Meet the Law & Psychiatry Research Team

Leadership

Gina Vincent, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Co-Director L&P

Gina Vincent, PhD is a Professor of Psychiatry, Co-Director of the Law & Psychiatry Program, and faculty in the Implementation Science & Practice Advances Research Center (iSPARC) at UMass Chan Medical School. She received her PhD in Experimental Psychology with a Forensic Psychology and Law Specialization from Simon Fraser University. Dr. Vincent has received funding from the National Institute of Justice, NIMH, NIDA, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and OJJDP for studies relevant to risk for reoffending or violence, implementation outcomes of risk assessment and risk-need-responsivity in legal settings, and behavioral health and substance misuse concerns among youth. She is the author of the Risk Assessment in Juvenile Probation: A Guidebook for Implementation manual and has conducted multiple studies to examine racial equity of different risk screening and assessment instruments.

Dr. Vincent has assisted over 50 county or state juvenile justice agencies with the creation and validation of risk screening tools and/or selection and implementation of risk-needs assessments for case planning. She has received multiple federal grants to study the effectiveness of this implementation on case management. She has over 80 publications in the areas of risk assessment, implementation of risk-needs assessment in juvenile justice, adolescent substance misuse, callous-unemotional traits, and mental health symptoms in justice settings.

Amy J. Thornton, BS, Project Manager I

Amy is a Project Manager I in the Law & Psychiatry Department. Amy has over 30 years experience as an administrator. She has worked in the Law & Psychiatry department at UMass Chan Medical School for over 17 years. She provides support and management on multiple research grants, as well as state contracts.

Faculty

Thomas Grisso, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry

Tom is a clinical forensic psychologist an Emeritus Professor at UMass Chan Medical School. He directed the Law and Psychiatry Program in its earlier years.  His research has focused on psychology’s assistance to law, policy, and legal decisions about the capacities and needs of persons in contact with the criminal, civil, and juvenile justice systems.  Much of his work has aimed to improve forensic mental health assessment and the identification of mental health problems in youths in juvenile justice settings.  During his career, he has been President of the American Psychology-Law Society and Executive Director of the American Board of Forensic Psychology. He has received career achievement awards from major psychological and psychiatric association both national and international.   

Spencer G. Lawson, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

Spencer is an Assistant Professor in the Law & Psychiatry Program in iSPARC at UMass Chan Medical School. He is also an Affiliate Member of the Early Justice Strategies (EJS) Lab at George Mason University. Dr. Lawson’s career mission is to manage and prevent behavioral health conditions among people across multiple points in the criminal-legal system through implementation and deployment-focused research of data-driven risk screening and assessment and risk-need-responsivity approaches. Issues of fairness and bias, especially among individuals with minoritized racial and ethnic identities, also permeate throughout his scholarship.

Ira Packer, PhD, ABPP, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry

Ira is a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the UMass Chan Medical School. He has authored or co-authored over 50 articles and chapters, as well as two books. Dr. Packer has over 40 years experience providing and supervising forensic evaluations, with an emphasis on competence to stand trial, criminal responsibility, and violence risk assessment. In addition to his clinical forensic work, Dr. Packer has extensive experience managing forensic mental health programs, and providing consultation on forensic systems nationally. Dr. Packer served nationally as the president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology, president of the American Academy of Forensic Psychology, and president of the Council of Specialties in Professional Psychology.

Staff

Kayla Carew, BS, Research Coordinator I

Kayla has been with the Law & Psychiatry Program since 2022; assisting with multiple projects involving different aspects of the legal system (such as youth diversion and parole for incarcerated individuals). Kayla graduated with her BS in Psychology from Boston College in May of 2022 and hopes to go to graduate school for Psychology in the future. She is broadly interested in research and clinical work in the forensic psychology field. More specifically, her research interests include risk factors and protective factors for violence and re-offending, how developmental (age/maturity level) and demographic factors ( gender/race) influence the validity of risk assessment tools,  youth justice, psychopathy, and how individuals with mental illness interact with and are perceived by the legal system.

Jennifer Pendleton, MA, Research Coordinator I

Jennifer is a Research Coordinator for the Law and Psychiatry Program and holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University. Jennifer assists team members on a variety of different research projects that focus on service implementation and risk assessment of juveniles involved in the justice system and other justice-involved individuals. Her research interests include risk assessment and service implementation, and she is passionate about how this research can enforce policy change.

Namita Railkar, MPH, Research Coordinator I

Namita graduated with a Master of Public Health in Health Services Management from the University of Cincinnati, along with an MS in Biotechnology from the University of Mumbai, India. Formerly a Research Intern with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UC Health – Employee Wellness Center, Namita brings a wealth of experience in healthcare research and data analysis and has a passion for investigating the nexus between behavioral health and the criminal legal system. Namita will contribute to the National Institute of Justice-funded project “Building Equity in Objective Prison Classification: A Model for Reducing Racial and ethnic disparities” with the MA Department of Correction and Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

Morgan Rao, BA Research Coordinator II

Morgan Rao is a Research Coordinator II for the Law and Psychiatry Program. Morgan runs the MAYSI-2 Helpdesk and assists with the implementation and evaluation of justice-related projects. Her interests and skills include building survey databases, data management, evaluation, and personality research.

Karlie Rice, MA, Senior Clinical Research Coordinator

Karlie is a Senior Clinical Research Coordinator at the UMass Chan Medical School Department of Psychiatry. She received her Bachelor’s in Psychology from Indiana University and her Master’s degree in Forensic and Legal Psychology from Roger Williams University, where her thesis was on the factors determining the parole eligibility of a sample of youth who were previously sentenced to life without the possibility of parole prior to the Miller v. Alabama Supreme Court decision. Her current research interests include forensic assessment, juvenile justice, Positive Youth Development, and the risk-needs-responsivity model. She supports various research within the Law and Psychiatry department, including a study that is working to validate a new detention risk screening tool and a study looking at strength-based vs. risk reduction services and how they predict youth’s recidivism.