Marian (Emmy) Betz is an emergency physician and nationally recognized leader in firearm injury-prevention research. She serves as the Principal Investigator for multiple complex studies utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and numerous foundations. She also has a long record of accomplishment in community-focused firearm suicide prevention efforts, including co-founding and leading the Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition.

Her prior work has also involved development of multiple web-based resources or interventions related to firearm injury prevention. She has served as a Commissioner with the Colorado Suicide Prevention Commission and with numerous national organizations and workgroups, including the President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS) and the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine. 

As the Director and Founder of the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative, Dr. Betz is committed to facilitating and expanding collaborative approaches to firearm injury prevention in Colorado and nationally. Further, she is passionate about the Initiative’s efforts to expand research on how to effectively prevent all types of firearm harms and to support the growth of the firearm injury prevention field.  

Jessica Buck-Atkinson has been with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical campus since August 2021 and became the FIPI Program Director in Summer 2022. She has worked in the field of injury and violence prevention since 2014 and brings experience across various topics including firearm injury prevention, school violence, community violence, and suicide.

She has previously managed and contributed to implementation and evaluation research projects, the development and dissemination of accessible resources and tools to bridge research to practice, and the creation of partnerships with local, state, and national partners. 

As the Program Director for the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative, Jessica plans to leverage her passion for firearm injury prevention, translational research, project management, and community collaboration to support the initiative’s growth and impact, with emphasis on using research and the lived experiences of impacted communities to understand and disseminate effective approaches to reducing firearm injury.

Joe Simonetti is a physician, researcher, and educator at the Veterans Health Administration and University of Colorado School of Medicine, who focuses on firearm suicide prevention initiatives spanning various age groups and populations, with a special emphasis on work among U.S. veterans.

His research includes the use of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches to inform the development of patient-centered firearm injury prevention interventions, conduct epidemiologic investigations about firearm access and risk-related perceptions, and pursue informatics work focused on improving our understanding of injury-related data in electronic health records.  

As the Director of Mentorship & Education for the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative, Dr. Simonetti aims to leverage Initiative resources to broaden the reach of firearm injury prevention curricula across the spectrum of learners in the fields of policy, public health, and healthcare, and foster an academic environment that supports students and early career investigators who wish to pursue firearm injury research.

Erin Kelly has over 15 years of experience in public health research and practice, specializing in firearm injury prevention, suicide and violence prevention, adolescent risky behaviors, and upstream prevention focused on the social determinants of health. She uses community-engaged and mixed methods approaches in her research and has extensive experience in translating, disseminating, and supporting the implementation of evidence-based strategies, programs, and policies into practice environments. 
 
As the Director of Research and Evaluation, Dr. Kelly supports internal and external research and evaluation activities, assists faculty in obtaining firearm research funding, connects firearm injury prevention researchers and practitioners to evaluate promising prevention strategies, and guides translational and dissemination efforts to ensure effective strategies are used by practitioners and impacted communities.