Institute Director

Thomas Keller, Ph.D., is the Duncan and Cindy Campbell Professor for Children, Youth, and Families with an Emphasis on Mentoring in the Graduate School of Social Work at Portland State University. His research investigates the development and influence of mentoring relationships in both school and community settings as well as the role of parent involvement in mentoring interventions. Prior to earning his Ph.D., he worked for several years with a Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliate in Seattle as a caseworker, supervisor, and program director.

2009 Research Fellows

David L. DuBois, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Division of Community Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois—Chicago. He has authored many studies on youth mentoring, including a meta-analytic review on the effectiveness of youth mentoring programs. He is co-editor of the landmark Handbook of Youth Mentoring. Professor DuBois co-chaired the National Research Summit on Mentoring and co-authored the National Research Agenda for Youth Mentoring. Currently, he is conducting NIH-funded research on the GirlPOWER! program and is a WT Grant Distinguished Fellow in residence at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. He has mentored a child as a Big Brother.

Janis Kupersmidt, Ph.D., is President and CEO of innovation Research and Training (iRT), which conducts research and creates products and services to enhance the well-being of youth, families, communities, and organizations. Formerly a professor of psychology at UNC—Chapel Hill, she is an expert in the social and emotional development of children and focuses on program development and translational research addressing substance abuse, delinquency, and dropout prevention. She is the Principal Investigator on an NICHD-funded project to develop Mentoring Central, a web-based mentor training program. She also has contracted with MENTOR to develop the Third Edition of the Elements of Effective Practice. 

Michael Nakkula, Ed.D., is Practice Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on integrating counseling, mentoring, and educational processes in urban schools to create contexts that allow students to thrive. His projects include Project IF (Inventing the Future), a strength-based youth development initiative, and a longitudinal study of Early College High Schools funded by the Gates Foundation. Dr. Nakkula works with many national organizations to create applied research strategies to study developmental and educational initiatives. He has created measures to assess mentor and protégé perspectives on the quality of youth mentoring relationships.

Andrea Taylor, Ph.D., is Director of Training in the Center for Intergenerational Learning, Clinical Assistant Professor in the College of Health Professions--Division of Public Health, and Senior Research Associate in the Institute for Survey Research at Temple University. She has authored several publications on intergenerational mentoring as an approach to promoting positive youth development and preventing substance abuse and school failure. Dr. Taylor is the developer of Across Ages, an intergenerational mentoring program that has been designated as an evidence-based model in the National Registry of Effective Program Practices and has been widely replicated.

2009 Guest Speakers

Harold Briggs, Ph.D., is Professor in the School of Social Work at Portland State University. He has published extensively on the use of research evidence in practice, addressing topics such as evidence-based practice, evidence-based management, evidence supported treatments, and practice based evidence in the fields of child welfare, children’s mental health, and juvenile justice.

 

Carla Herrera, Ph.D., is a Senior Policy Researcher for Public/Private Ventures, a national non-profit research and policy organization. Dr. Herrera has conducted numerous studies and written influential reports on various types of mentoring programs. She directed a recent national, multi-site, randomized control design evaluation of Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring programs and is currently working with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to enhance their school-based mentoring model.  

Michael Karcher, Ph.D., Ed.D., is Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at University of Texas-San Antonio. He is an expert on cross-age peer mentoring in schools. He recently reported on his “Study of Mentoring in the Learning Environment (SMILE),” a randomized control design evaluation of school-based mentoring in conjunction with Communities in Schools. Dr. Karcher is the author of numerous articles on mentoring in school settings, and he is co-editor of the Handbook of Youth Mentoring.

2008 Research Fellows

Jean Grossman, Ph.D., is Lecturer and Research Associate in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and Senior Vice President for Research with Public/Private Ventures, a national non-profit research and policy organization. She is an expert on after-school and youth mentoring programs, as well as evaluation design. She played leading roles in conducting the seminal PPV multi-site, randomized control design studies of Big Brothers Big Sisters community-based programs (in 1995) and school-based programs (in 2007) and has published numerous follow-up analyses based on data from these projects.

Michael Karcher, Ph.D., Ed.D., is Associate Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at University of Texas-San Antonio. Professor Karcher is an expert on cross-age peer mentoring in schools, and he currently is conducting a major study funded by the W.T. Grant Foundation entitled “Effective interactions with Hispanic youth in school-based mentoring.” Professor Karcher is the author of numerous articles on mentoring in school settings, and he is co-editor of the landmark Handbook of Youth Mentoring.

Laurie Powers, Ph.D., is Associate Dean for Research in the School of Social Work and Director of the Regional Research Institute for Human Services at Portland State University. Professor Powers is one of the foremost authorities on promoting self-determination among persons with diverse abilities and fostering successful transition of youth to adulthood. Her research includes the development and experimental evaluation of several interventions involving mentoring and individualized coaching of youth with disabilities.

Bernadette Sanchez, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at DePaul University. She is an expert on the mentoring relationships of Latino adolescents and the role they play in the educational achievement of Latino youth. She has a special interest in cultural processes in volunteer mentoring relationships, especially when mentors and youth are from different races, ethnicities, or cultures. Her current research investigates these issues in one mentoring program for African American and Latina adolescent females and in another program for the diverse high school population in Chicago Public Schools.

2008 Guest Speakers

Belle Liang, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Counseling and Developmental Psychology in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. Her expertise includes examination of interventions for high-risk and ethnic minority youth from cross-cultural and developmental perspectives, with particular emphasis on the influences of culture and gender in youth mentoring relationships.

2007 Research Fellows

Timothy Cavell, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training at University of Arkansas. Professor Cavell’s research focuses on school-based programs in which adult mentors work with aggressive children at risk for later delinquency and substance abuse. He currently is expanding a school-based mentoring model to serve bullied children. His studies have been funded through the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Hogg Foundation. In addition to numerous academic articles and chapters, Professor Cavell is the author of Working with the parents of aggressive children: A practitioner’s guide, published by the American Psychological Association.

Carla Herrera, Ph.D., is Senior Researcher for Public/Private Ventures, a national non-profit research and policy organization. Dr. Herrera has conducted numerous studies and written influential reports on various types of mentoring programs. She currently is the Principal Investigator of the first national, multi-site, randomized control design evaluation of school-based mentoring programs. She also is writing a book on school-based mentoring with Michael Karcher.

Michael Karcher, Ph.D., Ed.D., is Associate Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at University of Texas-San Antonio. Professor Karcher is an expert on cross-age peer mentoring in schools, and he currently is conducting a major study funded by the W.T. Grant Foundation entitled “Effective interactions with Hispanic youth in school-based mentoring.” Professor Karcher is the author of numerous articles on mentoring in school settings, and he is co-editor of the landmark Handbook of Youth Mentoring.

Renee Spencer, Ed.D., is Assistant Professor in the Boston University School of Social Work. Professor Spencer has conducted influential studies on the nature and course of successful and unsuccessful mentoring relationships. As the recipient of a prestigious W.T. Grant Foundation Scholar Award, she is the Principal Investigator of a major study entitled “Understanding the mentoring process: A longitudinal study of mentoring relationships between adolescents and adults.”

2007 Guest Speaker

Julia Pryce, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Loyola University Chicago. Professor Pryce has investigated relationships formed in school-based mentoring programs and has participated in the development and evaluation of the GirlPOWER! Mentoring Program promoting healthy behaviors among early adolescent females. She received the 2007 Dissertation Award from the International Mentoring Association.