The Evidence-to-Impact Podcast

In this episode, host Michael Donovan, Associate Director of the Evidence to Impact Collaborative at Penn State, speaks with Bob Lamb, Director of Programs and Partnerships at Be a Part of the Conversation, and Haydn Briggs, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Group Psychotherapist, and Co-Founder of the Philadelphia Area Psychodrama Institute. Together, they explore the critical role that authentic human connection plays in recovery,...

In Part 1 of this two-part episode, Michael Donovan sits down with Dale Keshishian of HealthWorks Academies and David Garbe of the McKinney Center for STEM Education at the Philadelphia Education Fund to unpack the challenges, and opportunities, of building stronger STEM pathways for young people.

From early exposure and hands-on learning to representation, mentorship, and community engagement, this conversation explores what it ta...

In this episode of the Evidence to Impact Podcast, host Michael Donovan brings together three experts to explore how podcasts are transforming clinical learning. The guests include Dr. William Calo, Associate Professor of Public Health Sciences and Associate Director of the Penn State Cancer Institute; Dr. Ben Fogel, Professor of Pediatrics at Penn State College of Medicine; and Dr. Paul Williams, Professor of Internal Medicine at ...

This episode, host Michael Donovan, Associate Director of the Evidence to Impact Collaborative at Penn State, speaks with Dr. Stephen Sandelich, Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine Penn State Health, Associate Director of Outreach PSACT and Sarah Ballard, Assistant Director of Outreach PSACT. The conversation explores the topic of substance use among adolescents, the role of stigma and privacy concerns, and how co...

In this episode, host Michael Donovan, Associate Director of the Evidence to Impact Collaborative at Penn State, speaks with Dr. Alice Zhang, family medicine physician researcher in the Penn State Health Department of Family and Community Medicine, and Marcia Goodman-Hinnershitz, Director of Planning and Resource Development at the Council on Chemical Abuse. The conversation explores the Health to Go program, an innovative approach...

Part 2 is here!

In this follow-up episode, we take a deeper look at the Madison Area Recovery Initiative (MARI). Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska (Penn State), Captain Joe Balles (retired, Madison Police Department), and Captain Diana Nachtigal (Madison Police Department) share how evidence-based outreach, peer recovery partnerships, and innovative diversion strategies are reshaping the connections between policing, addiction recovery, and c...

You know what time it is - new episode! This one takes a deep dive into how community policing supports recovery and crime reduction, specifically within the Madison, Wisconsin area. The host, Michael Donovan, sits down with Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska from Penn State, Captain Joe Balles, and Captain Diana Nachtigal of the Madison Police Department to explore this topic further.

The conversation dives into the development of the Madison...

We’re back! The Evidence-to-Impact Podcast is back with a new episode where we discuss The Adolescent Health Network (AHN) from Penn State PRO Wellness. This episode features a conversation with Dr. Deepa Sekhar, executive director of Penn State PRO Wellness, Victoria Smith, career coordinator at Hershey High School in the Derry Township School District, and two amazing 12th-grade students and past program participants, Sarah...

We're closing out this semester's season with a conversation about prevention and partnerships. We focus on a discussion between a long-standing collaborative relationship between Penn State and the Pennsylvania Commonwealth government, which targets interventions and prevention work targeted towards youth and families. Our episode covers a wide span of topics, including why prevention and implementation work are difficult, but cri...

For this month’s episode, we did something a little different. We spoke to two researchers with two different approaches to tackling the same problem: knowledge mobilization. In essence, the concept of knowledge mobilization focuses on making knowledge, resources or practices that exist in one space and making them accessible to specific audiences. We talked about the work behind SOSNetLab (Social Opportunity Space ...

This month's episode tackles a fascinating combination of topics involving the impact of biological and social factors on chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes, and the prevention and treatment efforts for those chronic diseases through state and local government programs.

We spoke to Lindsay Fernández-Rhodes, Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health and the Director of Epidemiology and Genetics across Populations & Soci...

This month's episode discusses mental health screenings for adolescents in the K-12 school system. We spoke to Deepa Sekhar, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics at the College of Medicine, and Executive Director, Penn State PRO Wellness; Perri Rosen, PhD, NCSP, Consulting Psychologist, Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Pennsylvania Dept. of Human Services, and Steve Sharp, School Counselor in the H...

The end of the spring semester marks the release of another episode! This month, we tackled the tough topic of mental health among college students. We talked about how COVID-19 has impacted college students seeking mental health services, the challenges for counselors and administrators working in university mental health centers, policy solutions to the crisis, and other things that have happened as a result of the pandemic like ...

We're back for our third season! Kicking off the 2022 season, we explore the juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania.

We spoke to Megan Kurlychek, Professor of Sociology, Criminology and Public Policy and Associate Director of the Criminal Justice Research Center at Penn State, and Rick Steele, Executive Director of the Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission at the Pennsylvania Commonwealth, about their work in the juvenile justice...

This month's episode tackles all things related to the U.S. Census. We discussed the decennial Census, the data products created and released from the U.S. Census Bureau, the current demographic trends and challenges, and measuring hard-to-reach populations.

We spoke to Raeven Chandler, Ph.D., Director of the Pennsylvania Population Network (PPN) at the Population Research Institute (PRI), and Assistant Research Professor of Rural S...

In this month’s episode, we tackled innovations in healthcare. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen a focus on various healthcare innovations and technology like artificial intelligence, cloud-enabled solutions, and inpatient telehealth, but other innovations are important, too. Some of these focused on in Pennsylvania include how we can get more value out of the country’s healthcare system without sacr...

This month marks the beginning of the third season of this podcast!

We're kicking things off by exploring the opportunities and challenges of Pennsylvania's child welfare system. For the past several years, there has been an ongoing partnership between Penn State researchers and government partners to change the Commonwealth's county-based child welfare system through legislative and policy actions. We spoke to Jennie Noll, Ph.D.,...