Team

Dr. Katie Edwards, Ph.D., (she/her) is a Professor at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln where she directs the Interpersonal Violence Research Laboratory. Using community-based participatory action research, Dr. Edwards seeks to answer two questions in her work: (1) How do we prevent sexual and related forms of violence? and (2) How do we most effectively support survivors in the aftermath of violent victimization? Much of Dr. Edwards work focuses on minoritized populations, specifically Indigenous youth and families as well as sexual and gender minority youth. Dr. Edwards highly values community leadership in developing and evaluating strengths-focused, culturally grounded initiatives to prevent and respond to sexual and related forms of violence. To date, she has published more than 200 peer reviewed journal articles, and over the past 10 years has accrued over 22 million dollars in federal funding from the CDC, NIH, NIJ, OVW, IES and NSF. Her work is also funded by the American Psychological Foundation and the William T Grant Foundation. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 2011 from Ohio University although she considers herself an interdisciplinary, action-oriented prevention scientist. Dr. Edwards is committed to life-long learning and gains knowledge and inspiration every day from her students, postdocs, staff, community partners, and youth.

Eileen Boswell serves as Clinical Research Coordinator in the Interpersonal Violence Research Laboratory. In this role, Eileen supports multiple project teams with documentation protocols for data monitoring and security and institutional review board processes. Eileen earned a PhD in Educational Studies and a certificate in Mixed Methods Research from UNL and holds a master's degree in library and information science.

Tressa Copple serves as Financial Coordinator to the Interpersonal Violence Research Laboratory ensuring study participants are properly compensated for their time. Her background includes several years with Services for Students with Disabilities and various other nonprofits. A Nebraska native and UNL alum, she has returned to Nebraska and UNL for a second bachelor's degree.

Joseph Gardella is a mixed-methods community and applied social psychologist whose research focuses on better understanding individual and systemic causes of positive youth development in school settings, particularly with historically marginalized populations. His work focuses on developing, implementing and evaluating prevention and intervention programming and informing policy efforts, especially building structural interventions that increase opportunities to grow relationships and coach targeted skills. Gardella earned his Ph.D. in Community Research and Action from Vanderbilt University.

Christina Hitz provides leadership and development of staff, students at IVRL as a senior project director. Her interdisciplinary experience spans the fields of communication, law enforcement and community engaged public health practice. Hitz earned a Master of Public Health from the University of Nebraska Medical Center and a Bachelor of Arts in communication.

Carly Wheeler is the research manager for the IVRL, specializing in project management and administration for the lab.

Skyler Hopfauf is a project coordinator for the Youth VIP Project and the Rapid City Family Project.

Ramiro Angelino is project coordinator for the Interpersonal Violence Research Laboratory’s initiative to better understand sexual assault experiences among U.S. sexual minority men, and to inform prevention and response efforts. He provides logistical, technical, organization and communications support to the project with input from an advisory board. Ramiro earned a bachelor’s degree in clinical community psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.