Sarah Arias, Ph.D.
Research Psychologist | Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior sarah_arias@brown.edu
Dr. Arias is a Research Psychologist in the Psychosocial Research program at Butler Hospital and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. She has experience with the design and implementation of multi- and single-site suicide intervention trials, including the Emergency Department Safety Assessment and Follow-up Evaluation (ED-SAFE) study, the Coping Long-term with Active Suicide Program (CLASP) study, and the Suicide Prevention Intervention for at-Risk Individuals in Transition (SPIRIT) study. In addition to study coordination and data management, she has extensive experience with participant safety and monitoring. Dr. Arias has served as safety officer and DSMB liaison on NIH-funded suicide intervention trials (e.g., ED-SAFE, CLASP, SPIRIT). She has developed several effective data and safety management protocols attuned to issues specific to suicide and behavioral health research in high-risk samples. Her expertise also includes informing the development of suicide prevention and intervention work using large-scale databases, such as the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), in addition to electronic health record data collected during multi-site suicide intervention trials (e.g., ED-SAFE, CLASP, SPIRIT). Dr. Arias’ current work involves suicide prevention efforts for those involved in the criminal legal system (P50MH127512-01 8577) and development of computational approaches for identifying suicidal ideation and behavior in the electronic health record (Advance-CTR; NIGMS U54GM115677).
Heather Schatten, Ph.D. (she/her)
Research Psychologist | Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior heather_schatten@brown.edu
Heather Schatten, Ph.D., is a Research Psychologist in Butler Hospital’s Psychosocial Research Program and Assistant Professor (Research) in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Her work centers around identifying novel risk factors for suicidal ideation and behavior and developing real-time smartphone interventions targeting these risk factors.
Michael Armey, Ph.D.
Research Psychologist | Associate Director of CRISP michael_armey@brown.edu
Dr. Armey received his B.A. from Kenyon College and his Ph.D. from Kent State University. He went on to complete his clinical internship at Brown and was a post-doctoral fellow in the Psychosocial Research Program before becoming faculty in the department. Dr. Armey conducts research out of Butler Hospital. In addition to co-directing the CEL Lab, Dr. Armey is also an Associate Director of the Consortium for Research Innovation in Suicide Prevention.
Gary Epstein-Lubow, MD
Research Psychologist Gary_Epstein-Lubow@Brown.edu
Gary Epstein-Lubow, MD, is a Distinguished Medical Scholar at the Education Development Center (EDC), a geriatric psychiatrist, and a national leader in dementia-related research and policy. Dr. Epstein-Lubow’s work focuses on enriching the lives of people living with dementia and their family members by improving the quality of dementia care and expanding access to care through workforce development and health care system transformation. His work promotes the voices of people living with dementia and caregivers, to advance health equity for groups disproportionately negatively affected by dementia.
Lauren Weinstock, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist | Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior lauren_weinstock@brown.edu
Dr. Weinstock is a clinical psychologist and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. At Brown, she conducts research on the development and evaluation of adjunctive behavioral interventions for severe mood disorders and suicide prevention, delivered at highly vulnerable transitions in care (e.g., from inpatient to outpatient treatment, following ED discharge, and from criminal legal to community settings). Most exemplary of Dr. Weinstock’s research program is her current role as MPI of the NIMH-funded National Center for Health and Justice
Integration for Suicide Prevention (NCHATS; P501MH127512), her experiences as MPI of the multi-site Suicide Prevention for at-risk Individuals in Transition (SPIRIT; U01MH106660), and as co-developer of the Coping Long-Term with Active Suicide Program (Oxford University Press, 2022). She has published over 100 scholarly works and has been PI or Co-I on over 30 federal and foundation grants and contracts with over $85M in total costs.
In addition to her active engagement in research, Dr. Weinstock has been an active and energetic member of the Clinical Psychology Training Consortium at Brown. In this capacity, she has provided clinical and research supervision at the internship and postdoctoral levels and has served in multiple leadership roles within the clinical psychology training program, including in her current role as Director of Internship Training. She is Co-Director of Brown’s NIMH T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship in Suicide Research and Associate Director of Brown’s Consortium for Research Innovation in
Suicide Prevention. Her service to Brown also includes membership on the Brown DPHB’s Faculty Policies Working Group of the Anti-Racism Steering Committee and on the University’s Title IX Council and Task Force on Full-Time Non-Tenure Track Teaching Faculty. Outside of Brown, Dr. Weinstock recently completed a 4-year term as a standing member of the NIMH Mental Health Services Research (SERV) study section, sits on the Scientific Advisory of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, is a standing member of the NIMH Data Safety and Monitoring Board, and has served on the editorial boards of Behavior Therapy and the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science (formerly the Journal of Abnormal Psychology). She has provided consultation to numerous additional national and international workgroups on best practices in research and treatment of serious mental illness and suicide prevention.
Jennifer Barredo, Ph.D. (she/her)
Assistant Professor jennifer_barredo@brown.edu
Dr. Jennifer Barredo is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. She also serves as the Director of the Clinical Neuroimaging Research Core at Brown University and leads Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) cores affiliated with the Providence VA and Butler Hospital in Providence, RI. Broadly, Dr. Barredo’s research aims are to identify biological signatures of vulnerability and resilience that can be leveraged to optimize treatments for suicidality and other mental health interventions.
Christopher Hughes, Ph.D. (he/him)
Research Psychologist christopher_hughes@brown.edu
Christopher D. Hughes, Ph.D., is a Research Psychologist in Butler Hospital’s Psychosocial Research Program. His research focuses on improving the prediction and prevention of suicidal thoughts and behaviors through two complementary lines of work: identifying novel, proximal risk factors for suicide and developing real-time, mobile-health interventions targeting those risk factors.
Madeline Benz, Ph.D. (she/her)
Research Psychologist | Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior
Madeline Benz, PhD, is a Research Psychologist in Butler Hospital’s Psychosocial Research Program and a Assistant Professor (Research) in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Her research focuses on improving the identification and prevention of overdose-related risk behaviors for dual diagnosis populations. Specifically, she investigates the overlap of substance use and suicidal thoughts and behaviors to inform intervention development to mitigate adverse outcomes associated with this common co-occurrence.
