CMAP Team

Matthew Eisenberg, PhD serves as Center Director for the Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy. Dr. Eisenberg is a health economics, an associate professor and associate chair of Health Policy and Management (primary), associate professor of Mental Health (joint) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and associate professor (joint) at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. His research is focused on analyzing the impact of governmental, insurer, and employer level health care policies with applications to mental health and substance use disorder. He currently serves as co-chair of a Lancet Psychiatry commission on scaling mental health interventions and was appointed by Governor Wes Moore to serve on the Maryland Commission on Behavioral Health Care Treatment and Access. Find out more about his work here.

Brendan Saloner, PhD serves as the Director of Practice for the Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy. Dr. Saloner is a Bloomberg Professor of Addiction and Overdose in the Department of Health Policy and Management, and is also jointly appointed in the Department of Mental Health and Core Faculty in the Berman Institute of Bioethics. Dr. Saloner is primarily focused on policies to improve access and quality of services for people who use drugs, with a special interest on the criminal legal system and Medicaid policy. Dr. Saloner co-leads the evaluation team of the Bloomberg Overdose Initiative, a multiyear campaign to reduce overdose focused on seven states. He also is extensively involved in efforts to improve access to opioid use disorder treatment in jails and prisons. Find out more about his work here.

Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, PhD, serves as Director of Research for the Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy. Dr. Kennedy-Hendricks is a policy and health services researcher and Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management (primary) and Mental Health (joint) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding the implementation of health and social policies and the impact of these policies on the health and well-being of populations with mental health and substance use-related conditions. She is particularly interested in the policy and public health complexities that arise when populations interact with multiple systems, including housing support, the foster care system, and the criminal legal system. Find out more about her work here.

Sachini Bandara, PhD, MS serves as the Director of Training for the Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy. Dr. Bandara is a health policy and health services researcher and is an assistant professor of Mental Health (primary) and Health Policy and Management (joint) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She conducts health policy research related to mental health and substance use, with a focus on state policy responses to the U.S. overdose crisis, populations involved in the criminal legal system and pregnant and parenting people. She is a mixed methods researcher who uses qualitative, survey and implementation science methods to understand policy implementation and lived experience and uses quasi-experimental methods with administrative data to understand policy effects. Find out more about her work here.

Elizabeth Stuart, PhD is a senior advisor to the Center and past co-Director and Co-Founder. She is currently the Hurley-Dorrier Professor and Chair in the Department of Biostatistics (with joint appointments in Mental Health and Health Policy and Management) and co-Principal Investigator of our National Institute of Mental Health T32 pre-doctoral training program. Dr. Stuart uses and develops statistical methods to help learn about the effects of public health programs and policies, often with a focus on mental health and substance use. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Statistical Association, and has won numerous other awards and honors. Find out more about her work here.

Mark K. Meiselbach, PhD is a member of the leadership team for the Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy. Dr. Meiselbach is a health economist and Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research focuses on policy and market determinants of access in privately managed insurance markets, with a focus on access to mental and behavioral health treatment. His work has been published top economics, medical, and policy journals including the Journal of Health Economics, Health Affairs, and JAMA – Internal Medicine and covered by leading media outlets including the New York Times, NPR, and USA Today. He currently serves as co-Chair of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange Standing Advisory Committee, where he advises the exchange on policies and practices to make health coverage more affordable and accessible in Maryland. Find out more about his work here.

Catherine K. Ettman, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. With a background in politics and policy, her work explores the social and economic forces that shape population mental health and policies that can reduce mental health disparities. She is the co-editor of Urban Health (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Migration and Health (University of Chicago Press, 2022). Dr. Ettman received her PhD in Health Services Research at Brown University School of Public Health and studied public policy at Princeton University. Find out more about her work here.