Melissa Bright

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  • Founder and Executive Director, Center for Violence Prevention Research; Affiliate Faculty with the Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire

After completing her PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Georgia, Dr. Bright spent eight years on the faculty at the University of Florida in both the College of Medicine and College of Education. While at UF, she led evaluations of Florida’s Medicaid programs for children and developed a multidisciplinary research agenda around family violence and social determinants of health.

As her research program advanced, she found the most important part of her work to be partnerships with community-based, direct service providers. More and more she became disenchanted with the distance between her academic position and the community organizations she cared about. In short, the structure of university-based research was not supportive to community-based research. In 2021, Dr. Bright left academia to found the Center for Violence Prevention Research. Her goal was to create a research organization that was accessible to non-researchers and that conducted research with immediate implications for practice.

Dr. Bright’s work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the American Psychosomatic Society, AcademyHealth, and several not-for-profit organizations. She has published dozens of papers in high impact scientific journals including JAMA Pediatrics and the Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Experience

  • 2021–present
    Founder and Executive Director, Center for Violence Prevention Research
  • 2021–present
    Affiliate, University of New Hampshire
  • 2013–2021
    Assistant Research Scientist, University of Florida

Education

  • 2012 
    University of Georgia, PhD/Developmental Psychology

Publications

  • 2024
    Maternal Mortality Review Committees Should Take a Closer Look at Homicide Deaths, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
  • 2023
    Development and Implementation of a Preventive Intervention for Youth with Concerns About Their Sexual Thoughts and Behaviors: A Practitioner Narrative. , Journal of Prevention.
  • 2023
    School-based prevention education for children and youth with intellectual developmental disabilities., Child Abuse & Neglect
  • 2023
    Randomized Control Trial of a School-Based Curriculum that Teaches about Multiple Forms of Abuse, Child Maltreatment
  • 2023
    Parents' and professionals' perspectives on school-based maltreatment prevention education for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities., Child Abuse & Neglect
  • 2022
    Child abuse prevention education policies increase reports of child sexual abuse, Child Abuse & Neglect
  • 2022
    COVID-19: changing the care process for women’s health-the patient’s perspective, Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine
  • 2022
    Streamlining Universal Prenatal Screening for Social Determinants of Health, Maternal and Child Health Journal
  • 2022
    Preventing traumatic causes of maternal death, Journal of health care for the poor and underserved
  • 2022
    Bridging prenatal and pediatric care: a proposed simple yet novel approach to preventing family violence, The Journal of Pediatrics
  • 2019
    Association of Friday school report card release with Saturday incidence rates of agency-verified physical child abuse, JAMA pediatrics

Grants and Contracts

  • 2023
    Evaluating WhatsOK for the Primary Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse
    Role:
    Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Oak Foundation
  • 2022
    Evaluating Circles of Safety® for the Primary Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse
    Role:
    Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • 2021
    Evaluating WhatsOK for the Primary Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse
    Role:
    Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    World Childhood Foundation

Professional Memberships

  • National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
  • Florida Maternal Mortality Review Committee, Mental Health Subcommittee
  • American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children

Contact Melissa for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision