Associate Professor

Tulane University

Dr. Marva Lewis, IMH-E® Infant Mental Health Mentor, earned a doctorate in Sociocultural Psychology. She is an Associate Professor at Tulane University School of Social Work. For the past twenty years she conducts grant funded research on the rituals and routines of hair-combing interaction and parent-infant attachment. She works as a national consultant and trainer with the Zero to Three Safe Baby Court Teams on issues of implicit bias, historical trauma of slavery, and workforce contributions to racial disparities in the child welfare system. She serves on the ad hoc Board of Director’s group developing the Statement on Disrupting Systemic Racism in Academic Publishing for the Infant Mental Health Journal. Since 2020 she served as chair of the work group, Engage Diversity and Difference in Practice for the steering committee of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), Curricular Guide for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health and Developmental Neuroscience. Her book (2021) Therapeutic cultural routines to build family relationships. Talk, touch, and listen while combing hair ⓒ presents strengths-based, culturally valid, community-based interventions for families; and relationship-based, psychosocial measures and tools for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health service providers.

Professor

Oklahoma State University

Dr. Lana Beasley is a licensed Clinical Child Psychologist and is currently a Professor of Human Development and Family Science at Oklahoma State University. Dr. Beasley’s research has included working on randomized clinical trials and program evaluation all in the area of supporting children and families experiencing high-risk factors. She holds expertise in qualitative research and has been a co-investigator on numerous grants involving a program of research developing, implementing, evaluating, and expanding evidence-based home visiting programs serving populations facing adversity. Dr. Beasley also conducts mixed-methods research in the area of adaptation of treatments for diverse populations and examining engagement and attrition of families experiencing high-risk factors.

Autumn Cooper is the Trauma, Hope, Resilience, Education, and Diversity (THREAD) Director with the Oklahoma State Department of Health. In her current role she works closely with state leadership and community partners by sharing evidence-based trainings to strengthen connections and enhance organizational capacity for service delivery that is trauma responsive and resilience-oriented. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor, a Registered Play Therapy Supervisor, a doula, an Endorsed Infant Mental Health Specialist, a Community Resilience Trainer certified by ACE Interface, and serves on the board of the Oklahoma Association of Infant Mental Health.