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TrueChild Experts are leaders and partners on all our projects and work. They include noted researchers and thought-leaders on gender norms and youth development.
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Bullying & Violence and Masculinity
Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Program
 For more than 20 years, Don McPherson has used the power and appeal of sport to address complex social issues. McPherson has paralleled a highly decorated football career with cutting-edge work on vital and contemporary issues that impact the lives of every American. Upon retiring from pro football in 1994, he joined Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society as national director of Athletes in Service to America, an AmeriCorps funded program. While there, Don turned his focus to the issue of "men’s violence against women.” He became Director of Sport in Society’s Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Program emerging as a national leader and advocate for the prevention of sexual and domestic violence. (Excerpt from his website.)
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Anti-sexism activist
 Jackson Katz is one of America's leading anti-sexist male activists. An educator, author and filmmaker, he is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the field of gender violence prevention education with men and boys, particularly in the sports culture and the military. He is the co-founder of the Mentors In Violence Prevention (MVP) program, the leading gender violence prevention initiative in professional and college athletics. He is the director of the first worldwide domestic and sexual violence prevention program in the United States Marine Corps. He is also the creator and co-creator of educational videos, including Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity (2000), Wrestling with Manhood (2002) and Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies and Alcohol (2004). His most recent book, The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, was published in 2006. (Adapted from his website.) |
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Michael Kimmel
State University of New York at Stony Brook
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Colorado College
 CJ Pascoe is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colorado College. Her current research focuses on gender, youth, homophobia, sexuality and new media. Her book, Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School, won the American Educational Research Association’s 2007 Book of the Year Award. Dude documents the relationship between homophobic harassment, heterosexism and masculinity in high school. In it she suggests ways we might begin to redefine gender norms that are damaging to both boys and girls.
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McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School
 William Pollack is the Director of the Centers for Men and Young Men and the Director of Continuing Education (Psychology) at McLean Hospital; and is Assistant Clinical Professor (Psychology) in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is the Past President of the Massachusetts Psychological Association, a member the Boston Psychoanalytic Society, a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology (ABPP, Board Certified), and a Founding Member and Fellow of The Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity, a division of the American Psychological Association. He is the author of Real Boys' Voices (2001) and his earlier New York Times bestseller, Real Boys--Rescuing Our Sons From The Myths Of Boyhood (1998). Pollack is also Founder of Real Boys Educational Programs, as well as the author of several "ground breaking” books on "re-framing the nature of masculinity” and creator of the concept of the "boy code” which codified the social inhibitions inhibiting the healthy growth of young males across America. Real Boys has been translated into over 10 languages, and had a million+ readers. He is also founder & President of the not-for-profit foundation Supporting Our Sons and Advisory Board Member of The Boys Project. ( Excerpted from his website.)
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Colby College
 Lyn Mikel Brown is Professor of Education and Human Development at Colby College in Maine. She writes extensively on the relational life of girls; the influences of race, class and gender on girls’ lives; the impact of media, and girls’ feelings of anger, self-knowledge, loss, hope, and desire. Dr. Brown earned her Ed.D. at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. She has recieved the Maine Women’s Fund Sarah Orne Jewett Award, American Association of University Women Educational Foundation Scholar-in-Residence, and won a National Academy of Education Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship for encouraging healthy resistance in girls. She was a member of The American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Adolescent Girls and is the Public Interest Chair for APA's Psychology of Women Division.
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M. Gigi Durham
University of Iowa
 M. Gigi Durham is an associate professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. For more than a decade, she has been conducting research on adolescent girls and the media. The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do about It (2008) is her first book for general audiences. She is committed to advocating for the rights of girls and women worldwide. Her previous work has appeared in leading academic journals, including Critical Studies in Media Communication, Communication Theory, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, and Women's Studies in Communication. (Excerpted from her University of Iowa Profile.)
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University of Massachusetts Boston Sharon Lamb, Ed.D., is Distinguished Professor of Mental Health at UMass Boston. She received her Ed.M. in Counseling and Consulting Psychology at Harvard Graduate School of Education and her Ed.D. in Human Development at Harvard Graduate School of Education after spending a year toward a Human Development degree at the University of Chicago. She has published widely in the fields of moral development, abuse and victimization, sexual development, psychotherapy with children and adolescents, the sexualization of girls, and media and marketing impact on the development of girls and boys. She served on the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. She is currently working on two projects: a sexual ethics curriculum for high schoolers; and focus group research on victims, advocates, journalists, and sex offenders' views of new journalists' representations of sexual violence. Dr. Lamb is President-Elect of the Association for Moral Education. She has co-authored a book with Lyn Mikel Brown and Mark Tappan, Packaging Boyhood: Saving Our Sons from Superheroes, Slackers, and Other Media Stereotypes (2009).
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Northeastern University
In a distinguished career that has spanned scholarly research, translation of science to practice, top-level policy consultation, and service on four Institute of Medicine committees, Dr. Hortensia Amaro has dramatically advanced our understanding of substance abuse disorders treatment, HIV prevention, and other urgent public health challenges. Based in academia, she has authored more than 115 scholarly publications – many widely-cited. Alongside this research, she has made landmark contributions to improving behavioral health care in community-based organizations – launching addiction treatment programs that have helped thousands of sufferers and that have been adopted around the world.
Hunter College School of Social Work
Deborah L. Tolman is a Professor of Social Welfare and Psychology Hunter College School of Social Work and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the founder and former director of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at SFSU. Deborah Tolman was a Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Gender and Sexuality Project at the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College. Her work has focused on adolescent sexuality, gender development, gender equity and research methods. Her research has been funded by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Ford Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. Her book on adolescent girls’ sexuality, Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Sexuality, published by Harvard University Press in 2002, was awarded the 2003 Distinguished Book Award from the Association for Women in Psychology. Dr. Tolman is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association/ (Adapted from her Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality profile.)
St. John's University
Dr. Wallace’s research focuses on the influence of neighborhood context and social norms on HIV risk among urban Black youth. Her work also includes the design and implementation of culturally-tailored and gender specific interventions to promote health among urban Black youth. In addition, she is CEO/Founder of Janisaw Company, a curriculum design firm specializing in creating programs for teen girls and young women. (See her SJU profile.)
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Safer Sex and Masculinity
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| Angela Aidala
Columbia University
 Dr. Angela Aidala is a faculty member at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences. Her primary interest is the intersection of economic, social, and cultural influences on health and illness among disadvantaged populations. Dr. Aidala's recent work focuses on research, teaching, and service delivery strategies to work effectively with hard to reach or 'hidden' populations in urban settings including the homeless, mentally ill, substance users, runaway or street youth and/or persons living with HIV/AIDS. Dr. Aidala also directs the Multiple Diagnoses Initiative (MDI), which works with housing providers to better understand the reciprocal relationship between housing and health care among persons living with HIV/AIDS who also struggle with mental illness and/or chronic substance abuse problems. Angela A. Aidala received a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University. (Exerpted from her ARCHIVE Institute profile.)
Promundo/US
Promundo/US Gary T. Barker, Ph.D., is Executive Director of Promundo/US, and a leading authority on research and programs that engage men and boys in gender equality.
Prior to that, he was director of the International Center for Research on Women's gender, violence and rights team. Before joining ICRW, Barker served 10 years as founding executive director of Instituto Promundo, a Brazilian nongovernmental organization that works to promote gender equality and reduce violence against children, youth and women. Throughout his career, Barker has conducted research and program development on men, violence, health and conflict, across a number of international settings that include Latin America , sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Harvard Medical School and University of Massachusetts, Boston
 Dharma E. Cortés, PhD, is a research associate and instructor at Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, and a Senior Research Associate at the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Dr. Cortés is also a member of the Health Literacy Studies Group at the Harvard School of Public Health.
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 Robert E. Fullilove, EdD is the Associate Dean for Community and Minority Affairs, Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences and the co-director of the Community Research Group. He also co-directors the newly formed degree program in Urbanism and Community Health in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences.
Dr Fullilove has authored numerous articles in the area of minority health. From 1995 to 2001, he served on the Board of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) at the National Academy of Sciences. Since 1996, he has served on five IOM study committees that have produced reports on a variety of topics including substance abuse and addiction, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and damp indoor spaces and health. In 2003 he was designated a National Associate of the National Academies of Science. In 1998 he was appointed to the Advisory Committee on HIV and STD Prevention (ACHSP) at the Centers for Disease Control, and in July, 2000, he became the committee's chair. Finally, in 2004, he was appointed to the National Advisory Council for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). (Exerpted from his Columbia University biography.)
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University of Kentucky
 Dr. Seth M. Noar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky. He also holds a secondary appointment in the College of Public Health and is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention at Indiana University. His work addresses health behavior theories, message design and media campaigns, computer-based interventions, tailored communication, and methodological topics including meta-analysis and evaluation. Dr. Noar has conducted extensive work examining effective health communication strategies for HIV prevention, in particular focusing on the development and evaluation of mass media and computer-based interventions. He has published more than 50 articles and chapters in a wide range of outlets in the social, behavioral, health, and communication sciences, and he recently co-edited Communication Perspectives on HIV/AIDS for the 21st Century, published by Lawrence Erlbaum in 2008. Dr. Noar's work is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His UK profile.
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University of Washington
 Sapna Cheryan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology of the University of Washington. Her research broadly examines how cultural stereotypes impact people's choices and behaviors. She is particularly interested in the role that stereotypes play in determining people's sense of belonging to important social groups. Specific research interests include distancing from alienating stereotypes, defending threatened identities, and the negative effects of positive stereotypes. (Adapted from her UW website.)
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University of Michigan
 Jacquelynne S. Eccles is McKeachie-Pintrich Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Michigan. Dr. Eccles' research interests include: family and school influences on development; development in high-risk settings; development of self-esteem, activity preferences, and task choice; adolescent development; identity formation; transition into adulthood; biosocial influences and development; gender role development; and the role of ethnicity in development and socialization. ( Adapted from her UM profile.)
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National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity
 Mimi Lufkin has over 26 years of experience as an educator and administrator of local and state level projects in California and Pennsylvania. In California, her career began in 1979 as a high school agricultural education teacher. Over the next fifteen years she was a teacher educator, executive director of a women’s microenterprise development agency, and director of development for a community college. In 1994, Ms. Lufkin moved to Pennsylvania and became the Executive Director of the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity, a consortium of state and local education and workforce agencies providing national leadership for equity in education and workforce development. In this capacity she reviews federal legislation, conducts professional development activities, and provides technical assistance to state and local educational agencies focused on best practices for serving special population students. ( Excerpted from her National Girls Collaborative Project profile.)
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EdLab Group
 Karen A. Peterson, M.Ed., is the Executive Director for the EdLab Group (formerly the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology) and Director of the Diversity in Technology Group. She has managed two U.S. Department of Education grants designed to provide professional development opportunities to Puget Sound area teachers and serves as Principal Investigator on the National Science Foundation grant "The National Girls Collaborative Project”. For over 20 years, Karen has been active in education as a classroom teacher, university instructor, pre-service and in-service teacher educator, program administrator, and researcher. Serving as Western Washington University’s first "Internet Librarian," she assisted teacher education faculty and students in the integration of technology into K-12 classroom teaching. She currently serves on the board of SMARTgirls, a Seattle-based non-profit organization that develops and administers programs designed to increase girls’ interests in math, science, and technology. ( Excerpted from her EdLap Group profile.)
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American University
The American Educational Research Association (AERA) honored the Sadkers for the best review of research published in the United States in 1991, for their professional service in 1995, and for "scholarship, activism, and community building on behalf of women and education” in 2004. The American Association of University Women awarded the Sadkers their Eleanor Roosevelt Award in 1995, and the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education recognized their work with the Gender Architect Award in 2001. David Sadker has received two honorary doctorates and was selected as a Torchbearer by the US Olympic Committee in 2002. He is interested in Courage to Teach work and exploring new frontiers of teaching. ( Adapted from his Myra Sadker Foundation profile.) |
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| School Pushouts & Dropouts |
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Russ Skiba is Professor in Counseling and Educational Psychology at Indiana University, and directs the school outreach practicum in the School Psychology Program. Skiba is currently Director of the Equity Project, a consortium of research projects offering evidence-based information to educators and policymakers on equity in special education and school discipline. He has worked with schools across the country in the areas of the management of disruptive behavior, school discipline, and school violence, and has directed numerous federal and state research grants. He was a member and the lead author of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on Zero Tolerance. His work has been cited in numerous national media sources, including USA Today, Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, and Nightline, and he has testified before the United States Civil Rights Commission and both Houses of Congress on issues of school discipline and school violence. He was awarded the Push for Excellence Award by the Rainbow Coalition/Operation PUSH for his work on African American disproportionality in school suspension.(Excerpted from Indiana University profile)
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St. John's University
Dr. Wallace’s research focuses on the influence of neighborhood context and social norms on HIV risk among urban Black youth. Her work also includes the design and implementation of culturally-tailored and gender specific interventions to promote health among urban Black youth. In addition, she is CEO/Founder of Janisaw Company, a curriculum design firm specializing in creating programs for teen girls and young women. (See her SJU profile.)
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 Because challenging gender norms is the key to improving life outcomes for children & youth |
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Jean Kilbourne is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on alcohol and tobacco advertising and the image of women in advertising. Her films, slide lectures and television appearances have been seen by millions of people throughout the world. Her book 
