certified Trial Specialist in both Criminal Law and Civil Law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. For 12 years, he served as a Hearing Committee member for the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board and is a past president of Northeastern Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association. He is past co-chair of the Lackawanna County Bench Bar Conference and serves on the Lackawanna Bar Association’s Continuing Legal Education and Bench Bar Committee. Mr. Powell frequently teaches Continuing Legal Education seminars for other attorneys. In 2016, the National Institute for Trial Advocacy awarded him the Teaching Excellence Award at the Advanced Trial Advocacy Program in Washington, D.C. Mr. Powell earned his juris doctorate from Catholic University; his master of laws in trial advocacy degree from Temple University, where he graduated with honors; and his undergraduate degree from Villanova 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.

Lindsay Wilson

Lindsay Wilson, MPH, joined the National Overdose Response Strategy Program as a public health analyst for Illinois in January 2021. Prior to her position with the CDC Foundation, Ms. Wilson served as a health promotion coordinator with the Kankakee County, Illinois, Health Department from 2016 to 2021, where she was the opioid response project coordinator and COVID-19 emergency response coordinator. In her role as opioid response project coordinator, Ms. Wilson coordinated overdose education and prevention efforts in four counties in Illinois. She connected organizations across her area of operation from multiple disciplines, including law enforcement, jails, public health, health care systems, harm reduction, and community members, to form a regional opioid task force aimed at addressing overdose across the region. Prior to her work in public health, Ms. Wilson was a medical plans and operations officer with the U.S. Army from 2012 to 2015.

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.

Marissa Knapp

Marissa Knapp, MST, is a supervising public health educator and serves as the Opioid Overdose Prevention Coordinator for Broome County, New York, overseeing the Overdose Data 2 Action grant and opioid overdose prevention efforts in the county. Ms. Knapp received her bachelor’s degree in human development from Binghamton University and a master’s degree in teaching from the State University of New York at Cortland. She has almost 15 years’ experience at the Broome County Health Department, with 5 of those years as the Opioid Overdose Prevention Coordinator. As the Opioid Overdose Prevention Coordinator, Ms. Knapp has chaired the Broome Opioid Awareness Council and has fostered meaningful relationships with partners in the field and in the community. She is proud to work in the community to reduce the burden of overdose.

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.

Kim Pickett

Kim Pickett has been a project specialist at the Center for Child and Family Health since March 2014. Before coming to the Michigan Public Health Institute, she had worked for the Harris County Department of Education in Houston, Texas, and the Jackson County Health Department in Jackson, Mississippi, as a health educator. She has a bachelor of science degree in community health education from Western Michigan University with a minor in family life education. Ms. Pickett has a passion for training and facilitating groups, and her interest lies in the child and adult fatality review processes.

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.

Christina Galardi

Christina Galardi, MPH, MCRP, is the Public Health Analyst for the Overdose Response Strategy in South Carolina. The Overdose Response Strategy is a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Program, with the mission to help communities reduce fatal and nonfatal drug overdoses by connecting public health and public safety agencies, sharing information, and supporting evidence-based interventions. Prior to this role, Ms. Galardi served as a project manager at the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. She earned dual master’s degrees in public health and city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications from the University of South Carolina and also completed a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in South Korea.

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.

Jeff Beeson

Jeff Beeson serves as the Deputy Director and Chief of Staff for the Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (W/B HIDTA) program. His responsibilities include the overall administration of the HIDTA program, including the budget, the Annual Report, the Threat Assessment and Strategy, and the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), as well as direct oversight of the Overdose Response Strategy. In addition, he is responsible for managing the non-HIDTA grants and contracts that support new and existing law enforcement, criminal justice, drug treatment and prevention, homeland security, technology, and information sharing initiatives. Prior to joining the W/B HIDTA, Mr. Beeson served as assistant vice president for applied research at Towson University, overseeing a portfolio of state and federal grants and contracts supporting workforce and public safety initiatives. Appointed to several positions within the Maryland state government, including the Maryland Department of Public Safety, he began his career as a senate staffer for U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland. Mr. Beeson has a master’s degree in social sciences, with a focus in criminal justice.

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.

Ali Burrell

Ali Burrell, MPH, is the Program Manager for the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP) at the Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (W/B HIDTA). She earned her master’s degree in public health with an emphasis in environmental and occupational health from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in public health, health promotion, and health behavior from Oregon State University with a Global Health Certificate. Ms. Burrell has worked in overdose prevention and veteran suicide prevention program implementation through her work with the CDC Foundation’s Overdose Response Strategy in Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh’s partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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 progr