Researchers/Practitioners
Joel H. Brown, Ph.D., M.S.W.
Executive Director
Dr. Joel H. Brown is the Executive Director of CERD. He has served as a Full Professor of Education at the University of Oklahoma as well as San Diego State University. He founded CERD out of a desire to create evaluation, assessment and corresponding practices focusing on people’s strengths, interests, and infinite possibilities of life. Dr. Brown is a nationally recognized social science researcher and three-time author with rare and significant experience in blending evaluation research with program development, policy consultation, training and implementation. Indeed, he has conducted some of this nation’s largest and most comprehensive educational evaluations. As such, his work has been featured in a wide array of media outlets, from ABC’s 20/20 to the New York Times, from National Public Radio to Rolling Stone.
Most notably with Corwin Press/Sage Publications, he co-authored numerous books focusing on strengths-based educational evaluation, practice and cultural competence, including the nationally recognized Resilience Education–describing the research and application of Resilience in learning and development.
His clients have included many local, state and federal agencies, including the U.S. General Accountability Office (USGAO), the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health. His areas of expertise, all within Educational/Psychological and Social Welfare contexts, include mixed methods program and policy evaluation, the study of disadvanataged youth learning/development and its translation into program development and training in educational, social service and business agencies
Dr. Brown earned an M.S.W. from the University of California, Berkeley and has performed several clinical social work internships. Before earning his doctorate in Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1991, he was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Gaetane Jean-Marie, Ph.D.
CERDified Trainer
Dr. Gaetane Jean-Marie is a CERDified Trainer as well as an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Her research interests include authentic teaching and learning, issues of equity and justice, and women and educational leadership.
Dr. Jean-Marie’s work in CERD and Resilience Education involves special populations of students (e.g. economically disadvantaged students and individuals of limited English proficiency) who have been traditionally under-represented in educational practices. Her involvement is four-fold: (1) Facilitate Resilience Education workshops for educators and community members who work with young people and their families; (2) Provide curricular modifications for educators to cultivate Resilience in the learning process and arrange opportunities within the curriculum for young people to engage in cooperative learning; (3) Conduct evaluations of programs/services that build on the Resilience approach to meet the academic, social and emotional needs of young people and increase opportunities that provide choices for adolescents and; (4) Engage and collaborate in empirically ground Resilience research to serve as a basis for future educational policies and disseminate findings in scholarly writing.
Dr. Jean-Marie earned her doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching with a certificate of concentration from the Women’s Studies Program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
Kathleen Lester, M.S.
Trainer | Washington, DC
Kathleen R. Snavely-Lester is a certified trainer in the Resilience model. She is also the Director of Training for the University of Maryland’s Bureau of Governmental Research. Previously, as the Director of Research for the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI), she was responsible for coordinating research and evaluation for the drug court movement, including the development and implementation of research and evaluation workshops. As Managing Editor for NDCI, Lester was responsible for juvenile and family drug court projects for both NDCI and the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP). She worked as a Senior Research Associate with the District of Columbia Courts and as Project Manager with the Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Ms. Lester was primarily responsible for the planning, design and implementation of the District of Columbia’s Juvenile Drug Court Program. She also developed the DC Superior Court’s Child Protection Mediation Program. She earned an M.S. in Justice from American University.
Judith Brown, Ph.D.
Executive Trainer
Dr. Judith Brown is an Executive Trainer at CERD and has helped with training the CERDified trainers. She has authored numerous books on communication and relationships, including her most recent title, The I in Science: Training to Utilize Subjectivity in Research. She has also trained and consulted with a variety of clients, including but not limited to: IBM; The Royal Norwegian Air Force; School of Medicine, University of Southern California; Louisville Public Schools; World Health Organization; S.P.A.N. (Special Project Alcohol and Narcotics), California Polytechnic, Pomona; California Commission on Crime Control and Violence Prevention; Executive Training Research Project, University of California, Santa Barbara; Joint Effort for Foster Families, Santa Barbara; Sexual Abuse Treatment Program, Santa Barbara; as well as over 250 training workshops in the United States, England, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Holland, and Russia.
Geni Cowan, Ph.D.
CERDified Trainer
Dr. Geni Cowan is a CERDified Trainer and an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at California State University, Sacramento. She is also an adjunct professor of Indigenous Studies at D-Q University in Davis, California. Dr. Cowan’s background in education is multi-faceted, and includes professional training and development of administrators, social workers, teachers, and paraprofessional teachers. Her work in multicultural counseling, education and research lead to her interest in working with CERD. Additionally, Dr. Cowan is experienced in the areas of substance abuse counseling and prevention, HIV/AIDS counseling and prevention, and multicultural education. She is the author of the textbook, Understanding Educational Research: A User-Friendly Approach, and a contributor to the book, Surviving Academia. Dr. Cowan earned her Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from the Professional School for Psychological Studies and her doctorate in Confluent Education from the University of California, Santa Barbara.