UTHealth Houston is home to one of the largest teams of funded elder mistreatment researchers in existence. Roybal Center for Elder Mistreatment Intervention Research investigators have nearly 90 years of combined experience and have led or been key personnel on 63 different elder mistreatment projects totaling over $46 million.
Our Team
Carolyn Pickering, PhD, RN
Director, Administrative Core
Dr. Pickering is a noted expert in dementia family caregiving, director of the Cizik Nursing Research Institute, the Isla Carroll Turner Chair in Gerontological Nursing, and a professor at Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston. She is widely published on related topics, serves as a reviewer on several journals, and is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Gerontological Nursing. She is currently principal investigator on four grants from the National Institute on Aging, including a $5.263 million award from the Edward R. Roybal Centers for Translational Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences of Aging, which funds the Roybal Center for Elder Mistreatment Intervention Research. View her profile page and learn more about her funded projects
Zach Gassoumis, PhD
Co-director (pending), Behavioral Intervention Development Core
Dr. Gassoumis is an assistant professor in the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health’s Department of Management Policy & Community Health. He is involved in elder mistreatment interventions that focus on victims, caregivers, social/protective service providers, healthcare practitioners, and systems. Gassoumis was lead author on the first study to demonstrate that a caregiver support intervention can reduce the occurrence of elder mistreatment, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in 2024. See Dr. Gassoumis’ faculty profile.
Ronald Acierno, PhD
Co-director, Behavioral Intervention Development Core
Dr. Acierno is a professor and vice chair of veteran affairs in the Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at McGovern Medical School and executive director of the UTHealth Houston Trauma and Resilience Center. Acierno was lead author on what is considered the seminal national elder mistreatment prevalence study published in 2010 in the American Journal of Public Health. He has served as principal investigator on several federally funded grants and is widely published on the topics of epidemiological studies of elder mistreatment and treatment outcomes, focusing on victims of trauma, disaster, combat, or loss. See Dr. Acierno’s faculty profile.
Aanand Naik
Activity Lead, Program Sustainability
Dr. Naik is executive director of the UTHealth Houston Institute on Aging. He is a professor at the Joan and Stanford Alexander Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at McGovern Medical School and chair of the Department of Management, Policy, and Community Health at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. He holds the Nancy P. and Vincent F. Guinee, MD, Distinguished Chair and the Uzi and Micki Halevy and Carmel Dyer, MD, Interprofessional Research Fellowship. See Dr. Naik’s School of Public Health faculty page.
Jason Burnett, PhD
Activity Lead, Human Subjects Safety Review
Dr. Jason Burnett is an associate professor in the Department of Geriatric and Palliative Care Medicine at McGovern Medical School. He serves as the co-director of the Texas Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Collaboratory (TEAM). The TEAM-Forensic Assessment Center Network utilizes web-based and telehealth modalities to link Adult Protective Services and Texas Health and Human Services clients anywhere in Texas to geriatric and elder mistreatment experts in Houston for assessment, evaluation, and protective service planning. See Dr. Burnett’s faculty profile.
Melba Hernandez-Tejada, PhD, DHA
Activity Lead, Participant Reported Outcomes Review
Dr. Hernandez-Tejada is an associate professor at the UTHealth Trauma and Resilience Center in the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at McGovern Medical School, and a Research Scientist at the Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Charleston, SC. She is researching the benefits of social connection and support on mental health, while leveraging technology to address barriers to care, particularly among vulnerable groups. She has applied this work to two primary populations: veterans suffering from PTSD and older adults confronted with issues that affect their ability to age in place. See Dr. Hernandez-Tejada’s faculty profile.
Executive Committee
- Bijal Balasubramanian, PhD, MBBS, professor and regional Campus dean of UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in Dallas, and Rockwell Distinguished Chair in Society and Health
- Rafael Samper-Ternent, MD, PhD, associate professor at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, and director of the Institute on Aging’s Clinical Research and Innovations Core
- Samiran Ghosh, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, and UTHealth Houston Distinguished Chair in Population Health
External Advisory Committee
- Bethany Backes, PhD, MSW, MPH, associate professor of social work at the University of Central Florida College of Health Professions and Sciences
- Brad Cannell, PhD, MPH, Eleanor & Murray Zoota Endowed Professor in Neurodegenerative Research and associate dean for research at the Texas Christian University Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences
- Carla Danielson, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina College of Medicine
- Marti DeLiema, PhD, associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work and associate director of education at the University of Minnesota Center on Healthy Aging and Innovation
- Tony Rosen, MD, MPH, associate professor and associate director of research at the Weill Cornell Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine
- Tami Sullivan, PhD, professor, director of the Division of Prevention and Community Research, and director of Family Violence Research and Programs at the School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry
- Lei Zhang, PhD, MBA, Billy S. Guyton Distinguished Professor, associate dean for research and scholarship, and Harriet G. Williamson Endowed Chair of Population Health Nursing in the School of Nursing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and founding director of the Mississippi Center for Violence Research at the University of Mississippi Medical Center