The 28th Annual MARTI Summer Conference will include the following speakers.
Pearl Berman, PhD
Pearl Berman is a full professor and the chair of the Psychology Department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is also a licensed clinical psychologist. Her longstanding interest in violence prevention has led her to integrate information and skill building relevant to interpersonal violence into all of her teaching at both the undergraduate and doctoral level. Her most recent book is the third edition of Case Conceptualization and Treatment Planning: Exercises for Integrating Theory with Clinical Practice. Within this book, she has included case material and student practice exercises for diverse clients, including victims, perpetrators, and victim-perpetrators of neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse.
Ryan Brannon
Ryan Brannon is the executive director of My New Leaf, Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit he founded in 2015. He has won numerous awards for his work with his addiction recovery app including first place in the IUP "Sharktank" contest, first place in the Pennsylvania System of Higher Education Business Plan contest, and the Audience Choice Award-University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown PITCHfest contest. Ryan was selected to attend the prestigious 2015 Fellowship Summit in San Francisco, California. He was recently honored by being a presenter at the Central Pennsylvania Addiction Conference and the University of Pittsburgh's Addiction Technology Conference.
Whitney Carmichael, MA
Patricia Cluss, PhD
Patricia Cluss is the director of Standing Firm: The Business Case to Prevent Partner Violence and a licensed psychologist with expertise in working with women on health, mental health, relationship, and transition concerns. She recently retired from the psychiatry faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where she was a research and program developer.
John Cookus, MS
John Cookus is currently an assistant professor within the Department of Sociology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as a consultant to the Annie E. Casey Foundation Juvenile Justice Strategy Group in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. John specializes in various criminal and juvenile justice activities, including data analysis, research projects, policy support and development, strategic planning, and grant writing. Previously, he served as a Pennsylvania state juvenile justice system administrator and a county juvenile probation officer. He holds a BA in Psychology from Wilkes University, a MS in Administration of Justice from Shippensburg University, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the PhD in Administration and Leadership Studies program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Dennis Daley, PhD
Dennis Daley is senior clinical director of Substance Use Services at UPMC Health Plan and professor of psychiatry and social work. He served for 14 years as the chief of Addiction Medicine Services at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is involved in clinical care, teaching, research, and dissemination activities. Daley previously was the director of the Appalachian Tri-State Node of the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Clinical Trials Network and was involved in multi-site clinical trials and dissemination of science-based findings to providers, individuals, and families. He is a member of the Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Care project in the Pittsburgh VA HealthCare System. Daley has hundreds of publications and has presented his work throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Asia. His publications include several books and recovery guides on relapse and co-occurring disorders. Daley's materials have been translated into several languages.
Antoine Douiahy, MD
Antoine Douaihy is professor of psychiatry and medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, senior academic director of Addiction Medicine Services at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, and director of the Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship at WPIC. His academic interests include addiction, HIV/AIDS, motivational interviewing and the psychology of behavioral change, and dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatments for addiction to medical trainees and health-care practitioners.
David Gardner, CPS, CRS
David Gardner is a senior peer navigator of the Peer Navigator Project directed by the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of UPMC in Pittsburgh. He is based at UPMC Mercy Hospital in the mid-town area of downtown Pittsburgh. He is a Pennsylvania state certified peer specialist as well as recovery specialist. He has advanced training in forensic peer support and will be state certified in family peer support. Gardner began his work in peer navigation in January 2015 with the grant-funded Peer Navigation Project, modeled after Project Engage at Christiana Care Health System in Delaware. The Peer Navigation Project began with three UPMC hospitals participating. It has since expanded to four additional UPMC hospitals. Gardner's duties include staff education, wellness coaching, peer orientation, and procedural development as well as data and needs analysis. He is a recipient of the UPMC 2017 ACES Award and has participated in many promotional features, including UPMC Benefits Magazine, CNN.com's "Could peer-recovery coaches help fight drug addiction?", 90.5 WESA (Pittsburgh's local NPR) "Counselors Say Addiction Recovery Isn't About Putting the Drugs Down," among others. Gardner self-identifies with a diagnoses of co-occurring disorders; substance use and bipolar 2. He has been living in recovery and practicing personal wellness for over 30 years.
David Hickton, JD
David Hickton is the director and founder of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security. Prior to that, he was the 57th US attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Dana Hysock Witham, PhD
Dana Hysock Witham is associate professor of Sociology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in 2006 from the University of Delaware, where she did her dissertation research on peer sexual harassment in high schools. She regularly teaches courses on sociological practice, the sociology of gender, alcohol and drug abuse, deviance, and intimate partner violence. Her research interests include gender, violence against women, social inequality, and deviance.
Richard Jones, MA, MBA
Richard Jones is the executive director of Faces and Voices of Recovery (FAVOR) in Greenville, South Carolina. Rich is the CEO of the Wellness Partners Group, director of Preventions at ePreventions, a licensed clinical addiction specialist, a certified clinical supervisor, a certified employee assistance professional, and a certified Arise interventionist. He is also chairman of the board of Faces and Voices of Recovery in South Carolina.
Erick Lauber, PhD
Erick Lauber is an associate professor in the Journalism and Public Relations Department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the director of Leadership Training and Research at MARTI-CBH. His scholarship has appeared in over 100 magazines, journals, and book chapters, and he has recently authored a book on teamwork and leadership titled Don't Break the Rope! He is currently working with the Armstrong-Indiana-Clarion Drug and Alcohol Commission on designing and delivering prevention messages. His educational media products have won over 20 national awards.
David Loveland, PhD
David Loveland is the senior program director, Recovery Program Development and Implementation, Community Care Behavioral Health, Director of Research Human Service Center. He was formerly the director of Research at the Human Service Center in Peoria, Illinois. His research focus is on developing community-based models of care for individuals with behavioral health disorders as well as implementing effective behavioral and cognitive behavioral techniques into practice.
Lisa Maccarelli, PhD
Lisa Maccarelli, PhD is the practice administrator and a psychologist with Vista Behavioral Health Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Maccarelli's areas of interest include mood, eating, substance use, and personality disorders as well as trauma. She has worked extensively with co-occurring disorders in various capacities, including administration, treatment, consultation, program development, training, supervision, and research.
Domenic Marks
Domenic Marks is a member of the Bridge to Hope Parental Advisory Board. Bridge to Hope is a support group for those impacted by the addiction of a loved one.
John McCarthy, PhD, NCC
John McCarthy is a professor of counseling at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has directed the department's Center for Creativity and Change since its inception in 2005. McCarthy also serves as chair for the Ambassadors of the National Board for Certified Counselors Foundation. His interests include international issues in counseling, wellness, creativity, solution-focused approaches, and motivational interviewing. He has offered professional presentations in Turkey, Singapore, Ukraine, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, England, Canada, and Taiwan, as well as in the United States.
Elizabeth Miller, MD, PhD, FSAHM
Elizabeth Miller is the director of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine and professor of Pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Trained in medical anthropology as well as internal medicine and pediatrics, Miller's research has included examination of sex trafficking among adolescents in Asia, adolescent relationship abuse and reproductive coercion, and the impact on reproductive health. Her current research focuses on developing and testing gender-based violence prevention and intervention programs to improve adolescent and young adult health.
Clifton Mitchell, PhD
Clifton Mitchell is a licensed psychologist, an international clinical trainer, and keynote speaker who has a love for teaching and over 23 years of training experience. He delivers practical information in a uniquely entertaining, fast-paced style that is filled with humor and examples from his experience in mental health. For over 15 years, he has studied and presented seminars on methods for dealing with resistance in therapy. Dr. Mitchell has also trained thousands of mental health professionals in the management of difficult, perplexing legal and ethical issues and his latest training is in an exciting, dynamic game show format.
Aubree Rosenberg, CRS, CPS
Aubree Rosenberg is a community outreach recovery specialist directed by Community Care Behavioral Health of Allegheny County. She is based in the recovery community as well as the UPMC medical facility, UPMC Mercy Hospital. She is a Pennsylvania certified recovery specialist as well as peer specialist. Rosenberg began her work as a recovery specialist in August 2016, with the grant-funded CORS (Community Outreach Recovery Specialist) and Peer Navigation project with Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. With the success of the CORS program, Rosenberg was hired on a secure/permanent basis with Community Care Behavioral Health of Allegheny County. Her duties include: providing resources for members with Substance Use Disorder, help guide our members into the process of recovery, use personal experience to help promote and support recovery, refer to any type of SUD treatment, support high risk members and complete assessments, and follow-up with the member in the community (outreach) for support and advocacy. Rosenberg is in recovery with co-occurring disorders: SUD, depression, bipolar type 2, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, and anxiety. She has been in recovery and practicing personal wellness for five years.
Sheila Roth, PhD, LCSW
Sheila Roth is a full professor and chair of the Department of Social Work at Carlow University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was co-creator of the Carlow University Crisis Response Team and co-developer of many of the early crisis policies on campus.
John Rozel, MD, MSL
John Rozel has been working in emergency mental health for over 25 years and has been the medical director of resolve Crisis Services since 2010. He is the president-elect of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry, the leading national organization dedicated to the improvement of compassionate, evidence based care for people with psychiatric emergencies. As the medical director of resolve Crisis Services, he leads a team of 150 crisis professionals who deliver over 130,000 services every year to the residents of Allegheny County through phone, mobile, walk-in, and overnight programs delivered through a person-centered, recovery-oriented model. Rozel trains and consults with teams across UPMC and the country on projects related to violence and threat management, staff injury prevention, and firearm injury prevention. He is board certified in general, child, and forensic psychiatry. Rozel is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a 2018 recipient of the Exemplary Psychiatrist award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Wesley Sowers, MD
Wesley Sowers is the director at the Center for Public Service Psychiatry at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. He is an addiction psychiatry specialist and has been practicing for over 28 years.
Victor Vieth, JD
Victor Vieth serves as the senior director and founder of the Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center. Vieth has trained thousands of child-protection professionals from all 50 states, two US territories, and 17 countries on numerous topics pertaining to child abuse investigations, prosecutions, and prevention. He gained national recognition for his work in addressing child abuse in small communities as a prosecutor in rural Minnesota and has been named to the President's Honor Roll of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. The Young Lawyers Division of the American Bar Association named him one of the "21 Young Lawyers Leading us Into the 21st Century." Vieth graduated magna cum laude from WSU and earned his juris doctor from Hamline University School of Law. While studying at HUSL, he received the American Jurisprudence award for achievement in the study of Constitutional law and served as editor-in chief of the Law Review. In 2017 Vieth earned an MA in theology from Wartburg Seminary. Vieth has been instrumental in implementing 22 state and international forensic interview training programs, and dozens of undergraduate and graduate programs on child maltreatment. Vieth has published countless articles related to the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of child abuse and neglect. He is author of Unto the Third Generation, a bold initiative that outlines the necessary steps we must all take to eliminate child abuse in America in three generations.
Joan Ward, MS
Joan Ward is a retired educator who has worked as a classroom teacher, school counselor, principal, and educational consultant to the Pennsylvania Department of Education in their Distinguished Educator Initiative. Married and mother of two, Joan has a son in long-term recovery from an opioid addiction. For the past 15 years, Joan has worked as an advocate for Family Recovery at the local, state and national levels. She is a founding member of the Bridge to Hope Family Support Group in the Pittsburgh area and continues to serve as a steering committee member. She has been a member of the Parent Panel Advisory Council to the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs since its inception in 2006, acting as its Chair for the first three years. Joan is a CRAFT Parent Coach and new coach mentor for the Parent Support Network of the Partnership for Drug Free Kids. Her advocacy work has included conference presentations at the local and state levels and testifying at several state legislative hearings. Her testimony to Pennsylvania House of Representatives Health and Human Services Committee is featured as the closing segment in the HBO documentary Addiction.
Terri Wells
Nada Yorke, LCSW
Nada Yorke, a licensed clinical social worker, is co-owner of Yorke Consulting, which specializes in helping organizations optimize their potential through staff and management training, leadership development, and strategic planning. As a social worker, she is passionate about training organizations to empower, engage, and motivate their staff and the clientele they serve. She also manages Correctional Counseling for Change, which provides assistance to individuals and organizations who desire to implement batterer intervention programming (BIP) within correctional and rehabilitation centers.