Helen Reinherz, Sc.D.
Principal Investigator
helen.reinherz@simmons.edu
Helen has been the Project Director for the length of the study. Helen's early career as a practicing social worker in family counseling and mental health interventions for children and adolescents sparked her interest in prevention and treatment of mental health problems. Helen has both a MSW from Simmons College and a Sc.D. from Harvard School of Public Health. With many years of experience behind her as a social worker, teacher, and researcher, Helen has led every aspect of the Simmons Longitudinal Study and will continue in this role as the research project moves into its newest phase.
Rose M. Giaconia, Ph.D.
Co-Principal Investigator
rose.giaconia@simmons.edu
Rose has spent over ten years with the Simmons Longitudinal Study. She initially worked with SLS from 1990-2000, analyzing data from the age 18, 21, and 26 data collection phases. She rejoined the project in September 2006 and is the author of a number of SLS publications. Rose has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Stanford University.
Angela Paradis, Sc.D.
Co-Investigator
Angela has been with the SLS for ten years, recently received a degree in Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health. She has collaborated in multiple phases of data collection and co-authored multiple publications for the project. Angela specializes in the development of child and adolescent externalizing behavior problems.
Kirsten Ward, B.A.
Research Assistant
kirsten.ward@simmons.edu
Kirsten started the MSW at Simmons in January and joined the SLS in September of 2007. She graduated with a B.A. in English and Psychology from Simmons in 2006. She is currently interning as an outreach worker at the Somerville Mental Health Clinic.
Molly Kerrigan
Research Assistant
molly.kerrigan@simmons.edu
Molly is currently a senior at Simmons College studying psychology and music. Her future plans include graduate school for Expressive Therapies. Molly joined the SLS in September 2007.
Emily Prabhaker, B.A.
Administrative Assistant
emily.prabhaker@simmons.edu
Emily has her Bachelors degree in Psychology and French from Wheaton College, IL. She began her MA in Children's Literature at Simmons and her work at the SLS in January 2008.
Project Consultants
William Beardslee, M.D.
William Beardslee is the chief of psychiatry at Children's Hospital in Boston and the director of the Preventive Intervention Project at Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston. In 2002, he published Out of the Darkened Room: When a Parent Is Depressed, Protecting the Children and Strengthening the Family, providing practical guidance to further children's healthy development within the context of parental depression. His research is aimed at identifying children and adolescents in need of preventive services, and in designing treatments that are timely and effective. Dr. Beardslee has been a consultant to SLS for the past ten years, providing invaluable expertise in many areas. He is the author of numerous papers, including "Adolescent protective factors promoting resilience in young adults at risk for depression," (Carbonell, et al., 2002).
Garrett Fitzmaurice, Sc.D.
Garrett Fitzmaurice is an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he earned his doctorate degree in 1993. His research interests include methods for analyzing discrete longitudinal data, models for mixed discrete and continuous outcomes, general missing data problems, methods for detecting and adjusting for overdispersion, and statistical problems in psychiatric epidemiology. Fitzmaurice works with the project as an expert in statistical design and analysis and has been consulting with the project for the past five years, including his work on the following publication: "Childhood and adolescent predictors of major depression in the transition to adulthood" (Reinherz, Paradis, Giaconia, Stashwick, & Fitzmaurice, in press).
Robert Waldinger, M.D.
Dr. Waldinger, of Harvard Medical School, provides consultation to SLS on issues of adult development and health. He is a psychiatrist who has worked on several longitudinal studies. He has specific expertise in studies of interpersonal relationships.