OUR TEAM
The Proud & Empowered team spans several universities across the nation. Each member of our team is dedicated to performing high quality research that we believe will have a positive impact on behavioral health outcomes for LGBTQ+ youth. We are a group of scholars, advocates, practitioners, methodologists, and lifelong learners that believe in working collaboratively to achieve our common goal of understanding more about the minority stress that LGBTQ+ youth face and how we can effectively address this problem in our schools and communities.
Jeremy Goldbach, PhD, LMSW
Email: jgoldbach@wustl.edu | Pronouns: he/him/his
Jeremy T. Goldbach, PhD, LMSW is one of the developers of Proud & Empowered, and has worked in the area of LGBTQ+ child and adolescent development for more than 15 years.
Harmony Rhoades, PhD
Email: harmony@wustl.edu | Pronouns: she/her/hers
Harmony Rhoades, PhD, supported the development and testing of Proud & Empowered, and has conducted behavioral health research with youth for more than a decade.
John Senese IV, LMSW
Email: senese@wustl.edu | Pronouns: he/him/his
John Senese is the lead facilitator for P&E, and manages our studies that test and aim to improve the intervention. John is also the main point of contact if you think P&E is the right fit for your program or institution.
Connor Carey
Email: connorc@wustl.edu | Pronouns: he/they
Connor Carey, MHC-LP, is a research manager who facilitates the Proud and Empowered intervention. As a mental health counselor, they have experience providing individual and group therapy to multicultural, urban communities in New York City and Los Angeles.
Andrew Lopez, MA
Email: lopez.a@wustl.edu | Pronouns: he/him/his
Andrew Lopez is a Data Management Specialist for the University of Southern California. He has also held a Fellowship with the California HIV/AIDS Research Policy Center in California and served as a Commission Member on the Los Angeles County Commission on HIV. He obtained a Master’s of Arts in American Studies with an emphasis on the gender and sexuality perspectives commonly held within American culture and represented through the media, public policy, and everyday life.
Rory O'Brien, MSW, MPH
Email: robrien@usc.edu | Pronouns: they/them/their
Rory O'Brien is a PhD Candidate at the University of Southern California with over a decade of experience in youth social justice organizing, mental health and anti-violence policy, and sexual health education. They have worked in local, state, and national advocacy across multiple interrelated movements for sexual, gender, racial, migrant, and economic justice.
Zoe Corwin, PhD
Email: zcorwin@usc.edu | Pronouns: she/her/hers
Zoë Corwin, PhD, is a research professor based in the University of Southern California’s Pullias Center for Higher Education with expertise in college access and success. She is particularly committed to cultivating academic and wellness support for youth who have been marginalized by schools and/or society.
Kierstin J. McMichael, MSW
Email: kjmcmichael@wustl.edu | Pronouns: she/her/hers
Kierstin McMichael is a Research Manager at Washington University in St. Louis where she oversees the administration of projects under Dr. Goldbach's research portfolio. She currently manages the Proud & Empowered website.
Jules Wood, PhD
Email: juliewood@wustl.edu | Pronouns: they/them/theirs
Jules Wood, PhD is an assistant research professor at Washington University in St Louis. With a background in human development and family studies, they specialize in quantitative methodology, including development of psychometric instruments and longitudinal analysis."
Bethany Bray, PhD
Email: bcbray@uic.edu | Pronouns: she/her/hers
Bethany Bray, PhD, is Associate Director for Scientific and Infrastructure Development at the Institute for Health Research and Policy (IHRP) at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), a home and incubator of research spanning the social and health sciences to advance health, overall well-being, and quality of life. Her research focuses on developing and applying innovative statistical methods to questions about the longitudinal development of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and other substance use, with a special emphasis on interventions to promote health equity via biopsychosocial and structural determinants of health.