EXPERTS ADVISORY

The shooting yesterday at Michigan State University, along with other recent violent events at schools and across our nation, leave all communities in a state of shared trauma. The University of Michigan is closely connected to the students, alumni, faculty and staff at MSU, and we offer them our support.

U-M launched its Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention in 2019 to advance knowledge and identify solutions that address the root causes of, and potential solutions for, the most important issues surrounding firearm injury. Faculty experts can discuss school shootings and the aftermath in a community in the wake of the MSU shootings.

Marc Zimmerman is co-director of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, co-principal investigator of the National Center for School Safety, the Marshall H. Becker Collegiate Professor of health behavior and health education at the School of Public Health, and professor of psychology at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

His research focuses on the application and development of empowerment theory and the study of adolescent health and resiliency. He has translated his research on individual and community risk and promotive factors to develop and evaluate community-based programs with an emphasis on prevention of firearm-related community violence and school violence.

Contact: Destiny Cook, descook@umich.edu

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Patrick Carter is co-director of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the Medical School, and an associate professor of health behavior and health education at the School of Public Health. His research focuses on firearm injury prevention across the spectrum of research, from understanding the epidemiology of the problem to prevention-focused solutions for at-risk individuals and communities.

Contact: Kate Barnes, katebarn@umich.edu

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Rebecca Cunningham is the vice president for research at U-M, the William G. Barsan Collegiate Professor of emergency medicine at the Medical School and professor of health behavior and health education at the School of Public Health. Her research focuses on firearm injury prevention and public health, and she spent more than 20 years as an emergency medicine physician at U-M and Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Mich.

She is co-principal investigator for the Firearm Safety Among Children and Teens (FACTS) Consortium, which brings together an interdisciplinary group of more than 30 researchers, practitioners, firearm owners and other partners from across the United States to generate new research involving firearm injury prevention among children and teens. Cunningham, Jason Goldstick and Patrick Carter analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and their findings reported last year show that firearms surpassed motor vehicles as the leading cause of death nationwide for individuals ages 1 to 19.

Contact: Alex Piazza, apiazza@umich.edu

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Justin Heinze is an associate professor of health behavior and health education at the School of Public Health. He is currently the lead evaluator for two National Institute of Justice-funded interventions focused on school safety and violence prevention in Michigan and the lead investigator of an NIJ-funded study of an anonymous reporting system designed for the early identification of threats in a school community.

Heinze is co-director of the National Center for School Safety, and serves as the faculty lead for the School of Public Health’s IDEAS initiative for preventing firearm injuries, which focuses on research, engagement and action on public health issues. He is also a member of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention.

Contact: Destiny Cook, descook@umich.edu

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Jason Goldstick is a member of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, research associate professor of emergency medicine at the Medical School and director of the statistics and methods section of the Injury Prevention Center. Goldstick specializes in spatial and longitudinal data analysis and predictive analytics.

Contact: Kate Barnes, katebarn@umich.edu

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April Zeoli is an associate professor of health management policy at the School of Public Health and faculty member of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention. She serves on the editorial board of the scholarly journal Injury Prevention and of the journal Criminology & Public Policy, and as the research expert for the National Domestic Violence and Firearms Resource Center. Her main fields of investigation are the prevention of firearm violence, intimate partner violence and homicide through the use of policy and law.

Zeoli, one of the nation’s leading experts on policy interventions for firearm use in intimate partner violence, has recently expanded her research around firearm policies to include studying the extreme risk protection orders and, more generally, the impact of firearm policies on childhood firearm injuries and deaths.

Contact: Kate Barnes, katebarn@umich.edu

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Rebeccah Sokol, an assistant professor at the School of Social Work and faculty member of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, is involved in identifying etiologic factors that could lead to promising strategies for the prevention of youth firearm violence. She recently explored text mining of administrative records as a means to identify families at risk for experiencing firearm violence. Her goal is to apply findings from violence prevention research, developmental science and machine learning to prevent early trauma exposure and foster positive youth health outcomes after trauma experiences.

Contact: Kate Barnes, katebarn@umich.edu

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Cynthia Ewell Foster is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan Medicine and Rackham Graduate School, and faculty member of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention. She is an expert on youth depression and suicide prevention, with particular interests in family, community and systems-based interventions. Her research areas include: suicide risk assessment and care management; development of family/community supports for youth to reduce risk for suicide; interventions to promote firearms safety; and evaluation of community-based public health approaches to suicide prevention.

Contact: Kara Gavin, kegavin@umich.edu

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Joanna Quigley is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan Medicine and a child and adolescent psychiatrist who consults with primary care physicians across Michigan in caring for young people with mental health concerns. In the wake of the Oxford, Michigan, school shooting she offered advice to parents and educators about reaching out and being available to children and teens, and says the same advice applies to the Michigan State University shooting.

Contact: Kara Gavin, kegavin@umich.edu

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Krishnan Raghavendran is a professor of surgery at Michigan Medicine and a surgeon who specializes in acute care surgery, trauma and care of the critically ill.

Contact: Mary Clare Fischer, fmarycla@med.umich.edu

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Brad Uren is a clinical associate professor of emergency medicine. He has 20 years of experience in emergency medicine, and is a longtime advocate for physicians and the patients they serve.

Contact: Tessa Roy, rotessa@med.umich.edu

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Michelle Riba is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Michigan Medicine who can comment on reports that the suspect identified by police had a history of mental health issues, and the broader issue of violence and people with mental illness. She is a past president of the American Psychiatric Association.

Contact: Kara Gavin, kegavin@umich.edu