To begin the process of working with a CARAN fellow, please contact the Colorado Lab
Dr. Richard Lindrooth
Member of Colorado Lab Advisory Group
Areas of Expertise
- Economics of the Hospital Industry
- Mental Health Services Research
- Health policy
Dr. David Pyrooz (Read CV)
Member of Colorado Lab Advisory Group
Areas of Expertise
- Criminology
- Criminal Justice
- Research Design
“It is too often the case that researchers and practitioners and policymakers either talk past each other or don’t talk at all. Developing and maintaining partnerships that harness the needs and strengths of both groups will make lasting impacts on the people who need it most.”
Dr. Marc Winokur (Read CV)
Member of Colorado Lab Advisory Group
Areas of Expertise
- Child Maltreatment Prevention
- Child Welfare
- Kinship Care
“Actionable research means providing practitioners and policymakers with timely evidence that drives decision-making and practice enhancements to improve outcomes for children, youth, and families.”
Dr. Jennifer Bellamy (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Child Maltreatment Prevention
- Parent Engagement in Child and Family Services
- Fathering
“Actionable research has immediate, feasible, and direct application to supporting the delivery of high quality services to families. To be actionable, the research must do more than answer the question ‘what works?’”
Dr. Stephen Billings (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Environment Hazards and Housing
- Childhood Determinants of Crime
- Gentrification
“Partnerships are essential to both conducting policy-relevant research as well as implementing results. One of the biggest problems with academic research and policy-making is that they co-exist without any integration. Partnerships between researchers and policymakers can help make research matter for society as well as provide unique expertise and analysis to guide policymakers in obtaining their goals through well-informed decisions.”
Dr. Brian Bumbarger (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Public Systems Capacity Building and Coordination
- Community Mobilization and Collective Impact
- Prevention and Implementation Science
“I work at the intersection of research, public policy, and practice to improve outcomes for communities, families and children. Good government policy must be informed by the latest research and the latest research only matters if it is actualized by government partners in the form of better and more cost-effective services and systems.”
Dr. Doug Coatsworth (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Prevention Science
- Family-Based Interventions
- Community-Based Prevention Delivery Systems
“Working with government partners inspires me because I have seen the effects of productive collaborations predicated on mutualism…it proved to be a smart investment with strong ROI.”
Lanae Davis (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Program Evaluation
- Strategic Planning and Technical Assistance
- Child Support Services and Child Welfare
“As a researcher, I have worked with public agencies to better understand their clients and how to provide the most efficient and effective services to families they serve, with a primary focus on ensuring economic stability for low income families. What inspires me about this work is that policy is ever-evolving, and government agencies are increasingly interested in adapting services based on evidence generated through applied research in order to be more effective.”
Dr. Anne DePrince
Areas of Expertise
- Violence and Trauma, including Revictimization
- Social-Emotional and Cognitive Consequences of Violence and Trauma
- Community-Engaged Research on Violence and Trauma
Dr. Julia Dmitrieva (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Child and Adolescent Development
- Delinquency
- Analyses of Longitudinal Data and Data that is Nested within Organizations
“Community partners and academic professionals have a different set of expertise and access to knowledge, each side needs the other in order to do high-quality work. Most academic professionals desire to create knowledge that is useful and helpful; partnering with community partners can provide a path to support these goals,”
Dr. Catherine Durso (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Statistical Analysis
- Exploratory Data Analysis
- Data Visualization
“Partnerships are important in order to bring together subject matter experts with different emphases to identify, analyze, and address problems with societal impact.”
Dr. Todd Ely (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Public and Not-for-Profit Financial Management
- State and Local Government
- Education Policy and Finance
“Partnerships are essential to actionable research as they guarantee that we, as researchers, are asking the right questions. Crafting relevant research questions leads to impact and contributions valued by a host of stakeholders, including the public, community partners, policymakers, academia, and the media.”
Dr. Meg Franko (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Early Childhood Systems
- Early Childhood Workforce
- Evaluation and Implementation Capacity Building in Child- and Family-Serving Systems
“There is a need for more understanding of the barriers that keep systems apart, solutions for making improved connections, and impacts of systems alignment on child outcomes.”
Dr. Jeffrey Jenson (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Etiology and Prevention of Behavioral Health Problems in Young People
- Prevention Policy and Practice
- Intervention Research
“Partnerships are critical to actionable research and to affecting change in social policy that affects the lives of all people. Achieving the goals of reducing behavioral health problems, and the racial and socioeconomic disparities embedded in such problems, requires effective partnerships and cross-system research.”
Dr. Trent Lalonde (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Longitudinal and Intensive Longitudinal Data Analysis
- Time-to-Events Analysis
- Binary and Count Outcomes Analysis
“Actionable research requires extra steps to consider the context of research. The purpose needs to be driven by the needs of practitioners, and the results must be immediately understandable and clearly lead to “next steps” to improve practice.”
Dr. Jeffrey Lin (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Criminology
- Corrections
- Quantitative Methods
“To me, actionable research means that the reality of the world around us is considered at every stage of the research process–from designing a study, to considering data sources and analytic approaches, to the presentation of findings. It means that the products of research are deliberately and explicitly engaged in dialogues with public need and the institutional realities of relevant policy environments.”
Dr. Susan Opp (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Sustainability
- Economic Development
- Public Policy Analysis
“I am a pracademic by training and by experience. I work to be engaged with the community across my research, teaching, and service. Without a reciprocal relationship with government partners, it is difficult to understand the practical concerns, opportunities, and difficulties in working with public policy. My research and teaching are enhanced by partnering with government officials and I strive to be engaged with each and every project.”
Dr. Tara Opsal (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Prisoner Reentry
- Corrections
- System-Involved Youth
“In my experience, action-based research that is collaborative is not simple. However, when academic researchers partner with community or government agencies it provides clearer opportunities to address social problems in a way that can enhance, change, and create new on the ground approaches that shape people’s lives. This is the kind of impact I want my professional efforts to have.”
Dr. Rebecca Orsi (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Child Protective Services System Involvement
- Use of Administrative Data for Research
- Statistical and Quantitative Methods
“I’m inspired to collaborate with government partners to produce applied research that will make a positive difference in the lives of vulnerable children and families…the journey is definitely worthwhile.”
Dr. Josh Packard (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Surveys
- Focus Groups
- Program Evaluation
“Partnerships are important for actionable research because it is not often the case that any one person or entity has all of the skills, capacity or resources to move quickly on important issues. Partnerships can facilitate more agility coupled with expertise, a combination that is often missing in our applied research solutions.”
Dr. Nathaniel Riggs (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Prevention
- Social-Emotional Learning
- Positive Youth Development
“I find working with government partners inspiring because it facilitates the bi-directional research to policy pipeline. These partnerships provide alternative opportunities to the dissemination of research to the community and open the lines of communication necessary for the translation of research to practice.”
Dr. Diana Schaack
Areas of Expertise
- Early Childhood Quality and Accountability Policies
- Early Childhood Teacher Professional Development
- Ecological Correlates of Classroom Quality and Teacher-Child Attachment Relationships
“Actionable research is a bridge that links basic research and builds towards improved interventions, educational practices, and polices and connects those interventions, practices, and polices to the community.”
Dr. Heather Taussig (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Randomized Controlled Trials and Longitudinal Studies
- Child Maltreatment and Foster Care
- Youth Mentoring
“Actionable research permits the swift and clear translation of research findings into action for individuals, communities, agencies and governments. Actionable research is iterative; that is, the impact of implementing new policies or practices should be fed back into subsequent research questions which will then inform the next set of policies and practices. Actionable research should be transparent and limitations to the generalizability of findings should always be acknowledged.”
Dr. Tracy Vozar (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health
- Perinatal Mental Health
- Relationship-Based Assessment and Treatment
“In actionable research, it is the partners who influence what we, as researchers, examine, how we conduct our project, which lenses we view the issues from, and what products we are looking to create as outcomes.”
Dr. Kyle Ward (Read CV)
Areas of Expertise
- Jail and Prison Reentry
- Evidence-Based Crime Prevention Programs and Policies
- Rural Crime
“Partnerships are imperative for actionable research to thrive. They help answer questions about what is working, what is not working, and what is still unknown in order to develop strategies to implement and evaluate new and meaningful initiatives. “