Faculty and Staff
Faculty
Jennifer Stuber
Jennifer Stuber is a faculty member at the UW School of Social Work and the founder of Forefront Suicide Prevention, which she directed for 10 years before launching BHCore. She is passionate about helping people who have lost hope due to trauma and mental health challenges. Jenn has extensive experience developing effective suicide prevention programs for youth, healthcare professionals and men in the middle years of their lives. The breadth of her training development expertise has expanded into developing training programs in behavioral health for crisis responders. She is an unwavering advocate for mental health system reform, prioritizing people-first approaches and transparency and accountability for state tax dollars. Jenn has helped to shape and to advocate for numerous state laws for more than a decade. Jenn believes that anything is possible with partnership and a growth mindset, including a unified, well-functioning crisis response continuum for people experiencing mental health challenges.
Brittany Jones-Cobb
Brittany Jones-Cobb (she/her) is a PhD candidate in social welfare at the UW School of Social Work. She is a licensed clinical social worker focusing on health equity and promoting the development of interventions and evaluations for diverse individuals across the lifespan. Brittany’s research experience includes intervention development, implementation, and efficacy testing with older adults. She has experience working on federally funded randomized controlled trials, testing targeted and culturally tailored interventions for older adults. Her mixed-methods dissertation builds on prior clinical and research experience and aims to inform the development and implementation of interventions that promote the health and well-being of older people from historically marginalized communities with limited access to caregiving support.
Hyun-Jun Kim
Hyun-Jun Kim is an assistant research professor at the UW School of Social Work. At BHCore, he is leading rigorous evaluation designs, advancing data interpretation strategies, and strengthening grant-development initiatives. He has held key leadership roles on major federally funded initiatives, including longitudinal studies, intervention trials, and large-scale data projects. His expertise spans all phases of program evaluation, complex quantitative data analysis, and translating findings for community impact, including research promoting the health and well-being of socially isolated older adults. Jun’s research has also addressed health and healthcare disparities among historically marginalized communities, including people of color, immigrants, and sexual and gender minority individuals. He earned an MSW from Arizona State University and PhD from the University of Washington School of Social Work.
Mandy Owens
Mandy Owens is an assistant professor at the Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Her work focuses on the intersection between substance use and the criminal legal system, including research and implementation efforts with law enforcement and other first responders, jails and prisons. A current project uses codesign to develop local solutions to crisis response with law enforcement in seven Washington state counties. She also has projects related to shared decision- making for alcohol and opioid use disorders, treatments for family members of people with substance use disorders, and adolescent behavioral health. Mandy is a licensed and practicing psychologist working with people with substance use disorder and their loved ones and has been a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers since 2014.
Staff
Marie Bolstad
Marie Bolstad brings her extensive knowledge and skills in UW operational processes and finance management to BHCore operations. She is the finance and operations administrator for three research and innovation centers at the UW School of Social Work, including BHCore. Marie holds a BA in German language from Gonzaga University and an MPA from the UW's Evans School of Public Policy & Governance.
Stephanie Butler
Stephanie Butler is a licensed clinical social worker currently serving the cities of Snoqualmie and North Bend as a Mental Health Professional and Co-Responder. Early in her career, she established a private practice dedicated to supporting youth and children facing behavioral health challenges stemming from childhood trauma. With a strong foundation in compassion and advocacy, she has developed a robust expertise in crisis intervention and trauma-informed care. Stephanie recognizes the critical importance of collaboration among mental health professionals, fire departments, law enforcement, and other first responders in crisis situations. She advocates that connection is the most valuable tool on the scene, and emphasizes that active listening leads to identifying the least restrictive environment for individuals in distress. In addition to her clinical work, Stephanie has extensive experience in curriculum development and instruction. As the lead architect for the BHCore's Co-Response Training Academy at the University of Washington, she has played a pivotal role in shaping training programs that enhance the effectiveness of crisis response teams.
Jennifer Cohen
Jennifer Cohen brings a broad background in nonprofit leadership and private sector experience to the BHCore and SMART centers at the UW. She uses her skills in financial management, marketing and communications, human resources and project management to support critical behavioral health projects. Jennifer is passionate about student mental health and served on the Secondary Counseling Program Committee for Shoreline Public Schools. She holds a BA in Journalism/Public Relations and Minor in Women’s Studies from the University of Oregon and a Masters in Not-For-Profit Leadership from Seattle University.
Kimberly Hendrickson
Kimberly Hendrickson is the director of the City of Poulsbo's Housing, Health and Human Services Department where she works on projects increasing access to healthcare, housing and social services. She oversees the City's Recovery Resource Center, a friendly, low barrier hub for health and recovery services in North Kitsap County. Kimberly helped to develop the City of Poulsbo's police navigator program, the Poulsbo Fire Department's CARES program and Central Kitsap Fire and Rescue's CARES program. She encouraged the growth of co-response programs throughout the state through the Co-Responder Outreach Alliance (CROA) from 2018–2023. She is the co-founder of the University of Washington BHCore Center and manages statewide grants to Fire/EMS department-based behavioral health initiatives.
Jen Kitajo
Jen Kitajo manages logistics for BHCore's educational offerings. She brings more than 20 years of experience in operational support and event coordination to ensure a high quality educational experience for crisis responders around the state. Her previous experience includes 10 years of training coordination for the Northwest Institute for Children and Families, as well as 12 years of administrative and operational support with Partners for Our Children, a UW School of Social Work research and innovation center.