Experts Guide

Brandimore's research focuses on evaluative techniques and therapeutic paradigms to improve upper airway dysfunction -- primarily dysphagia (disordered swallowing) and dystussia (disordered cough), in persons with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. Her clinical work focuses on movement disorders where she has evaluated and treated the motor speech, voice, AAC and airway protective needs.

Salloum's primary research interest is in the treatment of childhood trauma. She is specifically interested in examining psychosocial interventions for young children, children, adolescentsa and their families, who have been exposed to various traumatic events such as violence, disasters and death.

DePippo's research focuses on depression, anxiety, addictions, eating disorders and self-esteem/life transitions.

Gum focuses on improving well-being for older adults and medical patients through applied research in behavioral health services and trauma-informed care in medical and aging service settings.

Corbin studies gerontology and social work and can discuss transitions common to aging, including how they may impact how older adults view and navigate the holiday season. She has helped develop the geriatric treatment program at HCA West Tampa Hospital, where she works PRN as a therapist. She has vocational experience within adolescent group homes, the Department of Children and Families and inpatient/outpatient mental health settings.

Abella is an anthropologist whose research focuses on mental health services, child welfare systems, parent education, prevention and early intervention services and jail diversion programs.

Christy studies the interaction of the behavioral health and criminal justice systems and is an expert on Florida's Baker Act and involuntary care for mental health services.

Bush's research focuses on the cognitive neuroscience and neurophysiology of normative aging, mild cognitive impairment and early-stage Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Her expertise includes neurophysiology, electroencephalography, early-stage Alzheimer's Disease, audition and cognition, and cognitive decline detection and treatment.

Boone is executive director of USF's Center for Autism & Related Disabilities. Her research focuses on autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Levin's research focuses on behavioral health (alcohol, drug use, and mental disorders from a population or public pealth perspective), translational research in adolescent behavioral health, public health and behavioral health services delivery and mental health informatics.

Fox is a former FBI agent and Co-Director of the Center for Justice Research & Policy. Her research focuses on the identification of psychological and developmental risk factors for criminal behavior and prolific offending, experimental field research and evidence-based policing and crime prevention strategies.

Miller's research focuses on physical activity, school-based intervention and nutrition related behavior. He has conducted school-based intervention studies in which elementary school students wore pedometers every day at school and at home to evaluate intervention components (peer competition, goal setting, public posting, feedback) for their effect on overall activity levels.

Howell is an expert in cybercriminal behavior and motivation, darknet markets and stolen data supply chains, digital forensics and incident response, AI-driven threat intelligence systems, cyber-enabled financial fraud and account takeovers and cybersecurity strategy for critical infrastructure.

Rogers' research focuses on the development of proficiency in second-language speech perception and production under a variety of listening and speaking conditions. She also collaborates with colleagues in Audiology on research examining speech perception by listeners with hearing impairment and/or cochlear implants.

Jaynes' research focuses on the role of employment and labor market perceptions in the decision to offend, factors that influence a hiring manager's decision to employ someone with a criminal record and the decision to accept a guilty plea by individuals charged with a crime.

Chou can discuss advocacy for twice-exceptional students, psychiatric rehabilitation, social support, rehabilitation education, social support, rehabilitation education and positive psychology.

Dillahunt-Aspillaga's research interests include employment for persons with disabilities, family and community support, caregiving and community re-integration for civilians and veterans with traumatic brain injury. She is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, Certified Vocational Evaluator, Certified Life Care Planner, International Certified Vocational Evaluator and Certified Brain Injury Specialist Trainer.

Walker-Egea's research and experience focus on data collection using quantitative and qualitative methods, data analysis and designing survey and research instruments. She is a registered dietitian and a licensed dietitian-nutritionist.

Whitt is a licensed psychologist and executive director of the Florida Center for Behavioral Health Workforce at the University of South Florida. In October 2025, the center launched the state’s first interactive dashboard that projects behavioral health workforce supply and demand through 2035. Whitt is an expert in behavioral health workforce and integrated primary care psychology and policy.

Minnick is a social work and public health researcher, educator and community interventionist who specializes in developing environmental strategies, community coalitions and public partnerships to address substance misuse.

Rhodes' primary research focuses on the effects of policing on the community, specifically the mental health of Black Americans who experienced or witnessed a police encounter and the impact of social work in policing. She can discuss police and community relations, psychological distress among Black/African Americans and police and social work.

Chiriboga's work includes a statewide study of mental and physical health disparities in Florida, the effectiveness of family-centered interventions for Medicaid beneficiaries with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and a three-state study of barriers to health and health care posed by limited English proficiency among older Korean immigrants.

Dobbs researches palliative, hospice and end-of-life care, and palliative care education in assisted living with a specific focus on providers of persons living with dementia.

Cohen is an expert on lethal violence, family caregiving, Alzheimer's Disease, dementia, aging and mental health, elder abuse and murder-suicide.

Burruss studies policing, homeland security and victimization in cyberspace. His research examines the structure and function of criminal justice agencies and the evolving landscape of cybercrime. He studies the causes and consequences of online offending and victimization, and how law enforcement and cybersecurity professionals respond to digital threats. He is affiliated with Cyber Florida, the state’s center for cybersecurity, and serves as a Faculty Fellow with both the Global and National Security Institute and Rapid7. He is the founding director of CIBR Lab — the Cybercrime Interdisciplinary Behavioral Research Laboratory — which trains students in research on cybercrime and cybersecurity.

Rahill's research focuses on reducing health and mental health disparities for Haitians, HIV, disasters, trauma and sexual violence.

Wilson's primary research interests include cochlear implants and diagnostics. She performs Auditory Processing Disorder testing, evaluations hearing for children and adults and works with hearing aids.

Goldstein's research focuses on developing and evaluating interventions to teach functional social, language and literacy skills to individuals with a variety of disabilities.

Carrion's research focuses on end of life care, cancer and health decisions among the Latinos in the United States and indigenous communities in Northeast India.

Gray's research focuses on educational data analysis, psychometrics, and statistical modeling for early literacy, reading and math assessment and educational achievement.

Smart's research interests include speech perception, pediatric aural and language habilitation, phonology, vocabulary acquisition and Cued Speech.

Francisco has been involved in supporting educational interpreters in the Deaf Education field for more than 15 years.

Zarcone studies autism and developmental disabilities. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies and Co-Director of the Florida Center for Inclusive Communities, a University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. Before USF, Zarcone held positions at the National Autism Center at the May Institute, Johns Hopkins University Medical School and the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

Galea's research focuses on increasing access to evidence-based mental health services globally.

Grosholz's research focuses on carceral studies, particularly in the areas of prison and reentry programming, recidivism and health, as well as on white extremism, specifically the white power music scene.

Heilman's research focuses on rehabilitation counseling and pediatric disabilities, psychosocial impact of disability, disability advocacy and disability awareness.

Reid is an expert in human trafficking, sexual violence and child maltreatment. She is director of the USF Human Trafficking Risk to Resilience Research Lab.

Cochran's research interests include micro-social theories of criminal behavior, macro-social theories of crime and crime control, assessments of issues regarding the legitimacy of capital punishment and quantitative data collection and analysis.

Douglas is an audiologist who can discuss tinnitus, misophonia management, hyperacusis, hearing loss, vestibular evaluations, hearing technology and pediatric audiology.

Walton is an expert in auditory physiology, aging and hearing loss and neural plasticity. His research focuses on identifying neurons within the auditory pathway specialized for extracting rapid acoustic events, elucidating age-related changes in neural processing of complex auditory signals presented in degraded acoustic environments and neural plasticity following exposure to an enriched auditory environment in a mouse model of congenital hearing loss.

Heide is an internationally recognized consultant on adolescent homicide, parricide and family violence. She has evaluated and consulted with attorneys regarding homicide offenders, specifically those who killed parents. As a licensed mental health counselor, she specializes in treating survivors of trauma, including police officers/first responders, adolescents and young adults, adult children of alcoholics and other high stress families, survivors of childhood abuse, sexual abuse and sexual assault.

Califf's research interests include early intervention, augmentative alternative communication, pediatric traumatic brain injury, autism spectrum disorder, gestalt language processing and complex language needs.

Gorajec's areas of clinical specialty include adult neurogenic communication disorders with a primary interest in traumatic brain injury, post-concussion and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s Disease and ALS.

Rigg's research focuses on addiction and improving health outcomes for individuals with substance use disorders. He can discuss addiction training for behavioral healthcare providers, improving treatment outcomes for methadone patients and their families, preventing overdoses in Black and rural communities, the role of nutrition in addiction recovery and reducing stigma surrounding medications for opioid use disorder.

Johnson's research focuses on quality improvement and implementation science in behavioral health. Her research has also involved using technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness in patient care and to improve the adoption and utilization of evidence based treatments.

Kosyluk's research focuses on understanding and addressing stigma among various populations, including people living with mental illness and addiction, and people living with HIV.

Yampolskaya's research focuses on child welfare, children's mental health, child maltreatment, advanced research methodology and innovative statistical methods.

Kern's research focuses on policy with educational practice, reduction of aggressive behaviors in schools and implementation of multi-tiered systems of support. She practiced law for over ten years before studying special education.

Rodríguez's research interests focus on education, program evaluation, improvement science and workforce development, with a particular emphasis on disability studies.

Baxley has experience as a crisis response therapist working with children and families in their homes who have faced allegations of abuse and neglect. She also has extensive experience working with the Veterans Health Administration as a marriage and family therapist.

Worthey's clinical work and research focus on rehabilitation counseling, youth with disabilities, animal-assisted interventions, disability advocacy and accommodations.

Callejas is an applied anthropologist with expertise in qualitative methodologies and community-engaged research. She can discuss behavioral health needs and program development, implementation and evaluation for children, youth, young adults and families who experience persistent disparities.

Peterson's primary research interest is long-term care policy and practice and communication concerning decision-making, disaster planning and advance care planning for older adults.

Hall's research focuses on understanding how systems of power, oppression and trauma interact within the criminal justice system, and how these dynamics contribute to crime and societal harm. She is particularly focused on how trauma influences criminal behavior, how interactions with the criminal justice system affect justice-involved individuals and the ways police and correctional staff respond to trauma.

Rogovin's research focuses on social work macro practice, social policy, policy development, women's issues and case management for older adults with dementia.

Boggess' research focuses on communities and crime, race and crime, housing and the geographic distribution of crime.

Young's research focuses on addiction, drug courts, homelessness and alternatives to incarceration for non-violent drug offenders.

Lawental's research focuses on substance use disorders, women's health, mental health and reproductive health.

Joshi's research focuses on violence against women and children. She is co-founder and director of the USF School of Social Work Interdisciplinary Lab, which offers interdisciplinary training to students in social work, public health, biomedical sciences, psychology and other fields. Her funded research has focused on topics including immigrant South Asian women survivors of intimate partner violence and mental health for pregnant Haitian teens.

Restrepo's research focuses on identifying the best language assessment and intervention practices for bilingual children at risk of academic difficulties.

Carlo's research focuses on bilingualism and literacy development in children, cross-language transfer of reading skills and educational interventions that support first- and second-language development.

Stern's research focuses on pediatric obesity, pediatric and adolescent cancer, chronic illness, transition to survivorship and communication between cancer patients and health care providers.

Santos' research focuses on crime trends in Latin America and Brazil, global homicide decline, and international criminal justice and crime policy and their effects. He is a frequent consultant for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, developing comparative data and analysis.

Foster's research focuses on achievement in children from historically marginalized backgrounds. He can discuss early learning, assessment and intervention, as well as how child, home and classroom factors influence STEM learning.

Moore's research focuses on the assessment and treatment of stress and the long-term effects of cancer treatment with the goal of improving long-term outcomes for cancer patients and their families.

Arnold's research focuses on hearing health policy and aging, hearing health care access and utilization and hearing loss and cognition. Her current NIH-funded projects include language accessibility of health education materials, Hispanic/LatinX hearing health and best practices hearing intervention as a possible factor to mediate the trajectory of dementia.

Kapolowicz is an expert in auditory neuroscience, speech perception, tinnitus and cochlear implants. She is principal investigator of USF's Speech Perception and Auditory Neuroscience Lab.

Park's research focuses on minority aging, Alzheimer's Disease, social isolation and mental health.

Mikkelson is an expert in speech language pathology in early intervention, routines-based intervention and caregiver coaching. She is the Language/Phonology Team Lead in the USF Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

Lampe's research focuses on Alzheimer's Disease and dementia care and caregiving, aging and behavioral health disparities of LGBTQIA+ aging populations.

Miltenberger's research focuses on applied behavior analysis, behavioral skills training, child safety skills, health and fitness, sports performance, gun injury prevention, abduction prevention and poison prevention.

Dembo's research focuses on juvenile justice, youth drug use, delinquency, HIV/STD/STI issues, mental health issues and youth trauma.

Weinberg's research focuses on positive psychology, couple and marital therapy, neurobiology, love and relationships, family dynamics and family therapy.

Boothroyd's research focuses on managed behavioral healthcare, survey research, welfare reform and research ethics.

Peters' research focuses on treatment of mental and substance use disorders among offenders, mental and substance abuse disorders, treatment alternatives to incarceration and drug court.

Joseph's primary interests are in research, evaluation and implementation of programs that benefit low-income, underserved children and families in high-needs communities. Her research focuses on the mental, educational and social development of children and youth.

Deryol is an expert in computer forensics whose research focuses on victimization, environmental criminology and crime prevention at both micro and macro levels.

Henry's research focuses on marital distress, use of technology to develop training tools for beginning therapists and new ways of conducting web-based self-directed marital therapy.

Stone's research interests include family violence, juvenile delinquency/juvenile justice, youth development, women and crime, human trafficking, public policy and program evaluation.

Wagers is a former law enforcement officer and director of the BRIGHT (Bridging Information and Resource Gaps in Human Trafficking project through the USF Trafficking in Persons Lab. She can discuss human trafficking and domestic violence.

Fogel's research focuses on homelessness and vulnerable populations, poverty, social work education and capital punishment.

O's research focuses on victimology, school crime, crime prevention, crime hot spot forecasting and the relationship between land use and crime. She also can discuss cyber delinquency, and the links between marijuana dispensaries and adult crime and youth offending.

Marhefka research in the area of behavioral health science and practices focuses on HIV, behavioral interventions and implementation science.

Surrency's research focuses on interpretation theory, linguistics, cultural issues in interpretation, deaf and hard-of-hearing populations, legal interpretation and speech pathology.

Anand's research focuses on speech motor control, Parkinson's Disease, acoustic analysis of speech, perception of voice quality and voice.

Smith's research focuses on development, testing and implementation of innovative transition and employment service models and programs for people with complex disabilities.

Hasting's research interests include play therapy, transpersonal counseling, near death experiences, resiliency, trauma-informed care, animal-assisted therapy and school counseling.

Hyslip is a former U.S. Secret Service special agent who can discuss cybersecurity, cybercrime, financial cybercrime, digital espionage, computer hacking, cyberfraud, digital forensics, malware and DDoS attacks.

Jordan is the State Director of the Florida Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters Training and Technical Assistance Center at the USF. The Florida HIPPY T&TAC is responsible for the administration of all HIPPY sites across Florida, collectively serving more than 2,000 families each year. She is an expert in home-based early childhood intervention, child-parent interactions and school readiness.

Lynn is chair of the USF Face-to-Face Masters in Social Work program and co-editor of the Journal of HIV/AIDS and Social Services. Her research and teaching interests include simulation-based learning, technology in social work education, interprofessional training, integrated models of care, and HIV-related health and social services.

Buckles is director of the Addictions & Substance Abuse Counseling Graduate Certificate Program, which enables professionals in mental health, rehabilitation counseling, counselor education, social work, psychology, and other human service fields to enhance their knowledge and skills in marriage and family therapy. Her research focuses on life care plans for adopted children with disabilities, domestic violence and substance misuse.

Haley's research focuses on stress, coping and adaptation in older adults and their family members and caregivers. More recently his focus has examined the impact of social isolation and loneliness as risk factors for poor mental and physical health, particularly after stressful events such as spousal bereavement and stroke.

Lee's current research examines place management theory, police effectiveness, spatio-temporal patterns of crime hot spots, crime hot spot forecasting, measures of crime concentration and machine learning models for recidivism forecasting. In 2017, he received a national award from the National Institute of Justice as winner of the Real-Time Crime Forecasting Challenge.