Speaker Bios

Tanya Tull, ScD, President/CEO, Partnering for Change

For over 25 years, Tanya Tull has played a significant role in the development of innovative solutions to family homelessness, both in Los Angeles and nationwide.  She founded Para Los Niños in L.A.’s Skid Row in 1980, co-founded L.A. Family Housing in 1983, and in 1988 founded two new organizations, A Community of Friends, which develops permanent supportive housing throughout L.A. County for special needs populations, and Beyond Shelter, where she introduced an innovation in the field at the time, the housing first or rapid re-housing approach to ending family homelessness. This methodology has now changed public policy and practice on a national scale.   Partnering for Change, her fifth nonprofit organization, was founded in 2010 as an evolution of Beyond Shelter’s Institute for Research, Training and Technical Assistance. A graduate of Scripps College, Claremont, and UCLA School of Education, she received an Honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences from Whittier College in 1992.  She was a Senior Fellow at UCLA School of Public Affairs in 2005-06 and has served as a Guest Lecturer there and as an Adjunct Professor for Research at the School of Social Work, University of Southern California.  In 2009, Tull was elected as a Senior Fellow at Ashoka, the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. 

Katy White, MSW, Dare Mighty Things

Katy White consults with programs serving at-risk and high-risk youth across the country. Katy has supported the creation of statewide mentoring coalitions, managed communities of practice, and provided TA services to dozens of youth programs. She has done extensive benchmarking and training on developing strong partnerships and coalitions, especially for social service agencies. Katy received her Master’s degree in social work from Monmouth University, and her Bachelor of Arts in social work with a minor in Spanish from Christopher Newport University. Katy has years of experience in both national and international community service, having participated in and led programs in Honduras, Costa Rica, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. Katy works for Dare Mighty Things, a veteran-owned small business offering management consulting services for large-scale programs that affect vulnerable populations.

Karen Ingersoll, PhD, University of Virginia

Dr. Ingersoll’s research focuses on behavioral treatment development for addictive behaviors and problematic health behaviors. Specific interests include studies of motivational interviewing and empirically supported therapies to: 1) enhance clinical outcomes for substance users with HIV/AIDS, 2) enhance medication adherence, 3) prevent fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, 4) prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancy, and 5) treat addictive disorders in medical patients including those with pregnancy, pancreatitis, liver disorders, and pain.

Jane M. Simoni, PhD, University of Washington

Dr. Simoni's research interests lie primarily in clinical health psychology. She studies coping with trauma, chronic illness, and other stressful life events and is particularly interested in whether individuals from historically oppressed or stigmatized groups experience unique stressors or exhibit culturally specific coping processes. Dr. Simoni's current research includes a large project to evaluate the effectiveness of peer support and two-way pager messaging to enhance antiretroviral medication adherence among a population of HIV+ clinic patients in Seattle. She is also conducting developmental work in Beijing, China on culturally appropriate adherence interventions.

Paul Colson, PhD, Columbia University

Dr. Colson holds Masters and doctoral degrees in social work from the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago.  He serves as Project Director, Peer Advanced Competency Training (PACT) Project, and Program Director of the Charles P. Felton National Tuberculosis Center, ICAP, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.  Dr. Colson is experienced in designing and conducting interventions using peer educators.  Additionally, he has extensive experience in designing and delivering peer educator trainings.  His first experience with peer educators was a violence reduction project with Chicago street gangs.  More recently at Harlem Hospital, Dr. Colson has served as a co-investigator in several randomized clinical trials of peer interventions including the Pathways to Completion Study, the Harlem Adherence to Treatment Study, and the Tuberculosis Adherence Partnership Alliance Study.  In these projects, he took primary responsibility for the design of the peer intervention and for conducting training and supervision of the peer educators.