Directory

Jamila Walida Simon grew up in New York City. She earned her High School Diploma from Benjamin N. Cardozo High School as an engineering major.  Ms. Simon graduated from Wells College in 2001, with a degree in Environmental Science and Policy Values and with two limited edition books she printed at the Wells College Press. Shortly after graduation, Ms. Simon entered the corporate world and then reentered academia as a Master’s of Science student in natural resources at Cornell University. During her MS work, Simon’s work brought her to Durban, South Africa in 2005 where she explored community gardening for poverty alleviation in township schools. Since then the National Science Foundation, the Garden Mosaics Program, and the National Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences have honored her. As a Cornell graduate student Ms. Simon served as a Cornell Urban Scholar, and she was involved in a participatory action research project focusing on gentrification in the Rockaways. Ms. Simon joined the staff of Cornell University Cooperative Extension - New York City while she was a master's candidate and served as a Project Coordinator for the CYFAR CITY Project (Children, Youth, Families at Risk, Community Improvement through Youth). NYC CYFAR's CITY project encouraged youth to conduct community improvement projects in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, NY. Simon earned her M.S. from the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University under the direction of Dr. W. Trochim, Dr. S. Hamilton, and Dr. C. Kraft. For five years, Simon served as the Project Manager at Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County where she oversaw undergraduate and graduate students who served as volunteers in her 4-H after-school programming. Simon worked with Cloverbuds, preteens, and teens who worked on civic engagement, healthy living, and STEM projects Simon currently works full time with the NYS 4-H Office as their Civic Engagement Specialist.

Jennifer Tiffany is Director of Outreach and Community Engagement and Director of the HIV Risk Reduction and Education Projects for the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. She also serves as the Associate Director for Outreach and Extension for the College of Human Ecology. Tiffany received her Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University in 2004. She joined CHE in 1989 to direct the HIV/AIDS Education Project and is the lead author of the Talking with Kids about HIV/AIDS parent education curriculum. She is an interdisciplinary social scientist and educator whose work focuses on youth participation and community-based HIV/AIDS education, with a particular focus on intergenerational communication. Her HIV/AIDS related research includes a study funded by the National Institutes of Health to examine the relationships among social connectedness, highly engaged program participation, and HIV risk reduction among 13-17 year olds in New York City. Her research and outreach efforts both build upon participatory action research and community-based participatory research methods as well as participatory approaches to planning, program and resource materials design, and evaluation. Tiffany has designed, evaluated and implemented a variety of programs and is the author and co-author of numerous journal articles, book chapters and extension publications and materials.

Janis Whitlock is a research scientist emerita in the BCTR. A developmental psychologist and public health specialist, she specializes in advancing understanding of and support for adolescent and young adult mental health and wellbeing. She is the founder and director of the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery (CRPSIR), a program initiated in 2004 to explore non-suicidal self-injury. In 2006, with the support of several BCTR colleagues, she convened the first meeting of what is now the International Society for the Study of Self-Injury (ISSS) and subsequently served as its first president and the 2022 ISSS faculty fellow. Whitlock has conducted research and provided community-based consultation in areas related to social media and mental health, suicide prevention, sexual violence prevention, and adolescent school and community connectedness and resilience. She is the author of over 50 publications and author of the book, "Healing self-injury: A compassionate guide for parents and other loved ones." In 2019, Dr. Whitlock was awarded the Francqui International Professor fellowship, a prize that supported a multi-month stay in Belgium at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Dr. Whitlock currently lives in Boulder, Colorado where she provides consultation for organizations, school systems, and communities dedicated to enhancing youth-focused mental health supports and resources. In addition to serving as co-editor for an Oxford Handbook on non-suicidal self-injury slated for publication in 2023, she continues to speak and write on contemporary challenges and opportunities in her areas of expertise.

Michael Nunno, D.S.W., is senior extension associate, emeritus in Cornell Human Ecology and co-principal investigator of the Residential Child Care Project at the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. Dr. Nunno has a background and expertise in social policy, regulation, and legislation related to child welfare issues as well as specific expertise in the identification, prevention, and etiology of child abuse and neglect in residential care. Related to these interests has been his work in the reduction of aggressive critical incidents in residential facilities, training and evaluation of performance competencies, and organizational implementation strategies to introduce crisis prevention systems and program models in children’s residential facilities. His research has examined how children die in restraints, the dynamics of adolescent female restraint episodes, and the impact of organizational climates and cultures on critical incidents. He is also an expert in selected civil litigation cases throughout the United States where children have died or been seriously injured while in out-of-home care. Dr. Nunno has published his work in chapters of the books Child Protective Services Team Handbook and Understanding Abusive Families. He was the lead editor for the book For Our Own Safety: Examining the Safety of High-risk Interventions for Children and Young People published by the Child Welfare League of America. His work has also appeared in the journals Child Abuse and Neglect: An International Journal, Children and Society, Protecting Children, Journal of Child Welfare, Children and Youth Services Review, Applied Developmental Science, Journal of Child and Family Studies, Scottish Journal of Residential Care, and the Child and Youth Care Forum. He sat on the expert panel for the Child Welfare League of America’s Best Practices Guidelines for Child Maltreatment in Foster Care and is currently a member of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (IPSCAN) Expert Faculty Program.