In addition to founding and directing CERD, Joel Brown has dedicated his career to research, evaluation and the practices supporting youth and human development across a variety of settings. He was among the first to view resilience as a skill set that can be applied in any public health/medicine, social welfare or educational environment. He has a long and successful track record of bridging and connecting research to practice in the resilience space. In addition to numerous awards for such efforts, Brown’s nationally and internationally recognized research is balanced with structural and clinical practice(s) embracing the key components of the CERD approach: strengths-based professional development needs assessment and strategic planning, program and policy evaluation.

Joel also currently serves as a Senior Scientist at the University of California, San Diego. Having served as Professor of Leadership at the University of Oklahoma and San Diego State University, respectively.

He presents his subject matter in a mixed methods program—an amalgam of education, public health, and social welfare. His nationally recognized youth development research is balanced with a structural and clinical practice(s) embracing the key components of the CERD approach: strengths-based needs assessment and strategic planning, professional development, program and policy evaluation.

Joel’s client base includes local, state and federal agencies as well as organizations known the world over: the Conrad Hilton Foundation, Aspen Institute, U.S. General Accountability Office (USGAO), the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health, to name a few. He has authored and co-authored numerous books on strengths-based youth development—evaluation, practice and cultural competence—most notably his Resilience Education, published by Corwin Press/Sage Press. His work has been featured in a wide array of media outlets: ABC’s 20/20, the New York Times, National Public Radio, and Rolling Stone. He has and/or currently serves as an editorial board member of several national scientific journals: Review of Educational Research, American Educational Research Association, Journal of Drug Education, Urban Education Journal. The American Educational Research Association (AERA) has established an award in Brown’s name, the Joel H. Brown Award—Recognition of Innovative Methodology and Applications.

Dr. Jean-Marie is Dean of the College of Education, Rowan University. Her work with CERD focuses on special populations of students, primarily economically disadvantaged students and individuals of limited English proficiency, who are underrepresented in educational practices. She facilitates workshops for educators and community members, providing curricular modifications to help cultivate a Resilience culture in the curriculum. She works with young people, helping them to engage in cooperative learning; she conducts evaluations to determine if the programs and services are meeting the academic, social and emotional needs of the students. Her research interests include authentic teaching and learning, issues of equity and justice, and women and educational leadership. With the stated goal of increasing choices and opportunities for adolescents in the CERD program, she uses empirically grounded Resilience research as a basis for educational policies and scholarly writing.

Helen Sachs Chaset has dedicated her decades-long career to problem-solving, communication, conflict resolution and skills mastery that enhance protective factors. With years of experience in facilitating CERD’s resilience efforts, she brings a wealth of diverse knowledge to engage a wide array of clients. Her nationally recognized Leadership for Violence Prevention Program, a project funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, is a demonstration of personal and interpersonal process skills and the efficacy of resilience-based programming, serves as a peer leadership model for middle schools.

Dr. Chaset has provided training to schools, districts government agencies and non-profit organizations on a wide variety of topics including Interagency Collaboration, Using Demographics to Analyze Client Needs, Leadership and Group Process, Quality Management Tools, Organizational Diagnosis and Teambuilding. During her tenure as a school principal in Bethesda, Maryland, Dr. Chaset trained prospective administrators through Johns Hopkins University, Hood College, The George Washington University and Morgan State University.  She has served as a consultant to organizations such as the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the Maryland Business Roundtable and recently served as the Director of Professional Development for Scheck Hillel Community School in North Miami Beach. She served as Chairperson of the Board of Jewish Community Services of South Florida, serves on the executive board of the Miami Dade Holocaust Survivors. She has served as a grants reviewer for The Children’s Trust and works as volunteer tutor and staff trainer at the Miami Rescue Mission Community Center.

Dr. D’Emidio-Caston co-constructed CERD’s internationally recognized resilience-as-skill capacity. As co-author of the book “Resilience Education,” she also brings more than 40 years of field experience as coach. Among myriad such efforts, she for example served as lead coach in transitioning the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s prevention and treatment professionals toward resilience.

Her background in teaching and learning theory exemplifies the universal application of resilience. Her article “Making Meaning in Classrooms: An Investigation of Cognitive Processes in Aspiring Teachers, Experienced Teachers and Their Peers,” authored with four others and published in the American Educational Research Journal, received the Association of Teacher Educators’ Distinguished Research in Teacher Education award in 1995. Her chapter “Preparing Teachers to Serve Children and Families with Diverse Backgrounds” was published in Joining Hands: Preparing Teachers to Make Meaningful Home-School Connections, issued by the California Department of Education and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Most recently, she authored the invited paper, “Addressing Social Emotional Development and Resilience at the Heart of Teacher Education,” for Teacher Education Quarterly.

While serving as a CERD coach, she directed the Master of Arts in Education and Teaching Credential Program, Antioch University. Before these endeavors, she worked for nine years in the Graduate School of Education at University of California, Santa Barbara where she was coordinator of the elementary teacher education program and taught foundations and procedures courses. She also supervised the fieldwork of student teachers and taught supervision and instruction courses for students pursuing an administrative credential.

For over 30 years, Dr. Beck has been involved with practically all facets of prevention science. Beginning with his work as an Information Specialist at the University of Oregon Drug Information Center in the 1970s and later as an Instructor in the University of Oregon Health Education School during the early 1980s, Beck provided age- and experience-appropriate drug education to diverse populations within a wide variety of settings. Relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1982, he continued his work in the prevention field as the Drug Educator/Counselor for the Chinatown Youth Center in San Francisco. In addition to giving hundreds of speaking engagements in Oregon, Beck delivered over 150 lectures to audiences ranging from primary, secondary and college students to incarcerated youth and adult populations over the course of his two-year employment at the center.

Beck has also served in a senior capacity on several federal grants. He was the Co-Principal Investigator for the federally-funded sociological study of “Ice and Other Methamphetamine Use” (NIDA R01-DA06853). In research involving other drugs, he served as Project Director for the “Exploring Ecstasy” study (NIDA R01-DA04408), whose findings informed his dissertation: “The MDMA Controversy: Contexts of Use and Social Control” (1990) in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He also co-authored a book with Dr. Marsha Rosenbaum on this subject, Pursuit of Ecstasy: The MDMA Experience (State University of New York (SUNY) Press: 1994).

Beck continued to pursue his interest in the field of prevention throughout his graduate studies in Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, receiving his doctorate there in 1990. He has most recently authored “100 Years of ‘Just Say No’: Reevaluating Drug Education Goals for the Coming Century” (Evaluation Review, February, 1998).