Our Team
Gregory Aarons, PhD
LOCI Developer
Dr. Aarons is a clinical and organizational psychologist, Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego, Director of the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center (CASRC), and Co-Director of the UC San Diego Dissemination and Implementation Science Center (DISC). His research has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Mental Health, Centers for Disease Control, and the W.T. Grant Foundation, and focuses on improving system, organizational, and individual factors supporting evidence-based practice implementation and sustainment in behavioral health, schools, child welfare, HIV prevention, and trauma care in the US, Norway, and West Africa. Click here to learn more about Dr. Aarons.
Mark Ehrhart, PhD
LOCI Developer
Dr. Ehrhart is a professor in the Industrial/Organizational Psychology Program at the University of Central Florida. His research, funded by National Institute of Mental Health, Institute of Educational Sciences, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and American Nurses Foundation, focuses on leadership and strategic climate, including climate for implementation, and developing measures of implementation climate. His recent work has focused on the role of the organizational context in the implementation of evidence-based practice in mental health, child welfare, substance abuse treatment, and nursing settings. Click here to learn more about Dr. Ehrhart.
Marisa Sklar, PhD
LOCI Facilitator and Data Manager
Dr. Sklar is an Assistant Professor, licensed clinical psychologist, and program evaluator in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. Her research and evaluation work aims to improve mental health by targeting organizational- and system-level factors that influence the delivery of healthcare. She has received funding through the National Institute of Mental Health and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to assess the impacts of multiple healthcare models and systems on patient, provider, organization, and system-level outcomes. Click here to learn more about Dr. Sklar.
Joella (Phillips) Friedman
Project Coordinator
Joella is a Research Program Coordinator in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. She brings a wealth of experience in the coordination of large-scale NIH funded implementation research studies. She has served as the coordinator for several adaptations of LOCI, as well as for Dr. Aarons' other ongoing research projects.
Erika Crable, PhD
System-Level Team Lead
Dr. Crable is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and at the H.W. School of Public Health and Human Longevity at UC San Diego. Her research focuses on improving the use of research evidence in federal, state, and local policymaking processes. She also tests the utility of implementation strategies for promoting access to evidence-based substance use treatment and harm reduction services for safety-net and justice-involved populations. Click here to learn more about Dr. Crable.
Manon Ironside, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Scholar and LOCI Coach
Manon is a postdoctoral research scholar and LOCI coach in the department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. She has a doctorate in Clinical Science from UC Berkeley. Her graduate-level research focused on building and testing computational models of goal-directed decision making in the context of mental illness. Her current research at UCSD is focused on identifying and addressing barriers to the implementation of evidence-based practices across organizational and system levels.
Siena Fisk
Research Associate
Siena Fisk is a Health Policy and Organizational Research Assistant in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. She received her Bachelor of Science in Public Health from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. In addition to working on the LOCI Project, she currently works under Dr. Erika Crable where she supports multiple NIDA-funded research studies focused on evidence-based substance use treatment and evidence-informed policy making. Siena aims to pursue a PhD with the goal of improving access to quality healthcare both nationally and internationally.
Cathleen Willging, PhD
Qualitative Team
Dr. Willging is a medical anthropologist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) with experience in mixed-method research, intervention development and evaluation, and implementation science. Her research focuses on public mental health and substance use treatment, evidence-based practice implementation and sustainment in complex systems, and the advancement of culturally- and contextually-relevant programs to support marginalized groups affected by inequities in health. Her current work entails the application of implementation science theory and methods to support innovative programming to reduce health and healthcare disparities for minoritized populations in diverse service delivery settings, i.e., primary care practices, child welfare, and educational institutions.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Willging.
Daniel Shattuck, PhD
Qualitative Team
Dr. Shattuck is a Research Associate Scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) and an applied sociocultural anthropologist with a focus on addressing the health disparities of structurally vulnerable populations, particularly sexual and gender minority youth. His work has been heavily influenced by ethnographic methods, multimodal and long-term engagement with local communities, and a holistic perspective. He has merged my anthropological skillset with implementation science to support and conduct high-impact health disparities research and provide technical support for addressing the structural vulnerabilities of sexual and gender minority populations. I undertake qualitative, longitudinal, and mixed-method research on the implementation and adaptation of multi-level interventions in collaboration with diverse communities.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Shattuck.
Alex Kandah
Research Assistant
Alex Kandah is a research assistant for the LOCI project. She is a current Industrial-Organizational Psychology doctoral student working under Dr. Mark Ehrhart at the University of Central Florida. She has research interests in implementation citizenship behavior and leadership. She is currently working on her Master’s thesis, which examines the role of both individual difference and contextual factors that influence implementation citizenship behavior ratings within the context of EBP implementation.