Affiliated Faculty

Carl Fulwiler, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor
Center for Mental Health Services Research 

Dr. Fulwiler is trained in Psychiatry and Neuroscience with a clinical and research portfolio that spans forum health services and recovery oriented approaches to basic neuroscience. Much of his work to date has focused on forensic populations and co-occurring mental health and addictions. He is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UMass Medical School and Director of the Mental Health Agency Research Network along with Director of Clinical Neuroscience at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, one of the principal UMass Affiliates. At the Shattuck Hospital he operates the Integration Program at which provides mental health and substance abuse treatment for people returning to the community from prison and jail or referred by the courts. Dr. Fulwiler was Project Director for the first jail diversion program in Massachusetts and is currently a co-investigator with the Department of Mental Health on a federal grant to develop jail diversion services for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with trauma-related mental disorders and co-occurring substance abuse problems.

Gina Vincent, PhD
Assistant Professor
Center for Mental Health Services Research

Received her Ph.D. in the Forensic Psychology and Law program from Simon Fraser University. Dr. Vincent has received funding from NIMH and the MacArthur Foundation for studies relevant to risk and mental health assessment of juveniles involved in the juvenile justice system. Dr. Vincent also has years of experience as a trainer and consultant for clinical forensic psychopathy assessments using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare, 2002) and Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (Hart, Cox, & Hare, 1995). She has published, lectured, and presented research at over 60 international and national conferences and juvenile justice facilities in the areas of adult and juvenile psychopathy and violence risk assessment.

David N. Kennedy, PhD
Professor of Psychiatry
Director of the Division of Neuroinformatics at the Child and Adolescent Neurodevelopment Initiative (CANDI

Has extensive expertise in the development of image analysis techniques and was a co-founder of the Center for Morphometric Analysis (CMA) at the Massachusetts General Hospital. His career has seen participation in the advent of such technologies as MRI-based morphometric analysis (1989), functional MRI (1991) and diffusion tensor pathway analysis (1998). He has long standing experience with development of neuroinformatics resources (Internet Brain Volumetric Database, Internet Brain Segmentation Repository, Internet Analysis Tools Registry), and participated as co-PI (PI: Bruce Rosen) of the morphometry Biomedical Informatics Research Network (mBIRN). Dr. Kennedy is the community liaison for the Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse (NITRC). In addition, he is a founding editor of the journal Neuroinformatics, that debuted in 2003.

Joseph R DiFranza, MD
Family Physician and Professor of Family Medicine and Community Medicine

Has been actively conducting research on tobacco for 25 years. His policy related interests include youth access to tobacco, environmental tobacco smoke, and tobacco advertising. Dr DiFranza pioneered the effort to prevent the sale of tobacco to children. His research and advocacy led to a Federal Trade Commission ruling that put an end to the Joe Camel cartoon advertisements. He established that symptoms of nicotine addiction can appear soon after the first cigarette, and published the first theory explaining how nicotine acts on the brain to cause addiction.

Bernt Bratane, MSc
Neurology

Graduate of Biophysics from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. Work for Dr. Marc Fisher doing translational stroke research with main responsibilities MR imaging and data analysis, but also trained in Stroke modeling in rats. Current research focus is to investigate how different gas mixtures affect stroke evolution and also final infarct size.

Marc Fisher, MD
Neurology

Dr. Fisher has a long track record in performing MRI-based experiments in rat stroke models to evaluate the presence and evolution of the ischemic penumbra. Using diffusion/perfusion MRI his experimental group has evaluated the effects of therapies on the progression of the diffusion/perfusion mismatch. Recently, they have shown that high-flow 100% oxygen therapy initiated early after embolic stroke in rats markedly inhibits the expansion of the ischemic core on diffusion imaging and extended the time window for successful reperfusion. Dr. Fisher has extensive experience in organizing and implementing clinical acute stroke therapy trials with a particular interest in imaging-based trials. He has performed these trials with co-investigators at multiple sites around the world. He has published extensively with over 200 peer-reviewed articles and has edited or co-edited 11 books. He currently serves as an associate editor of Stroke. He also serves as the principal organizer of the STAIR conferences.

James Bouley
Neurology

B.A. in Biology, from Anna Maria College, 2001. March 2003 – present, Research Associate - Marc Fisher’s Neurology Lab, UMASS Memorial Health Care. Stroke modeling in rats – Middle Cerebral Artery Occlusion (MCAO).