CLD - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- GaLEND Evaluation Team Member
Job Titles:
- Grant Contract Officer III
Job Titles:
- Director of Research & Evaluation
- Research & Evaluation Faculty
Job Titles:
- Family Support Specialist
Job Titles:
- Emeritus
- Emeritus Clinical Professor
- Professor
Job Titles:
- Research Coordinator
- Senior Clerk
Artist Bio: Eric James Norris is a Georgia-based artist currently enrolled in undergraduate studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA where he also works as a gallery assistant at the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design Galleries. Primarily a printmaker and painter, Eric's work has consisted of everything from portraiture of both animals and people to abstracted, and sometimes even humorous images, objects, and illustrations relating to contemporary life. Recently his studies at GSU have allowed him an opportunity to pursue more conceptually relevant work and step away from commissioned paintings.
Job Titles:
- Co - Director & Research Associate Professor
- Public Health
Erin Vinoski Thomas, Ph.D., is the Co-Director of the Center for Leadership in Disability, and is also a Research Associate Professor in the department of Health Policy & Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. Dr. Vinoski Thomas's research focuses on disability health disparities, with an emphasis on identifying and promoting holistic health behaviors particularly among women and girls with disabilities.
Prior to earning her Ph.D., Dr. Vinoski Thomas served as a Disability and Health Fellow with the National Association of County and City Health Officials; in this role, she supported a national program providing technical assistance to local health departments across the US to increase their inclusion of people with disabilities in their policies, programs, and services.
Job Titles:
- Grant Contract Officer III
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Co - Director
- Co - Director of the Center for Leadership
- GaLEND Director
Kathleen Baggett is Co-Director of the Center for Leadership in Disability, Director, Mark Chaffin Center for Healthy Development, and Associate Professor .
Dr. Baggett is a Licensed Psychologist Health Service Provider and Tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health. She directs the Mark Chaffin Center for Healthy Development, one of the five university level research centers at Georgia State.
For more than 12 years, she has served as an NIH study committee or special emphasis panel member for grant reviews on child development, peripartum health and well-being, child maltreatment prevention and treatment, and cross-institute clinical scientist loan repayment awards. Long-term research partnerships include the International Peripartum Mood Disorder Research Group, National Toddler Treatment Network, and Oregon Research Institute. Within the Society for Prevention Research and the Bridging the Word Gap research groups she mentors early career researchers.
Artist Bio: Kristina Sooy is currently a senior in the photography BFA program at Georgia State University. She began at GSU with an Associate's Degree in Commercial Photography from Gwinnett Technical College. She enjoys thinking conceptually for more fine art photography applications and marries that with her commercial technique. Kristina Sooy struggles daily with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), anxiety, and depression. Communicating her thoughts through photography is easier than writing or talking most of the time because of her ADHD. With ADHD, it's difficult to articulate things very well. However, it's easier to visualize what she would like to communicate through her images. Whether that is addressing an important social issue, expressing feelings of anxiety, being ironic in a funny manner to slip a laugh into someone's mundane day; Sooy believes that in instances when words don't penetrate, or create enough impact, photography can fill these voids where communication gets lost in translation. Many problems in the world could be solved if people could communicate better and feel empathy for each other's perspectives. Photography offers a way to communicate and for others to empathize.
Kristina Sooy definitely feels as if she has a better grasp on her mental health than earlier in her life. In the past, she would resort to much more destructive methods in order to cope with her ADHD, depression and anxiety. Recently, in therapy, Sooy has discovered a few new healthy ways to cope with her anxiety. This made her think of all the other methods she has used to cope with her mental health issues, and felt motivated to explore coping mechanisms further with this project. Kristina Sooy aims to document coping mechanisms that she has used, currently uses, or will use in the future to cope with her mental health issues. Photographing coping objects feels cathartic and a way of coping all on its own. While very difficult to talk about, an ongoing coping habit for Sooy was to hurt herself by slamming her head into a wall, cutting her arms and legs, or burning herself with a lighter. Kristina Sooy mentions she feels it is cathartic to stage these coping objects as still life against vibrant colors because it reminds her that no matter how much she enjoyed cutting as a distraction, it is a highlighted reminder of a very unhealthy way to cope. Kristina Sooy's intention with this work is to provoke viewers into evaluating their own coping mechanisms and to reflect on how they affect their emotions and growth. https://www.instagram.com/kristinasooyart/
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director
- Director of Interdisciplinary Training
Mark Crenshaw, MTS, is the Assistant Director of the Center for Leadership in Disability. He also serves as the Director of Interdisciplinary Training and the Training Director for Georgia's Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (GaLEND) program. Mr. Crenshaw's work focuses on developing disability leaders, building and sustaining community partnerships, and increasing the inclusion of individuals with disabilities in their communities. Since 2019, Mr. Crenshaw has represented CLD on the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities and played a significant role in the Georgia Developmental Disabilities Network's response to COVID-19. He provides training and technical assistance to LEND programs about the purposeful inclusion of self-advocates in interdisciplinary training. Mark has served on the design team and core faculty of the AUCD Leadership Academy since its inception in 2017.
Job Titles:
- Speech Language Pathology Discipline Faculty
Job Titles:
- Community Advocate Specialist
Job Titles:
- GaLEND Evaluation Team Member
- Training and Advocacy Manager
Job Titles:
- Research Associate
- Interdisciplinary Training Coordinator
is a multimedia artist and independent curator based in Atlanta, GA. Through her passions for art and design, Malik provides a creative eye for individuals and entrepreneurs who seek graphic design, web design, social media management and photography services. Samiyah Malik is a Muslim Bangladeshi American Woman viewing life through the lens of her identity. Her identity serves as a reflection of her work and how she sees the world as she continues her path of self-discovery. By combining both mediums of photography and design, she has created her own style of digital design: ‘GLOW IN THE DARK.'
Artist Bio: Spencer-Grace Williams is a Sophomore at Georgia State University studying Political Science. She has always had a proclivity towards art and has pursued it in many mediums including puppet making and abstract painting. Her foray into ceramics began about a year ago and she hopes to continue building her portfolio in the field.
Artist Bio: Stephanie Catrambone is a soon to be Master of Architecture candidate at Georgia Tech. She was born and raised outside of Philadelphia. After spending two years in the Peace Corps in Malawi where she taught various art classes, she began to foray into different mediums - oil painting, linocuts, collage, photography and watercolor. She is a self-taught artist, and spends all of her free time creating. Her art was featured in the 2019 Tuckamony Art Show in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.