Oregon Social Learning Center

Utopia Airways

OSLC Board of Directors

The Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC) is governed by a Board of Directors comprising ten members. Except for one OSLC research scientist and one non-scientist staff member, all the members of the board are community members. Currently, the community members include three research scientists from other independent organizations, one attorney, one educator, and one nonprofit manager. The Board has overall responsibility to see that the organization conducts business within the laws and regulations relevant to Oregon nonprofits and Federal grant recipients as well as sets policies based on sound business practices.

Marilyn Clotz

OSLC Board Member

Send an e-mail. Marilyn Clotz’s professional career spans virtually every aspect of public education. Marilyn received her Bachelor of Science in education from The Ohio State University and her Masters in Education from Cleveland State University. She completed postgraduate work at the University of Oregon and holds her Superintendent credentials. Marilyn worked as a high school teacher and administrator in Ohio before moving to Oregon in 1979. She worked for the Eugene School District 4J from 1979 until her retirement in 2005. While at 4J, Marilyn served as high school assistant principal, middle school principal, District Coordinator of Staff Development, Director of Elementary Education, Director of Human Resources, Director of Facilities, Director of Organizational Development and Staff Support, Director of Staff and Community Relations, Executive Director of Special Education. Her position before retirement was Assistant Superintendent for Educational Support Services and High School Services.

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J. Mark Eddy, Ph.D.

Research Scientist Representative

Send an e-mail. Dr. Mark Eddy is an OSLC research scientist and a licensed psychologist. He is an investigator on long term projects conducted within school systems, the juvenile justice system, and the adult corrections system, each of which has involved an intervention that included a focus on parent management training. He is a member of OSLC’s Latino Research Team, a group of researchers at OSLC who work on a variety of research projects with Latino families and community organizations. He has a strong commitment to finding ways to link scientists with practitioners and policy makers to improve outcomes for children, families, and communities.

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Gordon Nagayama Hall, Ph.D.

OSLC Board Member

Send an e-mail Gordon Nagayama Hall, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Clinical Area of the Department of Psychology at the University of Oregon. He is interested in the cultural influences on psychological problems. He has found that concern about cultural norms helps prevent sexual aggression among Asian American men. Dr. Hall is currently investigating the effectiveness with Asian Americans of psychological treatments that are established for other groups. He is also interested in gene mapping approaches to genetic and cultural factors implicated in antisocial behavior.

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Ken Merrell, Ph.D.

OSLC Board Member

Send an e-mail. A native Oregonian, Dr. Merrell received his Ph.D. in school psychology at the University of Oregon in 1998, and held tenured faculty positions at the University of Iowa and Utah State University before returning to the University of Oregon in 2001.

In addition to his academic experience, he also worked for three years as a school psychologist for a public school district, and has extensive additional experience in providing psychological services and consultation in schools.

Dr. Merrell's research and scholarly work in social-emotional assessment and intervention in schools has been published widely in the field of school psychology, and he has been recognized in three separate studies as one of the 20 most influential scholars in the field over the past two decades.

His peers have acknowledged his impact by electing him a Fellow in the American Psychological Association's Division of School Psychology and Society for Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. His research studies have been published in School Psychology Review, School Psychology Quarterly, Psychology in the Schools, the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, and elsewhere, and he has been interviewed for articles appearing in popular media, including U.S. News and World Report, Family Circle, and other national publications. He has authored eight books, several assessment tools, and is co-author of the Strong Kids social-emotional learning curriculum.

Currently, Dr. Merrell serves as editor of Guilford Press' influential Practical Intervention in the Schools book series, and is a member of the editorial advisory board for School Psychology Review. In addition, he is a member of the Board of Directors at the Oregon Social Learning Center in Eugene.

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Susan Miller, J.D.

OSLC Board Member, Secretary/Treasurer

Send an e-mail. Sue Miller, J.D., is the mother of four children and grandmother of five, nearly all of whom live in the Eugene-Springfield area. She has practiced law for almost 29 years. She and her late husband, Dick, enjoyed camping and fishing. She enjoys travel and will be attending a family wedding in India this winter.

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Peter Mills, Ph.D.

OSLC Board Member

Send an e-mail.

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Matthew Rabel

Staff Representative

Send an e-mail. Matthew Rabel is an Editorial Assistant at OSLC, where he has worked since 1998. He provides graphic and editorial support to Drs. Fisher and Leve for all of their NIH-funded projects, extending such support center-wide as needed. He applies similar skills in occasional freelance and volunteer work in the local community. Matthew is married and has a 3-year-old son. He enjoys playing guitar, playing disc golf, biking, cooking, and surrounding himself with a wide range of music and literature.

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William H. Sack, M.D.

OSLC Board Member

Send an e-mail. William H. Sack, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), served as director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry from 1974 to his retirement in 1997.

He began his career in medicine as a Lt. Commander for the U.S. Public Health Service in 1963 where he practiced in the Division of Indian Health in Montana. In 1969, he became an instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard University-Massachusetts General Hospital until 1973 when he moved west to become Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at OHSU. He was appointed as Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics in 1977, and in 1985, Professor of Psychiatry.

Over the course of his long career, Dr. Sack has consulted widely and participated extensively in many professional and community activities. He is an energetic researcher and has published prolifically in the fields of psychiatric disorders among Native American children and adolescents and the longitudinal effects of childhood trauma on Cambodian adolescent refugees.

He continues to pursue research interests in retirement, treats private patients, and consults as a forensic child and adolescent psychiatrist.

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Patricia Sheppard

OSLC Board President

Send an e-mail. Patricia Sheppard, is married, has two children, one grandchild and another on the way, yahoo!! She is the co-founder and long time director of Educational Environments, Inc., a private preschool and kindergarten established in Eugene in 1969, whose foundation was premised on behavior learning theory. She retired in 2003, and the school is still going strong. Mrs. Sheppard is currently the chair of two other non-profit boards, the Northwest Youth Corps, and Educational Environments, Inc. She has been a hospice volunteer since 2003 for Cascade Hospice, formerly McKenzie-Willamette Hospice. She has a B.S. degree, magma cum laude, from the University of Oregon. She loves the rivers and mountains of the Northwest, and skiing, hiking and whitewater rafting. Travel to warm tropical climates during the winter is currently a high priority.

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Sam Vuchinich, Ph.D.

OSLC Board Vice President

Send an e-mail. Sam Vuchinich, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at Oregon State University. His current research interests focus on family influences on the development of mental health disorders in childhood and adolescence. Most of his work has been related to conduct disorders in ages 10 through 16. He is developing grant proposals on programs for the prevention of late-onset conduct disorder in at-risk adolescents. He is particularly interested in comparing the unique contributions of child, parent, and family components to such prevention programs using multilevel models.

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