Dr. Atwood is a Senior Research Scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. She received her Master’s and Doctorate at the Harvard School of Public Health. Over the last twenty years she has been involved in the evaluation of evidence-based prevention programs targeting high risk adolescents, early education programs and their impact of children’s developmental outcomes, and the capacity of state substance abuse prevention services.
Dr. Atwood leads three evaluation contracts for the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Prevention which involve management of a research team, analysis of state-level data sources, and assessment of health disparities. She is an evaluator for an Office of Women’s Health funded Cooperative Agreement to expand Hepatitis and HIV testing to women experiencing intimate partner violence.
She has served as Co-Investigator on four NIH R01 randomized trials that sought to reduce sexual risk taking behaviors among adolescents with a specific focus on female adolescents in Thailand, Liberia and housing developments in urban centers in the U.S. Dr. Atwood was a member of the evaluation team contracted by the Maryland Department of Health to evaluate the impact of the Rape Sexual Assault Prevention Program (RSAPP) on reductions in victimization and sexual assault among women.
Dr. Atwood has served as an evaluator on numerous other state and national-level evaluation contracts that involve execution of large social science studies involving analyses of secondary data sources, collection of primary data and integration of findings into final reports, briefings, and presentations.
