As the Director of Clinical and Translational Research, Jennifer Lockman oversees the development, implementation and clinical application of research grants for Centerstone. In her role, Lockman works closely with Centerstone leaders and academic collaborators to find and pursue grant opportunities that have the capacity to meaningfully influence the clinical care provided at Centerstone.
She also maintains her own research program in suicide prevention, including developing novel treatment interventions for individuals at risk for suicide, training the mental health workforce to implement them, and equipping systems to work collaboratively in Zero Suicide Systems.
Lockman has extensive grant experience, having served as the Principal Investigator of two Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention Grants and two National Strategies for Suicide Prevention grants (funded by SAMHSA). As a counseling psychologist, her clinical practice focuses on serving adults seeking mental health services using narrative, constructivist, and suicide-specific care approaches. She also maintains an adjunct faculty role at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and a collaborator role at the Canandaigua VA Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention.
Lockman earned her PhD in counseling psychology from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. and her MS in professional counseling from Lipscomb University, Nashville, Tenn. She has published in professional journals and speaks regularly at national conferences focusing on suicide prevention and translational science.
Frank Stevens is the Vice President of Clinical Informatics. He has been with the organization since 1995. He ensures that electronic systems support the provision and review of clinical care.
He trained as a researcher and a clinician, graduated from the Ohio State University with a PhD in Psychology and is clinically licensed in Indiana. He is trained in process improvement. He is a member of the American Psychological Association and Health Information Management Systems Society.
Kathryn Mathes is the Vice President of Research & Evaluation. She has been with the Research Institute since 2007 and has functioned in the roles of Senior Program Evaluator, Director of Evaluation and since 2012, VP of Research & Evaluation. In this role, she provides leadership, management, supervision, and oversight for all program evaluations and clinical research protocols and is part of the Centerstone Research Institute Leadership Team. Mathes leads all activities associated with Centerstone Clinical Model evaluation with a particular interest in designing evaluation systems and protocols that help to evolve clinical models, inform clinical decision making, provide insight into progress made toward desired client outcomes and improves the implementation process. She has expertise in qualitative and mixed-methods evaluation designs that are gender-responsive, participatory and utilization focused.
Mathes earned a PhD from Cornell University’s Department of Human Service Studies, majoring in Program Evaluation and Health Care Administration, she holds a MS in Community Health and Nursing Education, a BS in Nursing and a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Certification. Over her 36-year work history she has served active duty in the US Army Nurse Corp; worked as a floor nurse; a pediatric nurse practitioner; a community health nurse; a nursing faculty member, and she owned/operated an evaluation consulting firm, BECS, Inc.
She is a member of the American Evaluation Association where she is active in the Feminist Issues in Evaluation, Program Theory, Mental Health Services and Diversity Topical Interest Groups. She won the 2014 Centerstone Research Institute CEO Appreciation Award for Outstanding Performance & Commitment and the 2015 Howard T. McClung Award for Excellence in Leadership. In 2018, Mathes completed her Executive Leadership Certification from Cornell University.
Richard Shelton is the Chief Executive Officer for Centerstone Research Institute.
He attended medical school at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He became a resident and Chief Resident at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (now the Longwood Program), a teaching hospital of the Harvard Medical School. After residency, he was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Mental Health Intramural Program in Washington, D.C. before entering the faculty of Vanderbilt University in 1985. There, he became the James G. Blakemore Research Professor and Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the Department of Psychiatry. He also became a professor in the Departments of Psychology and Pharmacology.
Richard joined the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in February of 2012 as the Charles Byron Ireland Professor, Vice Chair for Research, and head of the Mood Disorders Research Program. He has served on NIH study sections and was the chair of the Adult Psychopathology and Disorders of Aging review group. He has also actively served as a teacher and mentor.
He has won the Excellence in Teaching Award from the residents of the Vanderbilt Department of Psychiatry four times and the residents of UAB Department of Psychiatry twice. He was recognized by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill for his service to persons with serious and persistent mental illnesses with the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award in 1994 and 2012. He also received the Dorothea Dix Professional Service Award from the Tennessee Association of Mental Health Centers in 2007 in recognition of his impact on the practice of Psychiatry in the State of Tennessee.
Richard’s research focuses on the development of new treatments for depression and bipolar disorder (experimental therapeutics), including the identification of new targets for treatment, prevention of serious mental illnesses, testing novel therapies and identifying biomarkers of both disease and treatment response.
Ashley Newton, MPS, PMP is Vice President of Center for Clinical Excellence of the Centerstone Research Institute. Ashley served as interim director of CCE before her role as Vice President, leading CCE through a period of transformation and unprecedented growth of both staff and projects.
In her current role, Newton is charged with leading clinical projects that will advance Centerstone’s Noble Purpose — delivering care that changes people’s lives. She leads all the clinical transformation efforts including identification, development, implementation and evolution activities in three separate areas: clinical models, processes and pathways.
Newton joined Centerstone in 2006 and has previously held both clinical and leadership roles. Prior to joining CCE, she developed and implemented a community-based therapy model intended to provide care to rural areas where clinics did not exist. She also developed and implemented a high-fidelity community-based model serving young adults with substance use disorders.
Newton holds a BA in psychology and an MA in professional studies and strategic leadership from Middle Tennessee State University. she is a certified ACRA-ACC clinical supervisor and a Project Management Professional (PMP), the highest certification for project management.
