Our Team | Penn State College of Health and Human Development

Directors

Director, Center for Safe and Healthy Children

Jennie G Noll, Ph.D., is the Ken Young Family Professor of Healthy Children in the department of Human Development and Family Studies and the past-director of the Penn State’s Child Maltreatment Solutions Network. Her contiguous NIH-funded research over the past three decades has focused on the bio-psycho-social consequences of child maltreatment including sexual abuse, the biological embedding of early-life stress, cognitive development of stress-exposed populations, pathways to teen pregnancy for females exposed to trauma, the internet and social media behaviors of at-risk youth, and the primary prevention of sexual abuse. She is also the PI of the NICHD P50 Capstone Center, the Translational Center Child Maltreatment Studies and MPI (with Yo Jackson) of the T32 Training grant, Creating the next generation of scholars in the child maltreatment sciences. Noll and her team work directly with local, state, and federal partners to produce and translate research in ways that support and educate policymakers in their use of science to inform policy decisions.

Associate Director, Center for Safe and Healthy Children

Zack Fisher, Ph.D. is assistant professor of human development and family studies. His research interests lie at the intersection of developmental science, time-dependent processes, and statistical computing. Broadly, his research activities are focused on methods development in service of health and human development research and fall into three main areas: the modeling of complex time-dependent systems, measurement issues commonly encountered in behavioral applications, and the synthesis of multi-way data (e.g. cross-sectional and time-series). While the primary focus of his work is methodological in nature, he is heavily involved in research on the bio-psycho-social consequences of childhood trauma and extreme stress.

As associate director, Fisher will head the methods consulting/trainings and innovative life-course risk modeling for members, affiliates, and trainees.

Director of Operations and Administration

Kimberley Ducato B.A., 2011, Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

Kimberley coordinates and manages a wide variety of special projects; provides human resources support for all Center personnel, oversees operations and facilities, develops and implement seminars, workshops, meetings and events, and provides administrative support to the Center Director. She will serve as the main communication liaison for the Center for Safe and Healthy Children and the T32 Training Grant.

Responsibilities within the center include:

Human Resources
Operations
Facilities
Scheduling
Communications

Director of Research Support

Tom Crist M.B.A., 2000, Saint Francis College, Loretto, PA

B.S., 1995, Management, Saint Francis College, Loretto, PA

Tom handles budgetary and financial related activities. Duties include planning and forecasting expenses related to the Center for Safe and Healthy Children and the Child Health Study. It is the responsibility of the Director to be sure that all financial goals are met in order to insure successful and healthy programs.

Responsibilities within the center include: