Project Title: Developing a CTSA Research Network to Support Translational Science Across the Criminal Justice Continuum
Principal Investigator: Nick Zaller, Ph.D., professor, Fay W. Boozman College of Publish Health Department of Health Behavior and Health Education; director, Southern Public Health and Criminal Justice Research Center (S-PAC); co-director, Rural and Global Public Health Program, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS)
Co-Principal Investigators:
Megha Ramaswamy, Ph.D., professor of Population Health, University of Kansas School of Medicine
Michele Staton, Ph.D., M.S.W., professor at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Department of Behavioral Science, and faculty associate of the Center on Drug and Alcohol Research (CDAR).
Zaller has more than 15 years of experience working with criminal justice populations in Rhode Island, Arkansas and internationally. He conducts research on the overlap of behavioral health, infectious diseases and criminal justice involvement. With a background in infectious disease and behavioral health research, Zaller has expertise in study design and research methodology to study criminal justice populations, including recruitment, enrollment and consent, and retention of study participants, and his expertise in mixed methods allows him to identify and answer longitudinal patient-centered research questions. His research career has been dedicated to developing multidisciplinary collaborations that have taken a team-science approach to research. Zaller is affiliated with the NIH-funded Arkansas Center for Health Disparities and is principal investigator of one of its primary research projects. Through this work, he is focused on innovative ways to conduct jail-based screenings and linkage to post-release care support services for individuals at risk for HIV.