Scientific Advisory Board
The Scientific Advisory Group is comprised of researchers within the Department of Defense and as well as traditional academic communities whose work examines the status, challenges, and strengths of servicemembers, veterans, and military families. Collectively, the group provides critical consultation regarding CIR’s ongoing development and research focus, assists in identifying potential CIR partnerships with research investigators and programs, and provides content-specific expertise to select faculty researchers planning or implementing military and veteran-related research projects.
Stephen J. Brannen, PhD, LSCW
Stephen Brannen is a Senior Behavioral Scientist in the Behavioral and Social Outcomes Program at the U.S. Army Institute of Public Health, U.S. Army Public Health Command. He has over 34 years professional social work practice, with 21 years spent on active duty in the Army Medical Department. While on active duty, Dr. Brannen served in a variety of positions ranging from clinical social worker to regional social work consultant for U.S. Army Europe. He has held faculty appointments at the U.S. Army Medical Department Center and School in San Antonio, and at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda. In addition, Dr. Brannen has held faculty appointments at the University of Maryland, Fordham University, Missouri State University, and the University of Missouri, Columbia. His research interests include domestic violence interventions and military behavioral health—specifically combat stress and resiliency.
Carl Castro, PhD
Carl Castro is a colonel in the U.S. Army and the Director of Military Operations, Medicine Research Program, Headquarters, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), Fort Detrick, Maryland. His operational experience includes serving tours of duty in Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo. In addition, he has served in a variety of research positions, including chief of military psychiatry at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Chief of the Applied Pharmacology Branch at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, and Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Unit-Europe (USAMRU-E) in Heidelberg, Germany. COL Castro is the author of over 50 scientific publications, including a major study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This study, Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Barriers to Care (Charles W. Hoge, M.D., Carl A. Castro, Ph.D., Stephen C. Messer, Ph.D., Dennis McGurk, Ph.D., Dave I. Cotting, Ph.D., and Robert L. Koffman, M.D., M.P.H.), involved 6,200 soldiers and Marines and was conducted at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
Anthony Cox, LCSW, DCSW
Anthony Cox is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and the Deputy Chief of the Behavioral Health Division for U.S. Army Medical Command at Fort Sam Houston, TX, where he is responsible for the policy and operational oversight of the medical component of many programs, including the Family Advocacy Program, Marriage and Family Therapy Programs, and Warrior Transition Care Management services. He has previously held many high profile positions which include the Assistant Chief at the Department of Behavioral Medicine at Brooke Army Medical Center and the Chief of Behavioral Health for the 31st Combat Support Hospital in Iraq.
Charles Engel, MPH, MD
Charles Engel is the Director of the Department of Defense (DoD) Deployment Health Clinical Center at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the Assistant Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University. He is an active duty colonel in the U.S. Army, having served as a psychiatrist in the 1st Cavalry Division during the Gulf War and later as a DoD medical advisor of post-war physical and mental health. He has authored and coauthored over 100 published articles and 175 scholarly abstracts and has received continual research funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Aging, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), DoD, and Department of Veterans Affairs. He has served as a principal investigator on three major multicenter clinical trials, and currently leads the large-scale primary care clinic implementation and evaluation initiative for RESPECT-Mil (Re-Engineering Systems of Primary Care Treatment in the Military) for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. COL Engel is also a highly regarded medical educator, having received the 2005 American Psychiatric Association’s Nancy C.A. Roeske Award for Excellence in Medical Student Education and the 2003 Association of Military Surgeons of the United States William Porter Award for Outstanding Contributions in Psychiatry.
Terence Keane, PhD
Terence Keane is a Professor and Vice Chairman in Psychiatry and Professor of Clinical Psychology at Boston University, Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at VA Boston Healthcare System, and Director of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder’s Behavioral Science Division. He is recognized as a world leader in the field of traumatic stress and has developed many of the most widely used PTSD assessment measures. As a co-chair of the National Institute of Mental Health Consensus Conference, Dr. Keane helped establish national standards for the diagnosis and assessment of PTSD. He is a former president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) and a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. He is the recipient of several awards including a Fulbright Scholarship, Binghamton University’s Weisband Distinguished Alumnus Award, the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy’s Outstanding Researcher Award, the Robert J. Laufer Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award (1997), and the Lifetime Achievement Award (2004) from ISTSS.
Kurt Kroenke, MD
Kurt Kroenke is the Director of Fellowship and Training Programs at the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. as well as a Professor of Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Kroenke’s research focuses on depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders and he has experience working with military populations, including time at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio as the Assistant Chief in the Department of Medicine and at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences as an Associate Professor of Medicine. Dr. Kroenke has co-developed the Three-Component Model for disseminating collaborative care and the PRIME-MD Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ), which has become a widely used clinical and research measure for diagnosing and monitoring common mental disorders in primary care. He is a member of the MacArthur Initiative on Depression and Primary Care and is President of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM).
Shelley M. MacDermid Wadsworth, PhD, MBA
Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth is a Professor in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University, where she directs both the Military Family Research Institute (MFRI) and the Center for Families (CFF), and serves as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the College of Health and Human Sciences. Dr. MacDermid Wadsworth’s research focuses on relationships between job conditions and family life, with a special focus on military families and organizational policies, programs, and practices. She served as the civilian co-chair of the Defense Health Board Mental Health Task Force, and currently serves on the Defense Health Board Psychological Health External Advisory Subcommittee and the Returning Veterans Committee of the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
Arthur Nezu, PhD, ABPP
Arthur Nezu is a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology, Professor of Medicine, and Professor of Public Health at Drexel University, as well as Special Professor of Forensic Mental Health & Psychiatry at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. Dr. Nezu is best known as the co-developer of Problem-Solving Therapy (PST), a cognitive behavioral clinical intervention, and as the co-author of the Social Problem-Solving Inventory, a widely used measure of real-life problem solving. He has also served in leadership positions at the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), the World Congress of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, and the American Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Psychology (AACBP), and is recognized by the National Academies of Practice as a Distinguished Scholar/Practitioner of Psychology. He is currently working with the Department of Veterans Affairs to develop problem-solving based prevention programs meant to improve the adjustment of returning OEF/OIF veterans.
E. Cameron Ritchie, MD, MPH
Elspeth Cameron Ritchie is a colonel in the U.S. Army, as well as the Director of the Proponency Office for Behavioral Health at U.S. Army Medical Command and a Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. An internationally recognized expert, COL Ritchie’s work has taken her to Korea, Somalia, Iraq, and Cuba. She has over 130 publications, covering topics such as forensics, disaster, suicide, military combat and operational psychiatry, and women’s health issues, and is currently the senior editor on a new Military Medicine text on Combat and Operational Behavioral Health.
Jay H. Shore, MD, MPH
Jay Shore is a Program Officer for the Department of Defense Grant (TATRC), an Associate Medical Director of the Colorado Physicians Health Program, and an Associate Professor at both the University of Colorado Denver’s Department of Psychiatry and the School of Public Health’s Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health. Dr. Shore serves on the Executive Committee of the Four Corners Telehealth Consortium and the Board of Directors for the American Telemedicine Association. His expertise in telehealth has led him to publish several manuscripts on the subject and serve on telehealth planning committees for the Department of Defense, the Indian Health Service, and the University of Colorado. He is currently working on a telehealth project for military populations aimed at improving both quality and access to care.
Terri Tanielian, MA
Terri Tanielian is a senior social research analyst at the RAND Corporation, where she also serves as co-director of RAND’s Center for Military Health Policy Research. Her areas of interest include the psychological and behavioral impact of combat, terrorism and disasters, as well as access to high quality mental healthcare. Ms. Tanielian has worked on several studies on the behavioral health related needs of returning OEF/OIF veterans and their families and she co-led the landmark study “Invisible Wounds of War.” She is currently leading or contributing to several other studies examining the effects of deployment on servicemembers, veterans, and their families. She has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in mental healthcare services research and has served on numerous working groups and panels related to the psychological aspects of terrorism, disasters, and public health emergencies including pandemic influenza.