Senior Research Scientist, Oregon Social Learning Center
Moraga, CA
Sonja Schoenwald, PhD is a clinical and implementation scientist whose career has focused on developing clinically and cost effective family and community based alternatives to the incarceration, psychiatric hospitalization, and residential treatment of youth; and, of effective strategies to support the implementation and scaling of these effective alternatives nationally and internationally. She also collaborates in programs of research focused on novel approaches to the design, re-design, and implementation of treatment for children in community clinics and in schools in urban poverty. Across these endeavors she provides training and support to the behavioral health workforce, organizations, and service systems; and focuses on valid measurement of treatment implementation and outcomes.
Sonja is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC) and was previously Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). There, she pioneered the development and empirical testing of the quality assurance protocols used to implement and adapt Multisystemic Therapy® (MST) in diverse communities and service systems. She is a co-founder of MST Services, LLC, the company licensed by MUSC to disseminate Multisystemic Therapy® (MST®), the MST Institute, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and Evidence Based Associates, LLC.
Sonja is Co-Founding Editor in Chief of Implementation Research and Practice, a founding member of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC), member of the Implementation Science Panel of the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare Implementation, and recently completed a term on the Advisory Board of PracticeWise, LLC. She has served as an Invited Member to numerous National Institutes of Health Standing and Ad Hoc Study Sections, to Federal and State Public Advisory Boards and Committees, and on numerous Scientific Journal Editorial Boards.
Sonja earned a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Duke University, a master’s from Santa Clara University and a bachelor’s from Stanford University.
DCI Partner: Keller Strother