Dr. Cohen is a clinical psychologist and implementation scientist with clinical and research expertise in serious mental illness. Her career has focused on implementing and evaluating evidence-based services that improve patient outcomes in complex state and federal healthcare delivery systems. She has considerable expertise in evidence-based guidelines, best practice models of care delivery, evidence-based quality improvement strategies, physician motivation, patient-centered care, development and implementation of informatics to support care quality improvement, systems redesign, and research methodology.

Dr. Cohen serves on scientific review panels for NIMH, Department of Defense, and the Veterans Administration. Her work has continually been funded through grants from NIMH, Veterans Administration, SAMHSA, and Foundations. Dr. Cohen completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at UCLA, her Pre-Doctoral Internship at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Healthcare Center, and an NIMH/NRSA Post-Doctoral Fellowship in psychosis at UCLA.

Teri Brister, PhD, serves as Chief Program Officer at NAMI. Dr. Brister is responsible for ensuring that all content created and disseminated by NAMI attains the highest possible standards of accuracy, relevance, value and academic rigor. She is the author of NAMI Basics, the signature education program for parents and other caregivers of children and adolescents with mental illness and co-author of the NAMI Homefront education program for families of Service Members and Veterans who are experiencing mental health challenges. Prior to joining the Education, Training and Peer Support Center in January of 2007, Dr. Brister was a NAMI Regional Leadership Consultant.

Prior to joining NAMI in 2005, Dr. Brister worked for twenty years in the community mental health system in Mississippi, working in both clinical and administrative roles, including Assistant Executive Director in two different centers.

Dr. Brister received her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Jackson State University, and her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Counseling Psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Mississippi.

Dr. Robert Cotes, MD, is an Associate Professor at Emory University School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He has significant expertise in clozapine, characterizing persistent symptoms of schizophrenia, understanding cardiometabolic side effects of antipsychotic medications, and first episode psychosis. Additionally, he is the Director of the PSTAR Clinic (Persistent Symptoms: Treatment, Assessment and Recovery), Project ARROW (Achieving Recovery through Resilience, Optimism, and Wellness) and Open Dialogue Atlanta at Grady's Outpatient Behavioral Health Clinic. The PSTAR Clinic provides evidence-based, recovery-oriented care for individuals with persistent symptoms of psychosis, specializing in the use of clozapine. Project ARROW is a coordinated specialty care team for people experiencing first episode psychosis, offering comprehensive, person-centered care using a multidisciplinary approach. Dr. Cotes is the Principal Investigator for multiple clinical trials focused on treatment options for psychosis. He is also the Associate Director of Psychiatry Residency Education in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory.

Dr. Druss is a Professor of Health Policy and Management and Rosalynn Carter Chair in Mental Health at Emory University.   Dr. Druss’s work focuses on improving health policies and systems of care for people with serious mental illness, with a particular focus on integration between mental health, physical health, and public health.

Dr. Druss serves on the Editorial Boards of JAMA Psychiatry, the American Journal of Psychiatry, and General Hospital Psychiatry, and edits Psychiatric Services' Integrated Care Column.  He was a member of NIMH’s National Advisory Mental Health Council from 2014-18.

Sherin Khan, LCSW is Vice President of Operations and Strategy for Thresholds, Illinois’ oldest and largest provider of mental health services. She has 10 years of experience in the non-profit sector with a focus on serving those who are disempowered and marginalized. She received her Masters of Social Work degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and excels at relationship management, strategic planning, leadership and organizational development, and change implementation. Expertise in clinical areas includes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing. She has held both clinical and administrative leadership positions and excels at project management, process improvement, and designing and enacting programs and trainings to improve organizational and workforce effectiveness.

Sherin has extensive knowledge of Certified Community Behavioral Healthcare Clinic (CCBHC) standards, guidelines, and reporting requirements, as well as experience in the implementation of CCBHCs developing necessary infrastructure and coordinating with collaborative partnerships to ensure access to comprehensive, integrated behavioral health services.

Dr. Donna Rolin is Clinical Assistant Professor of Clinical Nursing and the Director of the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program at the University of Texas with 21 years of experience in psychiatric nursing. She is co-leading inter-disciplinary graduate training initiatives with Schools of Nursing, Medicine, Educational Psychology, Social Work, and Pharmacy with funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board aiming to expand a culturally diverse workforce for underserved populations. She serves as the Co-Director of the Institute for Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (IDVSA), working alongside Schools of Social Work, Law and Bureau of Business Research. Dr. Rolin’s current research focuses on wellness self-management for mental health promotion and the integration of telepresence robots in healthcare education.

Dr. Rolin serves on the national Board of Directors of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. Dr. Rolin continues her clinical practice as a Psychiatric Advanced Practice Registered Nurse with a community-based group working with underserved patients with serious mental illnesses (SMI), neurocognitive disorders, and intellectual disabilities in outpatient, long term care, telepsychiatry, and inpatient psychiatric facilities. She acts as the SMI Nursing Expert on the American Psychiatric Association’s Clinical Support Services for SMI (CSS-SMI) Clinical Expert Team.

John Torous, MD MBI is director of the digital psychiatry division, in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School affiliated teaching hospital, where he also serves as a staff psychiatrist and academic faculty. He has a background in electrical engineering and computer sciences and received an undergraduate degree in the field from UC Berkeley before attending medical school at UC San Diego. He completed his psychiatry residency, fellowship in clinical informatics, and master's degree in biomedical informatics at Harvard.

Dr. Torous is active in investigating the potential of mobile mental health technologies for psychiatry and has published over 75 peer reviewed articles and 5 books chapters on the topic. He serves as editor-in-chief for an academic journal on technology and mental health, JMIR Mental Health, currently leads the American Psychiatric Association’s work group on the evaluation of smartphone apps, and is an advisor to the smartphone mood study within the NIH's one million person All of Us research program.

José M. Viruet, LCPC, is the Clinical Director of Behavioral Health at Erie Family Health Centers, a regional health system in Illinois with more than a dozen sites that serve the area west of Chicago. He has more than 20 years of experience working with adolescents, young adults, and adults who have significant mental and behavioral health challenges. Mr. Viruet is a bilingual clinician and has specialized training in group therapy, substance use disorders, EMDR, Transition-to-Independence Process (TIP) model, de-escalation, and trauma-informed practices. He has experience working in a variety of clinical settings, such as residential care, inpatient hospitals, community outreach, and other medical settings.

Alexia Wolf serves as Behavioral Health Consortium Director in the Office Of Lt. Governor Bethany Hall-Long, Delaware. She previously served as Chief of Social Determinants at the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health in the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services. Her professional focus is improving health outcomes in vulnerable individuals. Alexia excels at developing creative partnerships and integrating innovative practices to support healthy and resilient communities. She has over twenty years of leadership experience in academic, non-profit, and government settings. Alexia collaborated with state leaders, providers, and the advocacy community during a significant expansion of community-based services during Delaware’s Olmstead Settlement Agreement. This included the development and implementation of redesigned person-centered, trauma-informed, integrated services throughout the state, as well as an evaluation of the system transformation from the perspective of the individuals served. A Mandela Washington Reciprocal Exchange fellow, Alexia and young African leaders are partnering to address the social determinants of mental health in Zambia. Alexia serves as the elected Chairperson for the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Division of Recovery Support Services. She holds a Master of Public Health in health policy and health service organization from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Dr. Megan Ehret is a Professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research (P-SHOR) at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

Dr. Ehret completed her BS and PharmD degrees from the University of Toledo. She then completed an ASHP accredited residency in Psychiatric Pharmacotherapy at the Louis Stokes VAMC, after which she completed a Psychopharmacology and Pharmacogenomics Fellowship at Nova Southeastern University. After training she received her initial faculty appointment at the University of Connecticut and gained tenure during her stay there. While at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Ehret served as the Vice-Chair of the IRB, Director of Practices for the Center for Correctional Health Networks, and a faculty member for Project ECHO: Buprenorphine. Additionally, Dr. Ehret received her Masters in Clinical and Translational Research from the University of Connecticut Health Center. Dr. Ehret is also a Board Certified Psychiatric Pharmacist.

Most recently Dr. Ehret has practiced at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital as their Behavioral Health Clinical Pharmacy Specialist. She has experience in treating the spectrum of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Additionally, she is a past President for American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists (AAPP) and serves as the Senior Editor on the Psychiatric Pharmacotherapy Review Course.