Dr. Joel H. Brown is both the Executive Director of CERD and a Professor of Education
at San Diego State University. He developed CERD out of a desire to create a
process that would focus 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 program
development with research, policy consultation, training and implementation. 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.
With Corwin Press/Sage Publications he has recently co-authored his third book in four
years, Resilience Education, describing the research and application of Resilience in educational
process. He is currently under contract with Corwin Press/Sage Publications for the
upcoming volume, The Resilient Leader.
His clients have included many local, state and federal agencies, including the U.S. General
Accounting Office and the National Institutes of Health. His areas of expertise, all within
Educational/Psychological and Social Welfare contexts, include the study of educational
policy/leadership/change and its translation into program development and training in
educational systems.
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.
Dr. Jerry Beck is a CERD Senior Scientist with over 20 years of experience and involvement
with practically all facets of the substance abuse prevention field. Beginning with his work as
an Information Specialist at the University of Oregon Drug Information Center in the 1970s,
and later as an Instructor in the University of Oregon Health Education School during the
early 1980s, Dr. Beck provided age- and experience-appropriate drug education to diverse
populations within a wide variety of settings. Relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in
1982, he continued his work in the prevention field as the Drug Educator/Counselor for the
Chinatown Youth Center in San Francisco.
He has also served in a senior capacity on several
federal grants, including Project Director for the 1988-1990 "Exploring Ecstasy" study (NIDA
R01-DA04408). Following this study, he co-authored the book Pursuit of Ecstasy: The MDMA
Experience (SUNY Press, 1994) with Dr. Marsha Rosenbaum. He authored the now classic
"100 Years of 'Just Say No': Reevaluating Drug Education Goals for the Coming Century"
(Evaluation Review, February, 1998). Dr. Beck earned his doctorate in the School of Public
Health at the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Debra Gutierrez is a CERDified Trainer as well as an Assistant Professor of Adult and
Higher Education at the University of Oklahoma (ou). Prior to her work at ou, her
professional experience included training and instruction in both business and educational
settings, more specifically as: engineer/project coordinator for a fortune 500 company, career
counselor, and secondary mathematics teacher in rural south Texas. These experiences enabled
frequent contact with ethnically diverse populations, first generation college students, and
first generation college graduates.
Dr. Gutierrez is currently building an expertise in the area of community college administration
while teaching courses related to community college issues, inclusiveness in higher
education, diversity and multicultural issues. Her work at CERD involves facilitating the
retention and success of non-traditional, under-represented students in higher education via
fostering both the development of students and multicultural learning environments.
Dr. Gutierrez earned a doctorate in Occupational and Adult Education from Oklahoma
State University and also holds an m.s. in Counseling and Guidance.
Dr. Gaetane Jean-Marie is a CERDified Trainer as well as an Assistant 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.
