In Conversation: The Mental Health Crisis in School-Age Children

Christopher Morphew, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Education since August 2017, concentrates his research on issues of institutional diversity in higher education, including those related to state higher education policy and the ways in which colleges and universities communicate to constituent groups.

His work has appeared in many journals, including the Review of Higher Education; Research in Higher Education; The Journal of Higher Education; Educational Finance; Higher Education Policy; and Studies in Higher Education. 

Morphew has held leadership positions in the Association for the Study of Higher Education and American Educational Research Association, and he has made invited and refereed presentations in more than two dozen countries. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Lumina Foundation, Research Council of Norway, and Ford Foundation. His most recent book, co-edited with John Braxton, The Challenges of Independent Colleges, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2017. 

Prior to joining the Johns Hopkins School of Education, he was professor and executive associate dean in the College of Education at the University of Iowa. He also has held tenured positions at the University of Georgia and University of Kansas, and served as a visiting professor and Leiv Eiriksson Scholar at the University of Oslo. He holds a Ph.D. in social sciences and education from Stanford University, as well as degrees from Harvard University and the University of Notre Dame.

Elise Pas is a research professor in the department of mental health within the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a trained school psychologist. Her research, teaching, and practice goals are to promote the successful dissemination and implementation of evidence-based preventive interventions across the public health continuum in K-12 schools. Much of her research seeks to understand the needs of youth, how best to support educators within schools and what is needed organizationally to allow such effective practices to be utilized.  She also has a long history of contributing to randomized trials to determine if specific approaches or interventions are effective at promoting positive student social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health development.

Jodi Miller is a postdoctoral fellow in the school counseling department at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. Her research focuses on how stress affects students' abilities to thrive and ways schools can help support young people who may be struggling. She also studies the importance of student and teacher wellbeing for promoting better outcomes. Jodi is also the founder of WellCheq, a web-based app that enables students to complete a quick daily check in and provides educators with insight into the needs of their learners. Her work is inspired by her experience as a high school biology teacher in Philadelphia.