Scientific Advisory Board Members

Our Scientific Advisory Board members are charged with helping to identify knowledge gaps and prioritize areas where Center resources can achieve the greatest impact. We are so grateful for their service.

• Karen Baker, director of the National Violence Resource Center.
  Ms. Baker currently serves as the director for the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and as a board member of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. As director of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, Ms. Baker leads a diverse team who provides information and tools for individuals, communities and service providers working in the field of sexual violence. Ms. Baker is a licensed master's level social worker and earned her master's degree in Social Work from the University of Kansas. 
• Esther Deblinger, co-director, Child Abuse Research Education and Service Institute (CARES), and professor, School of Osteopathic Medicine, Rowan University.
  Dr. Deblinger obtained her PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and has conducted extensive clinical research examining the impact and treatment of childhood PTSD and related difficulties. This research has been funded by the Foundation of UMDNJ, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Deblinger has co-authored numerous scientific articles and book chapters, and published four books including Treating Trauma and Grief in Children and Adolescents: A Clinical Guide and the children’s book, Let's Talk about Taking Care of You: An Educational Book about Body Safety. Dr. Deblinger and her collaborators, Drs. Judith Cohen and Anthony Mannarino, have developed and extensively tested Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), a treatment program that has evolved as the clear standard of care for children and adolescents who have experienced abuse and/or other childhood trauma.
• David Finkelhor, director, Crimes Against Children Research Center, co-director, Family Research Laboratory, and professor of Sociology, University of New Hampshire.
  Dr. Finklehor has studied the problems of child victimization, child maltreatment and family violence since 1977. He is well known for his conceptual and empirical work on the problem of child sexual abuse, reflected in publications such as Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse (Sage, 1986) and Nursery Crimes (Sage, 1988). He has also written about child homicide, missing and abducted children, children exposed to domestic and peer violence and other forms of family violence. In his recent work, he has tried to unify and integrate knowledge about the diverse forms of child victimization in a field he has termed Developmental Victimology. He is editor and author of 10 books and more than 75 journal articles and book chapters. He has received grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, the U.S. Department of Justice, and a variety of other sources. In 1994, he was given the Distinguished Child Abuse Professional Award by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.
• Andrea Gielen, director, Center for Injury Research and Policy, and professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
  Dr. Gielen's research interests are in the development and evaluation of community- and clinic-based programs that address health behavior problems affecting women and children, primarily among low-income families in urban areas. The application of behavioral sciences to childhood injury control and domestic violence prevention programs, and the relationship between violence and HIV risk are areas of special focus. Childhood injury problems of particular interest are fires, burns, CO poisoning, and motor vehicle crashes. Current research focuses on the use of computers for patient and public safety education, community interventions to improve home safety, translation research to disseminate proven injury prevention interventions, the impact of housing conditions on child safety, and stage-tailored clinical interventions for survivors of domestic violence living with or at risk for HIV/AIDS.
• James A. Mercy, acting director, Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  In Dr. Mercy’s current position, he is responsible for Division of Violence Prevention research and outreach programs addressing violence globally. He earned a PhD in sociology from Emory University in 1982, and began his work at CDC that same year as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer assigned to violence prevention. Over the past three decades, he has helped to develop the public health approach to violence prevention. He has published more than 190 articles and overseen a number of seminal studies on the epidemiology, prevention, and costs of violence in the U.S. and other parts of the world. In 2009, Research! America named Dr. Mercy one of its public health heroes for his work on violence prevention. He also served as a co-editor of WHO's World Report on Violence and Health and on the Editorial Board of the United Nation Secretary-General’s Study of Violence against Children.
• Michael Seto, director, Forensic Research Unit, Royal's Institute of Mental Health Research, director of Forensic Rehabilitation Research, Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, and adjunct professor, University of Toronto, Ryerson University, Carleton University, University of Ottawa.
  Dr. Seto received a BSc. in Biopsychology from the University of British Columbia (1989), and an MA (1992) and PhD (1997) in Clinical Psychology from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He currently works as a consultant in the Integrated Forensic Program of the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group based at the Brockville Mental Health Centre site. Previously, he worked for more than 14 years at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Seto has published extensively on paraphilias and sexual offending, and regularly presents at scientific meetings and professional workshops on these topics. He has also appeared in a variety of media outlets to discuss his research. He has received research funding from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Correctional Service of Canada, and Mental Health Commission of Canada.