Rachel Berger, MD, MPH is a child abuse pediatrician and has worked at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh for the past 25 years. She is also director of child abuse research for the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh and the Western PA regional director for Child Abuse Outreach. Dr. Berger has spent over 20 years as a clinical researcher with a focus on decreasing fatalities and near-fatalities in young children by improving identification of suspected physical abuse using serum biomarkers, clinical decision rules and the electronic health record. In 2019, she was a senior policy fellow with Casey Family Programs where she focused on decreasing fatalities and near-fatalities from child physical abuse by improving collaboration between medical professionals and Child Protective Services.

Antonio Garcia, PhD is the Buckhorn Professor of Social Work at the University of Kentucky. As a former Child Protective Services Worker and Supervisor in Washington State, Dr. Garcia’s research and publication record to date has focused on understanding epidemiological trends related to children of color’s experiences in foster care; and etiological explanations for their increased risk of out-of-home displacement, and lack of access to and use of effective mental health interventions as compared to their Caucasian counterparts. In addition, his research interests involve addressing the complexities of immigration and child welfare system involvements among Latino youth and families; and understanding how and under what conditions providers and system leaders in child-serving agencies father, interpret, and use to scale-up evidence-based practices.

Richard Gehrman is the founder and executive director emeritus of the Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. As part of his long career within human services, Mr. Gehrman has served as the chief finance and administrative officer for the Westchester County New York Department of Social Services, the Maryland Department of Human Resources, and the City of Saint Paul Minnesota. He has managed projects as a consultant for federal, state, county and municipal governments in areas related to health and human services. In these roles, he developed expertise in child welfare metrics, which he now works to combine with the power of citizen advocacy through Safe Passage.

John M. Leventhal, MD is a professor emeritus of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine. During his time at Yale, Dr. Leventhal was the medical director of the Child Abuse Program and Child Abuse Prevention Program at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital from 1982 to 2019. He also led the DART team (Detection, Assessment, Referral, and Treatment)—one of the oldest multidisciplinary child protection teams in the country. Under his leadership, the Yale Child Abuse Program developed a child sexual abuse clinic as well as a mental health program for sexually abused children and their non-offending caregivers. Dr. Leventhal has made significant contributions through his extensive research and scholarly pursuits and served as an expert resource to generations of pediatric providers on issues of child maltreatment.

John Mattingly, PhD is the former commissioner of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, where he served from 2004-2011. In this position, he held responsibility for child welfare, child protection, foster and adoptive services, child care and Head Start, and the Department of Juvenile Justice. During his tenure, the number of children in foster care declined by more than 7,000, and caseload sizes were reduced to historically low levels nationally. Dr. Mattingly was also a senior fellow at the Annie E. Casey Foundation until 2014.

Cathleen Palm is the founder of the Center for Children’s Justice. Ms. Palm has spent nearly three decades working to improve the way systems work to support children, youth, and families. She has served as a consultant with a variety of nonprofits, as well as to the Congressionally-created Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities (CECANF). Ms. Palm has served as an appointed member of a variety of state-level initiatives, including the Governor’s Commission for Children and Families, Pennsylvania’s Children’s Trust Fund, the Joint State Government Commission’s Advisory Committee on Addiction Treatment and the Governor’s Early Learning Council.

Patricia Schnitzer, PhD is an epidemiologist with 30 years of experience in research and state and federal public health agencies. She is currently a data systems consultant to the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention, leading their data quality initiative and providing epidemiology support to their data team. Dr. Schnitzer has worked with child death review programs and data for the past 25 years. Her current research focuses on the definition and measurement of child abuse and neglect using child death review systems and data.

Cassie Statuto-Bevan, Ed.D. worked for more than twenty years in senior positions in the U.S. House of Representatives including staff director on the Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Human Resources and senior policy advisor to Republican leadership offices. She was a principal staffer on numerous child welfare legislation not limited to the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. Dr. Statuto-Bevan has been appointed to serve on the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities, which was established by Congress in 2012, and prior to that on the U.S. Commission on Child and Family Welfare. Dr. Statuto-Bevan has been a lecturer at several universities including most recently as a Child Welfare Fellow at the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice and Research at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dee Wilson is the former director of Child Welfare Services for Casey Family Programs. Mr. Wilson worked for the public child welfare agency in Washington State from 1978 to 2004 in a variety of positions including CPS social worker, supervisor, area administrator, training director and regional administrator. He then served as director of the Northwest Institute for Children and Families at the University of Washington School of Social Work, before then becoming the director of child welfare training. Mr. Wilson speaks and writes on a wide range of child welfare issues. He now facilitates child welfare training part time and writes monthly commentaries on child welfare for his blog, The Sounding Board.

Viola Vaughan-Eden, PhD, MSW, MJ is a Professor and the PhD Program Director with the Ethelyn R. Strong School of Social Work at Norfolk State University, as well as the President and CEO of UP For Champions, a non-profit in partnership with The UP Institute, a think tank for upstream child abuse solutions. As a forensic and licensed clinical social worker, she serves as a consultant and expert witness in child maltreatment cases – principally sexual abuse. She has conducted more than 2500 child abuse evaluations and provided expert testimony more than 700 times. Dr. Vaughan-Eden is President Emerita of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, President Emerita of the National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence, and Past-President of the National Organization of Forensic Social Work.