Staff
Center Director
Dr. Dominic Parrott is the founding Director of the Center for Research on Interpersonal Violence and a Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. His service to the field of interpersonal violence includes his role as the Executive Secretary for the International Society for Research on Aggression (2014-present), a Consulting Editor for Aggressive Behavior (2009-present), an Associate Editor (2014-2017) and Consulting Editor (2017-present) for Psychology of Violence. He is a nationally recognized expert on the intersection between alcohol and violence as well as the use of laboratory-based methods to study aggressive behavior. Dr. Parrott is the primary contact for all questions related to the Center.
Associate to the Director
Ralph Coates, Associate to the Director. Ralph is responsible for implementation and maintenance of the Center budgets, supervising the accounting system and establishing internal control of accounting procedures as well as managing fiscal information related to Center grants and contracts. This includes monitoring compliance with federal, state and university policies. He is also the Center’s liaison with human resources, accounts payable, disbursements and other units in the Department of Psychology and College of Arts & Sciences. Ralph received his Master’s in Public Administration from Marist College. For questions related to Center events and the website please contact: Ralph Coates, Associate to the Director at rcoates@gsu.edu
Director of Community Engagement & Outreach
Dennis Reidy is an Assistant Professor in Health Promotion & Behavior in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. Dr. Reidy worked as a scientist in the Division of Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for eight years before coming to Georgia State in 2018. His research focuses on informing, developing, and evaluating innovative interventions to prevent violence and associated delinquency outcomes (e.g., substance use, risky sexual behavior, mental health, etc.) and promote health and well-being. He is particularly interested in investigating cross-cutting risk and protective factors to inform the development of prevention strategies that will impact multiple health outcomes.
Internal Advisory Board
Dr. Amanda Gilmore is a clinical psychologist and an Assistant Professor in the Mark Chaffin Center for Healthy Development and the Department of Health Policy & Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health. She is also affiliated with the Department of Psychology (Clinical and Community) and the Center for Research on Interpersonal Violence. Dr. Gilmore’s research interests primarily focus on the development and testing of (1) integrated prevention programs for alcohol and drug use, sexual assault, and sexual risk behaviors among high-risk groups including adolescents, college students, and service members, (2) innovative technology-based interventions to improve the rate of treatment access and decrease treatment drop-out among underserved populations; and (3) secondary prevention programs for individuals who experienced recent sexual assault. Throughout her work she focuses on cultural factors related to gender identity, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity. She also focuses her work on reducing barriers to accessing treatment for underserved populations.
Dennis Reidy is an Assistant Professor in Health Promotion & Behavior in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. Dr. Reidy worked as a scientist in the Division of Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for eight years before coming to Georgia State in 2018. His research focuses on informing, developing, and evaluating innovative interventions to prevent violence and associated delinquency outcomes (e.g., substance use, risky sexual behavior, mental health, etc.) and promote health and well-being. He is particularly interested in investigating cross-cutting risk and protective factors to inform the development of prevention strategies that will impact multiple health outcomes.
Elizabeth Beck is a professor in the School of Social Work at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Her major research interests are in the areas of mass incarceration, forensic social work and restorative justice. She also explores community organizing and neoliberalism. Dr. Beck has authored 26 peer-reviewed articles, one law review article, numerous book chapters and three books. Her 2018 book, “The Homelessness Industry a Critique of US Social Policy,” published with Lynne Rienner Press, explores the way in which the United States produces the condition of homelessness through neoliberal policy and the medicalization of a social justice issue. Her book, “In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families,” published by Oxford University Press, received the American Library Association CHOICE Award for Outstanding Academic Title of 2007.
Dr. Daigle’s research and teaching interests include the causes and consequences of victimization, especially of sexual victimization and recurring victimization. She is the PI on a multi-year grant to evaluate Georgia’s Victim Legal Assistance Network, a program designed to expand the delivery of free civil legal services to crime victims. She is coauthor of Criminals in the Making: Criminality Across the Life Course (2nd ed.) and Unsafe in the Ivory Tower: The Sexual Victimization of College Women, which was awarded the 2011 Outstanding Book Award by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and author of Victimology: A Text/Reader and Victimology: The Essentials. Her research has also appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Justice Quarterly, Victims and Offenders, Criminal Justice and Behavior, The Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and The Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
Dr. Swartout’s current research program can be broken down into three main areas: (1) social influences on individuals’ aggressive attitudes and behaviors; (2) person-centered approaches to analyze longitudinal data on violence and victimization; and (3) exploring the relation between substance use and violence. His first research area began as a conceptual application of the social influence, social networks, and attitudes literatures to the study of violence and aggression. The general goal of this research area is to combine psychological and sociological principles and methods to better situate violence in a social and structural context, with an emphasis on better understanding sexual violence.
Dr. Dominic Parrott is the founding Director of the Center for Research on Interpersonal Violence and a Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. His service to the field of interpersonal violence includes his role as the Executive Secretary for the International Society for Research on Aggression (2014-present), a Consulting Editor for Aggressive Behavior (2009-present), an Associate Editor (2014-2017) and Consulting Editor (2017-present) for Psychology of Violence. He is a nationally recognized expert on the intersection between alcohol and violence as well as the use of laboratory-based methods to study aggressive behavior. Dr. Parrott is the primary contact for all questions related to the Center.