ORTNER CENTER ON VIOLENCE & ABUSE

Michelle Madden Dempsey teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, feminist legal theory, and jurisprudence at the Villanova University Law School, where she also serves as the Associate Dean of Faculty Research and Development. In 2015, she co-founded the Villanova Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation. Professor Dempsey received her BA from the University of Illinois, JD from the University of Michigan Law School, LLM from the London School of Economics, and D Phil (PhD) from the University of Oxford.

Following law school, she worked as a domestic violence prosecutor in the Champaign (Illinois) County State’s Attorney’s Office and later as a plaintiff’s tort litigator in one of Chicago’s premiere personal injury law firms. As a civil litigator, she obtained a record-setting jury verdict of $10.62 million in a medical malpractice trial and a $3.5 million jury verdict in a wrongful death case involving a shooting death by Chicago Police officers.

She was a tutor in law at University College London and served as an expert consultant on domestic violence prosecutions to the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales prior to joining the Oxford Law faculty in 2005.  At Oxford, she was a University Lecturer (CUF) in Law and a Tutorial Fellow. She left Oxford In 2009 to join Villanova where she teaches Criminal Law, Evidence, Jurisprudence, Feminist Legal Theory, and Sexuality & Law.

Prof. Dempsey has been working to combat commercial sexual exploitation since the late 1990s, when she served as a lobbyist in Vienna during the United Nations negotiations and drafting of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons. She has worked on behalf of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and has served as a consultant to the former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons.

Select Publications

Dempsey MM. Sex, work, and crime. In Bogg A, et al. (eds.), Criminality at Work. Oxford University Press, 2020.

Dempsey MM. Criminalization in domestic & international law: Considering sexual violence. Criminal Law & Philosophy. 2018; 12: 641-656.

Dempsey MM. What counts as trafficking for sexual exploitation? How legal methods can improve empirical research. Journal of Human Trafficking. 2017; 3: 61-80.

Dempsey MM. Domestic violence and the United States’ criminal justice system. In Bosworth M, et al. (eds.), Contours of Criminal Justice. Oxford University Press, 2016.

Melissa Dichter is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Temple University. Dr. Dichter earned her PhD in social welfare and master of social work from the University of Pennsylvania, and her BA in child development from Tufts University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in health services research at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion. In addition to her role at Temple, Melissa also serves as associate director and core investigator at the VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion at the Crescenz (Philadelphia) VA Medical Center. Prior to her position at Temple University, Melissa was on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.

Dr. Dichter’s research focuses on individuals’ experiences with, and system responses to, intimate partner violence (IPV). Her work has examined healthcare system identification of and response to patient experience with IPV; IPV survivor experiences with criminal legal system intervention; health and social impacts of IPV experience; IPV survivor engagement in social services, social relationships, and advocacy; and IPV experiences of women military veterans. Dr. Dichter’s work has also focused on identifying and meeting the health and psychosocial needs of women military veterans and of gender and sexual minority populations. Dr. Dichter has methodological expertise in primary data collection, mixed methods and qualitative research methods, and community-engaged research.

Select Publications

Creech SK, Pulverman CS, Kroll-Desrosiers A, Kinney R, Dichter ME, Mattocks K. Intimate partner violence among pregnant veterans: Prevalence, associated mental health conditions, and health care utilization. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2021 Jan 19.

Dichter ME, Ogden SN, Tuepker A, Iverson KM, True G. Survivors’ input on health care-connected services for intimate partner violence. Journal of Womens Health. 2021 Jan 8.

Dichter ME, Makaroun L, Tuepker A, True G, Montgomery AE, Iverson K. Middle-aged women’s experiences of intimate partner violence screening and disclosure: “It’s a private matter. It’s an embarrassing situation”. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2020; 35:2655-2661.

Iverson KM, Dichter ME, Stolzmann K, Adjognon OL, Lew RA, Bruce LE, Gerber MR, Portnoy GA, Miller CJ. Assessing the Veterans Health Administration’s response to intimate partner violence among women: protocol for a randomized hybrid type 2 implementation-effectiveness trial. Implementation Science. 2020; 15: 29.

Makaroun LK, Brignone E, Rosland AM, Dichter ME. Association of health conditions and health service utilization with intimate partner violence identified via routine screening among middle-aged and older women. JAMA Network Open. 2020; 3: e203138.

Sorrentino AE, Iverson KM, Tuepker A, True G, Cusack M, Newell S, Dichter ME. Mental health care in the context of intimate partner violence: Survivor perspectives. Psychological Services. 2020 Apr 2:10.

Dichter ME, Sorrentino AE, Haywood TN, Tuepker A, Newell S, Cusack M, True G. Women’s participation

in research on intimate partner violence: Findings on recruitment, retention, and participants’ experiences. Women’s Health Issues. 2019; 29: 440-446.

Haya Itzhaky, PhD, is a Professor at and the former Director of the School of Social Work at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. Professor Itzhaky has conducted multiple research studies around the globe (South America, Australia, Nepal, India, Canada, Israel, and the U.S.) on community practice topics ranging from trauma to citizen participation to domestic violence. She recently conducted one of the few longitudinal studies of women who lived in a battered women’s shelter. She also has developed a program for community development and community organizations.

Professor Itzhaky is presently a consultant to Israel’s Minister of Welfare. She was Chairman of the Council of the Directors of University-based Schools of Social Work in Israel and is currently the Head of the Ph.D. Program at the School of Social Work in Bar-Ilan University.

Select Publications

Ben-Porat A, Levy D, Kattoura O, Dekel R, Itzhaky H. Domestic violence in Arab society: A comparison of Arab and Jewish women in shelters in Israel. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 2021; 36: NP26-NP45.

Dekel R, Shaked O, Ben-Porat A, Itzhaky H. The interrelations of physical and mental health: Self-rated health, depression, and PTSD among female IPV survivors. Violence Against Women. 2020; 26: 379-394.

Levy D, Ben-Porat A, Kattoura O, Dekel R, Itzhaky H. Predicting depression among Jewish and Arab Israeli women who are victims of intimate partner violence. Violence Against Women. 2020; 26: 1209-1227.

Shaked O, Dekel R, Ben-Porat A, Itzhaky H. Predicting changes in PTSD and depression among female intimate partner violence survivors during shelter residency: A longitudinal study. Psychological Trauma. 2020 Aug 20.

Dekel R, Shaked OZ, Ben-Porat A, Itzhaky H. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder upon admission to shelters among female victims of domestic violence: An ecological model of trauma. Violence & Victims. 2019; 34: 329-345.

Refaeli T, Levy D, Ben-Porat A, Dekel R, Itzhaky H. Personal and environmental predictors of depression among victims of intimate partner violence: Comparison of immigrant and Israeli-born women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 2019; 34: 1487-1511.

Mary Koss, PhD, is a Regents’ Professor in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona. She published the first national study sexual assault among college students in 1987. She was the principal investigator of the RESTORE Program; the first restorative justice program for sex crimes among adults that was quantitatively evaluated.  She also directed Safety Connections, a restorative justice-based family strengthening program for children under 5 exposed to violence.  She has developed resources for campus use including ARC3 Campus Climate Survey and the STARRSA model for rehabilitation of those responsible for sexual misconduct. Her ongoing work evaluates a sexual assault primary prevention program focusing on staff of alcohol serving establishments. She recently published a test of the “serial rape” hypothesis among college men. Her credentials document close to 300 publications. The most recent appeared in American Psychologist and focused on victim voice and in re-envisioning responses to sexual and physical violence, better responses to underserved populations, and greater alignment of funding from the Violence Against Women Act funding with expressed victim needs.

Dr. Koss has provided consultations for national and international governments and health and advocacy organizations. Since 2016 she has advised the US Departments of Justice, Education, and the White House Taskforce on Campus Sexual Assault. She was the 8th recipient of the Visionary Award from End Violence Against Women International. She has received awards from the American Psychological Association: The Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy (2000) and the Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology (2017).

Select Publications

Schaaf S, Lamade RV, Burgess AW, Koss M, Lopez E, Prentky R. Student views on campus sexual assault. Journal of American College Health. 2019; 67: 698-705.

Anderson EJ, Krause KC, Meyer Krause C, Welter A, McClelland DJ, Garcia DO, Ernst K, Lopez EC, Koss MP. Web-based and mhealth interventions for intimate partner violence victimization prevention: A systematic review. Trauma Violence & Abuse. 2019 Nov 19:1524838019888889.

Felitti VJ, Anda RF, Nordenberg D, Williamson DF, Spitz AM, Edwards V, Koss MP, Marks JS. Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2019; 56: 774-786.

Donde SD, Ragsdale SKA, Koss MP, Zucker AN. If it wasn’t rape, was it sexual assault? Comparing rape and sexual assault acknowledgment in college women who have experienced rape. Violence Against Women. 2018; 24: 1718-1738.

Lamade RV, Lopez E, Koss MP, Prentky R, Brereton A. Developing and implementing a treatment intervention for college students found responsible for sexual misconduct. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research. 2018; 10: 134-144.

Koss MP, White JW, Lopez EC. Victim voice in reenvisioning responses to sexual and physical violence nationally and internationally. American Psychologist. 2017; 72: 1019-1030.

Emily F. Rothman, ScD, is a Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health with secondary appointments at the Boston University School of Medicine in Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine. She is also a visiting scientist at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Dr. Rothman has authored more than 80 publications that span the areas of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, firearm violence, and pornography. She has been a PI or coinvestigator on numerous NIH and NIJ research grants and worked closely with multiple state sexual assault and domestic violence coalitions, state health departments, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on issues related to sexual assault prevention.

Select Publications

Rothman EF, Cuevas CA, Mumford EA, Bahrami E, Taylor BG. The psychometric properties of the Measure of Adolescent Relationship Harassment and Abuse (MARSHA) with a nationally representative sample of U.S. youth. Journal of Interpers Violence. 2021 Jan 5:886260520985480.

Rothman EF, Beckmeyer JJ, Herbenick D, Fu TC, Dodge B, Fortenberry JD. The prevalence of using pornography for information about how to have sex: Findings from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adolescents and young adults. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 2021 Jan 4.

Stone R, Campbell JK, Kinney D, Rothman EF. “He would take my shoes and all the baby’s warm winter gear so we couldn’t leave”: Barriers to safety and recovery experienced by a sample of Vermont women with partner violence and opioid use disorder experiences. Journal of Rural Health. 2021; 37: 35-44.

Campbell JK, Poage SM, Godley S, Rothman EF. Social anxiety as a consequence of non-consensually disseminated sexually explicit media victimization. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 2020 Oct 27:886260520967150.

Okeke N, Rothman EF, Mumford EA. Neighborhood income inequality and adolescent relationship aggression: Results of a nationally representative, longitudinal study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 2020 Mar 31:886260520908024.

Rothman EF, Bair-Merritt M, Broder-Fingert S. A feasibility test of an online class to prevent dating violence for autistic youth: A brief report. Journal of Family Violence. 2020.

Rothman EF, Preis SR, Bright K, Paruk J, Bair-Merritt M, Farrell A. A longitudinal evaluation of a survivor-mentor program for child survivors of sex trafficking in the United States. Child Abuse Neglect. 2020; 100: 12.

Rothman EF, Paruk J, Cuevas CA, Temple JR, Gonzales K. The development of the Measure of Adolescent Relationship Harassment and Abuse (MARSHA): Input from Black and Multiracial, Latinx, Native American, and LGBTQ+ youth. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 2020 Jul 5:886260520936367.

Laura Sinko is a PhD prepared mental health nurse, sexual assault nurse examiner, and first year postdoctoral fellow in the National Clinician Scholars Program. Laura has expertise in narrative and photography research methods with the majority of her research focusing on understanding recovery after gender-based violence. Currently, Laura is conducting research to identify the impact of violence normalization on recovery after gender-based violence and is testing a pilot photo elicitation intervention to promote self-efficacy and help-seeking actions after intimate partner violence. Laura has a passion for creative research dissemination to educate survivors and service providers about the healing journey.

Select Publications

Sorenson SB, Sinko L, Berk RA. The endemic amid the pandemic: Seeking help for violence against women in the initial phases of COVID-19. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2021; 36: 4899–4915.

Fauer AJ, Manges K, Stroumsa D, Sinko L, Adynski GI, Aronowitz SV, Choi KR. Catalyzing a nursing response to healthcare discrimination against transgender and nonbinary individuals. Journal of Nursing Scholarship. 2020; 52:599-604.

Sinko L, Beck D, Seng J. Developing the TIC grade: A youth self-report measure of perceptions of trauma-informed care. Journal of American Psychiatric Nurses Association. 2020 Nov 9: 1078390320970652.

Sinko L, Bulgin D, Fauer AJ, Aronowitz SV. Nursing work is justice work: Rethinking justice and promoting healing in survivors of gender-based violence. Public Health Nursing. 2020; 37: 631-636.

Sinko L, Munro-Kramer M, Conley T, Saint Arnault D. Internalized messages: The role of sexual violence normalization on meaning-making after campus sexual violence. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma. 2020, in press.

Sinko L, Saint Arnault D. Finding the strength to heal: understanding recovery after gender-based violence. Violence Against Women. 2020; 26: 1616-1635.

Sinko L, Munro‐Kramer M, Conley T, Burns CJ, Arnault DMS. Healing is not linear: Using photography to describe the day‐to‐day healing journeys of undergraduate women survivors of sexual violence. Journal of Community Psychology, 2019, in press.

Sinko L, Burns CJ, O’Halloran S, Saint Arnault D. Trauma recovery is cultural: Understanding shared and different healing themes in Irish and American survivors of gender-based violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 2019 Feb 19: 886260519829284.

Salamishah Tillet, formerly an Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies and a faculty member of the Alice Paul Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, moved to Rutgers in Fall 2018. At Rutgers, she is the Henry Rutgers Chair of African American Studies and Creative Writing, the Founding Director of the New Arts Social Justice Initiative at Express Newark, and the Associate Director of the Clement Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience.

Professor Tillet has appeared on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, TEDxWomen, and written op-eds and blog posts for The Atlantic, The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, The Nation, The New York Times, The Root, and Time. She is the co-founder of A Long Walk Home, Inc., a non-profit organization that uses art to end violence against girls and women.

To view her TEDxWomen conversation with Gloria Steinem click here. And here for articles published in The Nation – a quick online search will identify more published elsewhere.

Learn more here.

Select Publications

Tillet S. What the ‘Cuties’ critics can’t see: The complexities of Black girlhood. New York Times, October 2, 2020.

Tillet S. ‘I May Destroy You’ imagines a path back from sexual assault. New York Times, August 25, 2020.

Tillet S. A documentary for the #MeToo era. New York Times, June 3, 2020.

Tillet S. Why Harvey Weinstein’s Guilt matters to Black women. New York Times, February 26, 2020.

Tillet S, Tillet S. After the ‘Surviving R. Kelly’ documentary, #MeToo has finally returned to Black girls. New York Times, January 10, 2019.

Tillet S. No, Bill Cosby and R. Kelly were not lynched. New York Times, May 4, 2018.

Cathy Spatz Widom, PhD, is an international expert on the causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect. Her seminal, ongoing longitudinal study of a large sample of children with confirmed abuse and neglect in childhood is shedding light on the largely untested, but widely accepted, idea of the intergenerational transmission of violence.

A Distinguished Professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and member of the Graduate Center faculty of the City University of New York, she also has taught at Indiana University, SUNY Albany, and Harvard. She serves on the Committee on Law and Justice at the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences at the National Academy of Sciences and was co-chair of the National Research Council panel on Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice. Dr. Widom has provided invited testimony to Congressional and state committees.

She is an elected fellow of the American Psychological Association, American Psychopathological Association, and the American Society of Criminology and the recipient, among other awards, of the 1989 American Association for the Advancement of Science Behavioral Science Research Prize for her paper on the cycle of violence. Most recently, she received the 2016 Stockholm Prize in Criminology.

Dr. Widom received her BS in child development and family relationships from Cornell University, and her MA and PhD in psychology from Brandeis University.

Select Publications

Talmon A, Widom CS. Childhood maltreatment and eating disorders: A prospective investigation. Child Maltreatment. 2021 Feb 2:1077559520988786.

Baetz CL, Widom CS. Does a close relationship with an adult reduce the risk of juvenile offending for youth with a history of maltreatment? Child Maltreatment. 2020; 25: 308-317.

Carmel T, Widom CS. Development and validation of a retrospective self-report measure of childhood neglect. Child Abuse and Neglect. 2020; 106: 104555.

Carpi A, Nikulina V, Li X, Widom CS. Childhood maltreatment and lead levels in middle adulthood: A prospective examination of the roles of individual socio-economic and neighborhood characteristics. PLoS One. 2020; 15: e0240683.

Danese A, Widom CS. Objective and subjective experiences of child maltreatment and their relationships with psychopathology. Nat Human Behavior. 2020; 4: 811-818.

Osborn M, Widom CS. Do documented records and retrospective reports of childhood maltreatment similarly predict chronic inflammation? Psychological Medicine. 2020; 50: 2406-2415.

Widom CS, Li X. The role of psychiatric symptoms and environmental vulnerability factors in explaining the relationship between child maltreatment and suicidality: A prospective investigation. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2020; 276: 720-731.

Schuck AM, Widom CS. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in maltreated children grown up: The influence of neighborhood. Journal of Traumatic Stress. 2019; 32: 78-87.

Christine M. Forke, RN, MSN, CRNP, is a pediatric nurse practitioner and research director for the Craig-Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine. For over 20 years, Chrissie has been involved in the development, execution, and analysis of multiple clinical research projects related to adolescent health and risk behaviors. She has served as the project manager of multiple large-scale studies related to access to care, sexual initiation and reproduction, relationship violence, eating disorders, and others. Ms. Forke’s primary interests relate to reproductive health and intimate partner violence.

In 2003, Chrissie chaired the Task Force on Intimate Partner Violence at the Institute for Safe Families, then a non-profit agency in Philadelphia. Under her leadership, the task force implemented a study on intimate partner violence on three local college to assess campus resources and student knowledge of these resources, estimate the prevalence of intimate partner violence among college students, and query students and staff about which resources they would find most helpful in dealing with intimate partner violence on campus.

Recent Select Publications

Forke CM, Catallozzi M, Localio AR, Grisso JA, Wiebe DJ, Fein JA. Intergenerational effects of witnessing domestic violence: Health of the witnesses and their children. Preventive Medicine Reports. 2019; 15: 100942.

Forke CM, Myers RK, Localio AR, Wiebe DJ, Fein JA, Grisso JA, Catallozzi M. Intimate partner violence: Childhood witnessing and subsequent experiences of college undergraduates. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 2019 Jul 9: 886260519860909.

Forke CM, Myers RK, Fein JA, Catallozzi M, Localio AR, Wiebe DJ, Grisso JA. Witnessing intimate partner violence as a child: How boys and girls model their parents’ behaviors in adolescence. Child Abuse and Neglect. 2018; 84: 241-252.

Myers RK, Nelson DB, Forke CM. Occurrence of stalking victimization among female and male undergraduate students. Journal of College Student Development, 2016; 57: 213-218.

Wade R Jr., Cronholm PF, Fein JA, Forke CM, Davis M, Harkins-Schwarz M, Pachter LM, Bloom SL, Bair-Merritt MH.  Household and community-level adverse childhood experiences and adult health outcomes in a diverse urban population. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2016; 52: 135-145.

Casey Gwinn, JD, is the President of Alliance for HOPE International, the founder of Camp HOPE America, and co-founder of the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention.

Casey’s efforts to reduce violence against women and children span more than three decades. He founded and led the San Diego City Attorney’s Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Unit, where he prosecuted both misdemeanor and felony cases, from 1986 to 1996; co-founded the San Diego Task Force on Domestic Violence in 1986; founded the San Diego Domestic Violence Council in 1991; and served as the elected San Diego City Attorney from 1996 to 2004.

Casey led the effort to create a comprehensive, multi-agency Center bringing together many diverse services for victims of family violence under one roof, resulting in the opening of the nationally-acclaimed San Diego Family Justice Center in 2002. In January 2003, Casey and the San Diego Family Justice Center were profiled on the Oprah Winfrey Show as leading the way for other communities in developing a coordinated approach to co-locating services for victims of domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, human trafficking, and sexual assault. The Center was the model for President George W. Bush’s subsequent national initiative to create Family Justice Centers across the country and he asked Casey to lead the effort. Casey continues to oversee a national technical assistance team that supports all existing and developing Family Justice Centers in the United States and around the world.

He also has served on the U.S. Attorney General’s National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women, the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence, the Congressionally-created Department of Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence, and more.

Casey has received many, many local, state, and national awards over the years including the Avon Foundation for Women Advocate of the Year Award and the Women’s E-News 21 Leaders for the 21st Century Award. He has been recognized by The American Lawyer magazine as one of the top 45 public lawyers in America. In 1993, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges recognized his Child Abuse/Domestic Violence Unit as the model domestic violence prosecution unit in the nation.

He has authored a host of articles on domestic violence and has authored or co-authored nine books (including one in Arabic and one in Spanish) on the Family Justice Center movement. He wrote the first book ever targeted to the general public on the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study called Cheering for the Children: Creating Pathways to HOPE for Children Exposed to Trauma.  He is an honors graduate of Stanford University and UCLA School of Law.

To learn about Casey’s work to prevent and prosecute domestic violence and strangulation cases, click here.

Recent Select Publications

Gwinn C, Hellman C. Hope rising: How the science of hope can change your life. New York: Morgan James Publishing, 2019.

Gwinn C. Cheering for the children: Creating pathways to HOPE for children exposed to trauma. Tucson, AZ: Wheatmark, 2015.

Gwinn C. Dream big: A simple, complicated idea to stop family violence. Tucson, AZ: Wheatmark, 2010.

LaShawn R. Jefferson is the Deputy Director of the Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining Penn in 2018, she was with the Ford Foundation where she was part of the Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice team. She worked on gender rights and equality as a program officer on Women’s Human rights at the Foundation for nearly seven years. Before that she served as executive director of the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, which she joined in 1993. She has worked on a range of international women’s human rights issues in a variety of countries and authored multiple reports and op-eds on the topic. Her work aims to advance policies and practices that promote respect for women’s human rights, with a particular focus on the economic rights and economic participation of low-income women and women of color.

Information about Dr. Shembo can be found here

Gael Strack, Esq., is the CEO and Co-Founder of Alliance for HOPE International. She spearheaded much of the initial work and research on strangulation crimes from a prosecutor’s perspective.

In her role as CEO of the Alliance for HOPE International, she provides leadership for the following programs:

• The National Family Justice Center Alliance, which provides consulting to over 150 existing and pending Family Justice Centers around the world.
• The Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, which provides basic and advanced training on strangulation prevention to 5,000 professionals annually. [link to www.strangulationtraininginstitue.com]
• The Justice Legal Network, an innovative public interest law firm of solo attorneys who have pledged to provide civil legal services to victims and their children.
• Camp HOPE America, which, under the leadership of Casey Gwinn, provides summer camp and mentoring experiences to help children exposed to violence heal.
• The VOICES Survivor Network – DV survivors who volunteer their time to provide awareness, education, outreach and feedback to their local Family Justice Center.

Prior to launching the Alliance for Hope with Casey Gwinn, Gael served as the Founding Director of the San Diego Family Justice Center, where she worked closely with 25 on-site government and non-profit agencies that, in 2002, came together to provide services to victims of domestic violence and their children from one location. Prior to her work at the Family Justice Center, Gael was a prosecutor at the San Diego City Attorney’s Office. She joined the office in 1987 and served in many capacities including Head Deputy City Attorney responsible for the Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Unit.

Gael has worked with multiple state and local organizations as well as national ones, for example she is a former member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic Violence. She has been honored with numerous awards, most recently by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as the 2010 Recipient of the National Crime Victim Service Award for Professional Innovation in Victim Services.

Gael is an adjunct law professor for California Western School of Law where she teaches a course on domestic violence and the law. She has co-authored a series of articles and books about strangulation. To read her 2011 article “On the Edge of Homicide: A Prelude to Homicide” click here.

Recent Select Publications

Armstrong M Jr, Strack GB. Recognition and Documentation of Strangulation Crimes: A Review. JAMA Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. 2016; 142: 891-897.

Faugno D, Waszak D, Strack GB, Brooks MA, Gwinn CG. Strangulation forensic examination: best practice for health care providers. Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal. 2013; 35: 314-327.