James A. Swartz, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work. He obtained his doctorate in clinical psychology from Northwestern University Medical School in 1990. His primary research interests include screening, assessment and diagnosis of substance use and psychiatric disorders and in understanding the epidemiology, causes, consequences and treatments of co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorders. He has particular interest in criminal justice populations and the coordination of treatment between criminal justice and community settings. Dr. Swartz is the Principal Investigator on the JASARC project. Prior studies conducted by Dr. Swartz have been funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, the National Institute of Justice, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Substance Abuse Policy Research Program. For 10 years, Dr. Swartz was the Chicago site director for the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring study. He is presently a reviewer for Criminal Justice and Behavior and has reviewed for Archives of General Psychiatry, the American Journal of Public Health, and Social Service Review.

Creasie Finney Hairston, Ph.D., is Professor and Dean of the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Hairston received her B.S. degree with highest honors from Bluefield State College and her M.S.S.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Hairston has held the position of Dean since 1991; previously she served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Research at the Indiana University School of Social Work and held faculty appointments at the University of Tennessee, West Virginia University, and the State University of New York at Albany. Dr. Hairston is one of the pioneers in the development of family programs for correctional populations and has conducted research and written extensively on the impact of incarceration on families and communities. She is Founding Chair of the Academy of Certified Social Work Managers, Vice President of the Illinois Academy of Criminology, and a member of the John Howard Association Board of Directors, the Chicago Board of Health, the Administration in Social Work and Journal of Social Work Education Editorial Boards, the Criminal Justice and Mental Health Research Institute National Advisory Board, and several national and local task groups. In recognition of outstanding research and leadership, she received the International Community Corrections Association’s E.B. Henderson III Presidential Award in 2004 and the National Network for Social Work Managers Distinguished Leader Award in 2006.

Larry Bennett, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Bennett is Co-Investigator, Great Lakes Addiction Technology Transfer Center (SAMHSA). He received his MSW and Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he is currently Associate Professor. Prior to joining the U.I.C. faculty in 1988, he worked for 15 years in social service agencies. Dr. Bennett served on the Consensus Panel on Family Violence of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, and chaired the Illinois Substance Abuse - Domestic Violence Interdisciplinary Task Force to produce Safety and Sobriety: Best Practices in Domestic Violence and Substance Abuse (IDHS, 2000). He is co-author of Evaluation of Services for Survivors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (Sage Press, 2002). His research examines the co-occurrence of substance abuse and partner violence, and the effectiveness of community anti-violence programs. Dr. Bennett was the original PI and founder of JASARC.

Michael Fendrich, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology in the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Director of the Center for Addiction and Behavioral Health Research. His research focuses on the epidemiology of drug abuse and psychiatric disorder, with particular focus on measurement issues. He has published widely on issues related to validity of substance use reporting in surveys as well as on behavioral and psychosocial risk factors associated with drug abuse, delinquency, depression, and suicide. He has received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Justice. He serves on the editorial boards of Substance Use and Misuse, The Journal of Drug Issues, and the Journal of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and heads the American Psychological Task Force on Research Regulation.

Paul Goldstein, Ph.D. is Professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health, and a Fellow at the Great Cities Institute in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, at UIC. Dr. Goldstein earned his master's and doctoral degrees in sociology at Case Western Reserve University. Previously he worked for the New York State Office of Crime Control Planning, and the New York State Division of Substance Abuse Services. He also was Deputy Director at Narcotic and Drug Research, Inc. in New York City. His past research has focused on substance use and trafficking, violence, and the nexus between these phenomena. His primary methodological research interest is qualitative methods. Currently, his focus is on health care in correctional institutions. Dr. Goldstein's research has been supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Justice, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He has testified before the United States Senate Committee on International Narcotic Trafficking, the United States House Judiciary Committee, the United States Sentencing Commission, and in US District Court. He has numerous publications, and has presented his research findings in a wide variety of milieus including the United Nations.

Timothy Johnson Ph.D. is Director of the Survey Research Laboratory, Professor of Public Administration and Research Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Johnson teaches courses in sample design, research methodology, and multivariate statistical analysis. His main areas of research interest include cross-cultural sources of measurement error in survey research and the social epidemiology of substance abuse. He has previously received funding from the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He has also served on the Editorial Board of Substance Use & Misuse for the past 8 years.

Gretchen Kenagy, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Nathan L. Linsk, Ph.D. is a Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1989 Dr. Linsk established and is Principal Investigator for the Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center, a six state health professional training project funded by the U.S. Public Health Resources and Services Administration. He is also Principal Investigator on the Great Lakes Addictions Technology Transfer Center, funded by the Center on Substance Abuse Treatment, Substance Abuse, and Mental Health Services Administration. He also heads the evaluation team for the Chicago Department of Public Health Title I HIV Programs. In addition Dr. Linsk is senior co-Editor of the Journal of HIV/AIDS and Social Services. Dr. Linsk’s current work includes sharing leadership for the Social Work Education in Ethiopia Partnership and has helped establish the first graduate social work education program in Ethiopia. He will be conducting a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Ethiopia in 2006, studying the role of non-governmental organizations in decision-making and community support for antiretroviral HIV medications.

Arthur J. Lurigio, Ph.D., is Professor and Faculty Scholar and Associate Dean for Faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University, Chicago. Dr. Lurigio has conducted research in local and state community corrections and court systems for nearly twenty years. From 1982 to 1997 he served as the Director of Research and Evaluation for the Cook County Adult Probation Department. Since 1987, he has been an advisor to the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts (AOIC), and presently acts as a research associate at AOIC. He has published extensively in such areas as substance abuse, community corrections, mental disorders and crime, crime prevention and crime victimization.

Thomas Lyons, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Associate at the Great Cities Institute and project director of the Institute's "Healthcare Needs of Addicted Criminal Offenders" project. He also does research on HIV risk behavior among men recovering from methamphetamine addiction with a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. His team has so far conducted in-depth interviews with more than 60 recovering methamphetamine addicts, and will interview them again after six months to examine changes in HIV risk behavior over time. Other areas of interest include evaluating drug and mental health treatment programs, culture and co-occurring disorders, HIV care for jail and prison inmates, and the emotional and educational needs of children of incarcerated parents. He has written on narrative ambiguity in ethnography, health literacy, and health economics. Dr. Lyons holds a doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago, and has done postdoctoral work in medical anthropology at the George Washington University.

Carol Massat, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the Jane Addams College of Social Work. Dr. Massat earned her Bachelor's, Master's and Ph.D. degrees from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her Master's degree and her Ph.D. are both in Social Work, with a Master's level focus in school social work. Her ten years of clinical practice experience with children and families includes the supervision of two substance abuse programs, coordination of a foster care program and liaison work between family service agencies and schools. As a practitioner, Dr. Massat actively published articles and books focused on assisting children and families. Dr. Massat's research, publications, and service since completion of her Ph.D. have continued to revolve around issues relevant to troubled children and families. She was principal investigator of a four-year study of non-offending parents and their sexually abused children, funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. More recently, she has been pursuing a line of research on mothers and their children when these families are confronted with both substance abuse and criminal justice involvement. One of these studies was a NIDA funded pilot study. An earlier study was funded by the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research. Dr. Massat was selected to co-edit the most recent edition of the seminal book in school social work, School Social Work: Policy, Practice and Research Perspectives. She edits the journal School Social Work, the oldest journal in the country focused on school social work. In that capacity, she is engaged in editing a special issue of the journal commemorating 100 years of school social work, which will be issued as a book. Currently Dr. Massat is on sabbatical until August 2006, residing in Indiana, completing these projects and writing.

Chris Mitchell, DSW, is Associate Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at UIC and serves as Director of the Ph.D. Program. A former clinical social worker, his current research addresses the psychosocial aspects of HIV focusing particularly on medication adherence and HIV prevention. He is principal investigator on a three year research study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities to test a new case management-based intervention to help HIV+ homeless persons adhere to their medication regimens and to reduce their ongoing risk behaviors. He has authored numerous articles on HIV and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of HIV/AIDS and Social Services.

Patricia O'Brien Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of social work at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at UIC. Dr. O'Brien earned her master's and doctoral degrees in social work from the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. Her research, building on ten years of practice has focused primarily on the description of women's transition from prison as exemplified by her book publication: Making it in the "free world": Women in transition from prison. She has continued this research, recently completing a three-year longitudinal study funded by NIJ and more recently a NIDA-funded pilot study examining both individual and community factors for released women in an African-American community on Chicago's west side. She has published articles on women's reentry from prison, issues in doing research with women in prison and during the transition to the community, and holistic assessment for women at the time of release to the community.

Donna Petras, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Formerly, she was the Director of Foster Care for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services where she directed the development and implementation of numerous studies of child welfare services. Dr. Petras has also served as a consultant to numerous research projects concerning parents who are involved with substance abuse, the criminal justice system, and the child welfare system. She has served as the Chair of numerous national committees including the National Foster Care Standards Committee, the Policy Subcommittee of the National Commission on Foster Care, and the Kinship Care Committee of the Child Welfare League of America. She has served as the President of the National Association of State Foster Care Managers, and has international social work experiences with Romania, Scandinavia, Ireland, and Ethiopia.

T. Chedgzsey Smith-McKeever, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago as well as a Research Fellow with the University's Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy. Dr. Smith-McKeever earned her doctorate in Social Work from The University of Texas at Austin in 2002 and her MSW from The University of Southern California in 1992. Her post MSW experience focused on Child Welfare practice in the area of Special Needs Adoption. Her research interests center on child welfare, adoption and the dual-diagnosis of substance abuse and trauma related disorders among African American and Hispanic children, youth and families. Dr. Smith-McKeever is currently working on a study examining the role of race in the transfer of risk for criminal justice, substance abuse and mental health problems from substance abusing mothers to their children.

Amy C Watson, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of social work at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at UIC. She received her doctorate from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration in 2001. During her doctoral studies, she was a fellow in the NIMH Mental Health Services Research Training Program. Her research interests focus on persons with mental illness involved in the criminal justice system. Prior to joining the faculty at Jane Adams College of Social Work, she was the project director of the Chicago Consortium for Stigma Research, a multi-disciplinary group of researchers interested in mental illness stigma. Her research there included a study of police officer attitudes about persons with mental illness. Her current and future projects will examine police interaction with persons with mental illness, including those with co-occurring substance use disorders.