Our Team

Jessica Pearson, Center for Policy Research, Co-Project Director, Policy Co-Lead

Jessica Pearson, PhD, is the Director at Center for Policy Research (CPR). Dr. Pearson serves as the SAVES Center’s Co-Project Director and is responsible for convening and facilitating the national advisory board, overseeing all CPR efforts for the SAVES Center, providing training and technical assistance support, co-leading the evaluation of pilot interventions at the sites, and engaging in the development of new policy and administrative guidance. She is a nationally recognized expert on child support, responsible fatherhood, and domestic violence. Dr. Pearson is an effective project director and has worked with federal, state, and local agencies to design, implement, and evaluate more than 100 demonstration and evaluation projects dealing with domestic violence, mediation, parenting-time, and all aspects of child support. She led pioneering research on hospital-based paternity, parenting time programs, access and visitation, supervised visitation, and parent education. Dr. Pearson also did research on victims of domestic violence in the Colorado, Massachusetts, and Minnesota child support systems. This included assessing the rate of domestic violence disclosure using different screening methods, victim interest in receiving child support, and experiences with the good cause application process. With the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, she directed the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) Building Evidence for Domestic Violence Evidence and Services Project. Dr. Pearson directs the Fatherhood Research & Practice Network (FRPN), which promotes rigorous evaluation and policy development in the fatherhood field.

Ruby White Starr, Caminar Latino - Latinos United for Peace and Equity, Co-Project Director

Ruby is an indigenous Latinx survivor with a 25-year career in the violence against women’s field. Ruby has operated and led domestic violence shelters and transitional housing programs, provided consultation and training in almost every U.S. city and territory and across Canada and South America, secured and administered over 15 million dollars in funds to improve outcomes for victims of violence, and lead the implementation of more than 50 federal projects to respond to violence against women.

Before launching LUPE, Ruby directed the National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities (NLN) where she led programs such as Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women’s (OVW) program to Enhance Culturally Specific Services for Victims and the Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking on Campus program to strengthen the response of institutions of higher education. Prior to the NLN, Ruby served as Assistant Director of the Family Violence Department for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) where she worked for 15 years. At NCJFCJ, Ruby directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Resource Center on Domestic Violence: Child Protection and Custody and the OVW’s Safe Haven’s Supervised Visitation and Exchange Technical Assistance Program; the Adolescent Relationship Abuse Training for Judges Program; and the Federal Greenbook Initiative, an interagency collaboration to address the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child maltreatment.

She is the author of several articles on racial equity, resiliency and domestic violence, a comprehensive list can be found here: Ruby White Starr Google Scholar Page

April Wilson, Child Trends, Co-Project Director, Research and Evaluation Co-Lead

April Wilson, PhD, is a Research Scholar and the Program Area Director in the Parenting and Family Dynamics research area at Child Trends. Dr. Wilson serve as the SAVES Center’s Co-Project Director, Co-Research and Evaluation Lead, and a Training and Technical Assistance Specialist. She has previously led other national centers and brings over a decade of experience in all topics and activities relevant to the SAVES Center. Dr. Wilson has led multiple local and national evaluations and research on a range of topics relevant to supporting family well-being, provided and overseen national training and technical assistance efforts, and directed research to support policy to address and prevent family violence. For example, she has served as the lead researcher and director for a child welfare advocacy group, conducted research on engaging fathers in efforts to address and prevent intimate partner violence, was part of a governor-appointed task force to address the intersection between domestic violence and child maltreatment, and volunteered for 10 years as a crisis specialist at a local domestic violence agency. Dr. Wilson also conducted research for the Texas child support agency on factors linked to fathers’ paternity establishment, financial and emotional involvement, and allocation of resources across households.

Heather Rego, Colorado Division of Child Support Services, Grant Administrator

Heather Rego, BA, is the Marketing and Communications Lead for the Colorado Division of Child Support Services. Ms. Rego serves as the Interim SAVES Center Project Manager. She has over 10 years of child support program experience at both the state and county level. Her background ranges from family engagement, process improvement, and financial services, to grant/project management, policy development, and communications. Ms. Rego believes that the key to success with any project is to always keep the customer/family at the center point of focus.

Pierre R. Berastaín, Caminar Latino - Latinos United for Peace and Equity, Project Manager, Training and Technical Assistance Lead

Sydney Briggs, Child Trends, Project Manager

Sydney Briggs, MPAff, is a Research Scientist in Child Trends’ Parenting and Family Dynamics research area. Ms. Briggs is the Project Manager for the SAVES Center, coordinating the SAVES Center’s operations, and overseeing resource development and dissemination activities. She is a mixed-methods researcher who works on improving system responses to intimate partner violence. Previously, Ms. Briggs served as project director for two evaluations of pilot strategies seeking to enhance supports that domestic violence agencies provide to survivors who also have an open child welfare case, and she has also worked as a domestic violence legal advocate assisting survivors through the protective order process.

Anne Byrne, Center for Policy Research, Project Manager

Anne Byrne, MS, is a Research Associate at CPR. Ms. Bryne serves as CPR’s Project Manager and provides training and technical assistance support for the SAVES Center. She has extensive experience in both violence against women issues and child support services. During her career leading non-profit organizations, she founded Denver’s rape crisis center and implemented a large, multisite literacy program for elementary youth. As a nonprofit consultant, Ms. Byrne provided training and technical assistance to organizations and community initiatives on program development, governance, and general management. At CPR, she has led research and evaluation efforts on TANF and Medicaid policy, three states’/Tribes’ implementation of Child Support digital marketing demonstration grants, two state’s/tribe’s Child Support economic mobility demonstration grants, an employment program for non-custodial parents in child support services, as well as engagement with programs for homeless families and child welfare projects.

Lonna Davis, Futures Without Violence, Senior Advisor

Lonna Davis is the Director of the Children and Youth Program at Futures Without Violence. Ms. Davis brings personal experience as a survivor of violence and sexual assault and over thirty years of a demonstrated track record on behalf of women, children and families who experience violence.

Ms. Davis has 20 years of experience providing technical assistance to states and communities concerning violence against women, child abuse and children’s exposure to violence. She has been in the forefront of several national initiatives, including the Attorney General’s Defending Childhood Initiative, the Greenbook Initiative and most recently, a National Quality Improvement Center focused on children and families involved in the child welfare system who are experiencing domestic violence. Ms. Davis also co-founded the National Institute on Fatherhood and Domestic Violence and has led many efforts to develop solutions to the problems of violence against women and children’s exposure to violence.

Prior positions include working in two domestic violence programs and a Boston based trauma clinic performing forensic evaluations of children exposed to violence. Ms. Davis also worked for a decade at the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, where she co-founded the first domestic violence program to address child abuse within the child protection setting.

Mindy Scott, Child Trends, Senior Advisor

Mindy Scott, PhD, is a Senior Research Scholar in the Parenting and Family Dynamics research area at Child Trends. Dr. Scott is a Senior Advisor to the SAVES Center. She leads two national centers that translate research into practical guidance and resources for program providers. Her experience establishing, maintaining, and evaluating the work these Centers do will be leveraged across the life of the project. Dr. Scott also brings 16 years of experience conducting research and evaluation and providing implementation and evaluation training and technical assistance for a range of youth and family-serving programs including Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education, Responsible Fatherhood, and Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Programs.

Yiyu Chen, Child Trends, Policy Co-Lead

Yiyu Chen, PhD, is a Research Scientist II in the Parenting and Family Dynamics research area at Child Trends. Dr. Chen serves as the Policy Co-Lead for the SAVES Center. For over a decade, she has dedicated herself to the understanding of how child poverty and family structure interplay, and how safety net programs mitigate child poverty and its adverse consequences. Dr. Chen publishes studies and analyses around child support, child custody, program access, program participation, and disparities in economic well-being across diverse populations including low-income single-parent, Hispanic, and immigrant families. Prior to joining Child Trends, she worked at the Institute for Research on Poverty, where she analyzed linked administrative and court records data from Wisconsin to inform child support policy. Dr. Chen has also held a researcher position at the California Department of Social Services Office of Child Abuse Prevention, where she provided research and analytic support to child maltreatment prevention programs, evaluations, and partnerships.

Lanae Davis, Center for Policy Research, Research and Evaluation Co-Lead

Lanae Davis, MPA, is a Senior Research Associate at CPR. Ms. Davis co-leads the Research and Evaluation task and is a Training and Technical Assistance Specialist for the SAVES Center. She has 25 years of experience as a senior researcher and has extensive experience designing research projects from cross-site randomized controlled trials to process and outcomes studies. Ms. Davis has worked on dozens of 1115 demonstration projects across multiple states, including the Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services (BICS) and the Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration (CSPED) projects, and has coordinated data collection in large-scale multi-site projects, analyzed administrative data drawn from child support systems and provided training and technical assistance. Ms. Davis served as the principal investigator on the CDC-funded DELTA grant awarded to the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, designing and conducting three distinct sexual violence prevention evaluations, was the lead researcher on Colorado’s Domestic Violence Program evaluation.

Karlee Naylon, Child Trends, Resource Development and Public Awareness Lead

Karlee Naylon, MPP, is a Research Analyst in the Child Welfare research area at Child Trends. Naylon serves as the Task Lead for Resource Development and Public Awareness for the SAVES Center. They have a background in interdisciplinary qualitative and quantitative research, and their interests include interventions that can address economic and family instability rooted in poverty. Prior to joining Child Trends, Naylon provided technical assistance to and developed resources for nonprofits and state and local agencies to help them secure federal funding for civil legal aid and collaborated with a state-funded nonprofit in Missouri to demonstrate the positive impacts that family mediation and legal services can have on meeting families’ needs within their individual circumstances.

Juan Carlos Areán, Futures Without Violence, Training and Technical Assistance Specialist

Juan Carlos Areán, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized activist, public speaker, trainer and facilitator, and published author. Since 1991, he has worked to engage men across different cultures to become better fathers, intimate partners and allies to end domestic violence and achieve gender equity. He presently works as a Program Director at Futures Without Violence. Previously, he served as Director of the National Latin@ Network at Casa de Esperanza and as a Sexual Assault Prevention Specialist at Harvard University.

Dr. Areán was the lead developer of Futures Without Violence’s Fathering After Violence Initiative and Casa de Esperanza’s Campaign Te Invito. He is co-author of various articles, curricula and educational tools for men, including Working With Fathers in Batterer Intervention Programs (Oxford University Press) and Healing and Supporting Fathers: Principles, Practices, and Resources for Fatherhood Programs to Help Address and Prevent Domestic Violence (OPRE). He is a founding member of the United Nations Network of Men Leaders to combat violence against women created by former Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Dr. Areán has served as an expert in many media outlets, including the New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the Huffington Post, Medium, CNN en Español, Univisión and Telemundo. He is an active trainer and facilitator, who has led hundreds of workshops and presentations throughout the United States, the Americas and the Caribbean, as well as in Europe, Asia, the US Congress, the White House, and the United Nations in New York and Geneva.

Samantha Ciaravino, Child Trends, Training and Technical Assistance Specialist

Samantha “Sam” Ciaravino, MPH, is a Research Scientist I in the Parenting and Family Dynamics research area at Child Trends. Ms. Ciaravino serves as a Training and Technical Assistance Specialist for the SAVES Center. Her research interests focus on violence prevention, healthy relationships, and adolescent reproductive health. Ms. Ciaravino has over 10 years of experience leading large scale, mixed method evaluation projects and process evaluations. Currently she serves as the project director on a randomized controlled trial evaluation of the Many Ways of Being curriculum, an innovative sexual health promotion program focused on addressing rigid gender norms and promoting healthy relationships. Previously, Ms. Ciaravino coordinated two rigorous evaluations of teen dating violence prevention programs, Coaching Boys into Men and Manhood 2.0.

Carisa Clinton, Training and Technical Assistance Specialist

Carisa Clinton is the Program Manager for Safe Economic Access at Caminar Latino – Latinos United for Peace and Equity (CL-LUPE). As a social worker and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) practitioner, she focuses on working with underserved and marginalized communities, particularly survivors of domestic violence and individuals with disabilities.

Ms. Clinton joins the SAVES Center with experience in public policy and human services systems, with a notable focus on Child Support Services at both the state and local levels. Prior to her role at CL-LUPE, Carisa served as a Project Manager and Grants Administrator for the State of Colorado’s Division of Child Support Services. During her tenure with the State of Colorado, Ms. Clinton led efforts to advance EDI initiatives within the Office of Economic Security and across the Department of Human Services. These efforts included the creation of inclusive spaces for staff learning and professional development and the development of equitable hiring and recruitment processes which promote the value of lived experience in the workforce.

Ms. Clinton also brings local implementation experience as a county IV-D Administrator for the Child Support Program. Her expertise in state and local Child Support administration now informs her training and technical assistance role at the SAVES Center.

Lisa Kim, Child Trends, Training and Technical Assistance Specialist

Lisa Kim, BA, is a Senior Research Analyst in the Parenting and Family Dynamics research area at Child Trends. Ms. Kim serves as a Training and Technical Assistance Specialist for the SAVES Center. She supports a broad range of work focused on healthy relationships, intimate partner violence, responsible fatherhood, and sexual and reproductive health. Ms. Kim has experience leading and supporting qualitative research and managing a training and technical assistance project for adolescent pregnancy prevention grantees. She is passionate about improving access to high-quality care for underserved communities and understanding the impact of racial and ethnic inequalities, socioeconomic factors, and systems and policies on health outcomes.

Melissa Johnson, Caminar Latino - Latinos United for Peace and Equity, Research Specialist

Dr. Melissa Hope Johnson (Ph.D., M.P.H.) is an applied cultural and medical anthropologist with over 15 years of experience carrying out mixed-methods, community-based research and evaluation within child and family serving systems. She currently serves as Senior Research and Evaluation Manager at Caminar Latino – Latinos United for Peace and Equity (LUPE), where she leads research and evaluation initiatives for the National Center to Advance Peace for Children, Youth, and Families. In this role, Dr. Johnson’s work focuses on advancing research at the intersections of domestic violence and the child welfare system to improve state and community responses to vulnerable families, with an emphasis on cultivating equitable and culturally responsive approaches in addressing family violence. Throughout her career, Dr. Johnson’s research and scholarship have focused on understanding the needs and experiences of marginalized children and families, and the ways in which systems designed to intervene in the lives of families produce and reinforce vulnerability along lines of race, class, and gender. Her work includes research and evaluation projects pertaining to the child welfare system, children’s mental health systems of care, the juvenile justice system, families experiencing domestic violence, and state and community-based responses to human trafficking. She is particularly interested in policy and practice-oriented research that promotes equity and social justice among child and family serving systems.

Patricia Moen, Caminar Latino - Latinos United for Peace and Equity, Training and Technical Assistance Specialist

Patricia Moen, Chief of Programs and Administration at Caminar Latino – Latinos United for Peace and Equity, brings a unique skill set to her role, combining visionary thinking with practical implementation strategies. With 23 years of dedicated experience in the field of domestic violence, Patricia’s career journey encompasses direct work with Latina survivors, extensive training and technical assistance, and cultural program development, implementation, and evaluation. She spent 16 years at Casa de Esperanza (now Esperanza United), a Minnesota-based national Latina organization striving to eradicate domestic violence. Before that, she served as the Violence Against Women’s Act Program Coordinator at YMCA International Services in Houston.

Patricia is a key supporter of various technical assistance initiatives, including the National Center to Advance Peace for Children, Youth, and Families, Outreach to Culturally Specific Organizations, and the SAVES Center. Her past work includes technical assistance for the Promising Futures Initiative and the Quality Improvement Center on Domestic Violence and Child Welfare.

She holds a BA in History with distinction from the College of St. Benedict, where she also minored in Spanish, contributing to her mastery of the language. Patricia’s expertise lies in strategic thinking, administration, systems-building, federal-grants management, organizational development, and mission-driven leadership. She is deeply committed to advocating for individuals and organizations across the nation, identifying strengths, building capacity, and fostering growth. Currently, Patricia serves as a member of the Community Research Ethics Board of the Cultural Wellness Center in Minneapolis, MN.

Heidi Notario, Caminar Latino - Latinos United for Peace and Equity, Training and Technical Assistance Specialist

Heidi Notario, M.A. (she, her, ella) currently serves as the Chief of Education and Access at Caminar Latino-Latinos United for Peace & Equity. Heidi is a Queer immigrant Latina with a wealth of expertise in community organizing, disability, racial justice activism, and the application of linguistic justice-centered participatory methodologies to guide practice and evidence building efforts. Previously, she held the position of Vice President of Strategic Partnerships & Systems Change at the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) where she oversaw the work of the Policy and Research Team.

Heidi has dedicated over a decade to advocating for the rights of gender-based violence survivors, focusing on Latinxs, individuals with disabilities, and Deaf communities. She actively works at the intersections of violence against people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrant communities and others living on the margins. In addition, Heidi is deeply committed to addressing the connections between housing insecurity and gender-based violence, with a specific emphasis on racial inequities and lack of sovereignty.

Her areas of expertise encompass a wide range of issues related to the treatment and support provided to survivors of gender-based violence. With a human rights framework, a trauma informed lens, and through the application of linguistic justice approaches, she places a strong emphasis on “accessibility” and strives to eliminate barriers that affect survivors with intersecting identities, their children, and communities.

Heidi approaches her work and personal life with a focus on transformative justice, community building, and healing. Originally from Cuba, she has resided in the U.S. since 1995. Heidi holds a Masters’ Degree in Sociology from Lehigh University.

Emma Pliskin, Child Trends, Research Specialist

Emma Pliskin, MPH, is a Senior Research Analyst in the Sexual and Reproductive Health research area at Child Trends. Ms. Pliskin serves as a Research Specialist for the SAVES Center. She has over seven years of research experience, including leading data collection on a large, multi-state, longitudinal study assessing the impacts of policy changes on access to family planning services. Ms. Pliskin also has experience working with survivors of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and domestic violence in a variety of settings. Her research interests include community-based and participatory research methods; program evaluations; sexuality, LGBTQ health needs, and LGBTQ health disparities; consent, healthy relationships, sexual violence, and reproductive coercion; reproductive justice; and anti-racist and anti-incarceration initiatives.

Shellie Taggart, Futures Without Violence, Training and Technical Assistance Specialist

Shellie Taggart is a Program Director at Futures Without Violence on the Children and Youth Team. The team is a group of thought leaders and practice and policy innovators who help change social norms, advance race and gender equity, build leadership in the field, and develop the capacity of systems, organizations and communities to help children and families to thrive. Ms. Taggart recently directed a 5-year, federally funded demonstration project to implement and evaluate a collaborative approach to domestic violence (DV) within child welfare the centered the interconnected experiences and needs of adult and child survivors. Ms. Taggart has worked at the intersection of DV and public systems for 25 years, including more than a decade as an independent consultant working on national and state-level system improvement efforts, including analyzing policy, developing and delivering training, and designing and publishing practice guidance.

Rachel Wildfeuer, Center for Policy Research, Training and Technical Assistance Specialist, Research Specialist

Rachel Wildfeuer, PhD, is a Research Analyst at CPR. Dr. Wildfeuer serves as a Research Specialist and a Training and Technical Assistance Specialist for the SAVES Center. At CPR, she works to design and conduct research projects related to child support, child welfare, father engagement, and domestic violence prevention, including the CDC-funded DELTA grant awarded to the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence. Dr. Wildfeuer worked on a study funded by FRPN on maltreatment attributed to fathers in the child welfare system and has co-authored a comprehensive compilation of fatherhood policy in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Alexandra Lichota, Center for Policy Research, Research Assistant

Alexandra Lichota, BS, is a Research Assistant at CPR. Ms. Lichota also serves as a Research Assistant for the SAVES Center. She began at CPR in 2023 and has supported projects aimed at improving child support outcomes, enhancing economic mobility and cultural connectedness, and evaluating the use of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy in school-based settings. Ms. Lichota received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Illinois State University and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in research and evaluation methods. Before joining CPR, she worked in youth development and educational research.

Ria Shelton, Child Trends, Research Assistant

Ria Shelton, BA, is a Senior Research Assistant in the Parenting and Family Dynamics research area at Child Trends. Ms. Shelton will assist on tasks across the SAVES Center. Prior to joining Child Trends, she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include qualitative and quantitative research methods, programs that support healthy relationships, promoting parent and child relationships, and improving mental health outcomes. Ms. Shelton is also interested in working to improve research with underserved and underrepresented populations. At Child Trends, she supports several projects that focus on teen pregnancy and healthy marriage and relationships.

Shaniah Smith, Child Trends, Project Management Spe

Shaniah Smith, BA, is a Senior Project Manager in the Parenting and Family Dynamics research area at Child Trends. Ms. Smith will serve as the Project Manager under the Center Coordinator on the SAVES Center. Prior to working at Child Trends, she served as an office and education program coordinator for Everyday Miracles, where she helped families with low-incomes and families of color request doula services and other pregnancy-related services. Ms. Smith is also a birth doula herself, having taken the Community Outreach Perinatal Educator (COPE) training, and is passionate about working with families to cultivate the best birth experience for them. She is interested in creating and implementing systems that improve project organization and coordination as well as cultivating a positive team culture.