James Allen

James Allen is a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Duluth Campus. Allen collaborates on research documenting effectiveness of culturally grounded strategies for Indigenous youth suicide and substance use prevention. For 25 years, he has worked in the development of Qungasvik (Toolbox), a community intervention that promotes protective factors from Alaska Native youth suicide and substance use risk with funding from NIAAA, NIMHD, and NIMH. In other current work, Allen collaborates with the NIMH/NIMHD funded Alaska Native Collaborative Hub for Research on Resilience (ANCHRR), to describe grassroots Alaska Native youth suicide prevention efforts and to conduct the Alaska Native Community Resilience Study (ANCRS). He also assists a series of research projects of the Northwest Indian College (NWIC) Native American Research Center for Health (NARCH) exploring cultural and spiritual factors in recovery from opioid addiction in Pacific Northwest and Northern Minnesota tribal communities.

Eric Caine

Dr. Caine has served as Co-Director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide (CSPS) at the University of Rochester Medical Center since its founding in 1998. During his career, he has led three major research centers, including the CDC funded Injury Control Research Center for Suicide Prevention (2012-2020) and the NIMH/NIDA funded developing Center for Public Health and Population Interventions for Preventing Suicide (2004-2010). Framed in the context of “public health and preventive psychiatry,” these centers forged new public health, community-oriented approaches to preventing suicide, attempted suicide, and their antecedent risks—in great measure by addressing “upstream” (“distal”) risk and protective factors. Dr. Caine also has experience since the 1970s in the evaluation, management, and aftercare of psychiatric patients, including acutely suicidal individuals.

Participation now in PC CARES serves as another avenue to explore how best to develop community-integrated approaches to preventing suicide, especially in settings where traditional health systems fail to reach.

Rhonda Johnson

Rhonda Johnson is a recently retired Professor of Public Health at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), who was actively involved in the development and leadership of the UAA MPH program for many years. Her long standing interest in intentional injury prevention stems from several decades work as a primary care clinician and program manager in underserved communities.  She particularly values the strength-based, community-led and participatory approach of the PC CARES project. 

Kirk Domborwski

Kirk Dombrowski became Vice President for Research at University of Vermont in April 2020. Formerly Dombrowski held several additional leadership positions at University of Nebraska (UNL), including the founding director of the university’s Rural Drug Addiction Research Center.

A cultural anthropologist by training, Dombrowski is also an active researcher whose work straddles the social and behavioral health sciences, a link he has used to address issues public of concern and social good, such as HIV infection dynamics, drug and alcohol addiction, minority health disparities, and suicide prevention in Native American/First Nation communities.