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July 2026

CAPES Quarterly Newsletter

We welcome Daniel J. Amante, PhD, MPH, as new lead of the Education and Development Unit and co-lead of the Implementation Science Unit of CAPES. Read more about Dr. Amante on our Admin and Methods core pages. You can contact Dr. Amante or any unit leads for consultation on CAPES projects via either the core or faculty pages. CAPES faculty, staff, scholars, and consultants are encouraged to learn more about Dr. Amante at our next CAPES Showcase on August 5, 2–3 PM EDT, over Zoom. Check your calendars for details!

Dr. Daniel J. Amante is an assistant professor in the Division of Health Informatics and Implementation Science within the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School.

Dr. Amante is an implementation scientist whose research focuses on developing, implementing, and evaluating evidence-based interventions to improve healthcare delivery and population health outcomes. His work integrates implementation science, health informatics, user-centered design, and behavioral science to accelerate the adoption, scale-up, and sustainment of innovations in real-world healthcare settings. He has led and collaborated on numerous federally-funded studies examining digital health technologies, patient engagement strategies, care delivery interventions, and learning health systems.

Dr. Amante's methodological expertise includes hybrid effectiveness-implementation designs, pragmatic clinical trials, mixed methods research, implementation strategy development, and the application of implementation frameworks. Through his research, teaching, and mentorship activities, he seeks to advance implementation science methods and strengthen the translation of evidence into practice. He is excited to bring his expertise in implementation science, digital health, and health system transformation to advance the mission of CAPES.

CAPES Annual Working Retreat 

Highlights

Our annual retreat highlighted synergy and progress over the last three years. The retreat also coincided with our annual Impact Report, which highlights our Center’s accomplishments and progress in advancing our mission to improve suicide prevention through innovative, evidence-based approaches. Highlights include over 125 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals, 6 extramurally funded projects totaling over $32 million, alongside progress in all existing CAPES projects and unit goals. During our retreat, we were really impressed with our progress on all projects. Each project lead gave an update: Signature Project: Jaspr (Edwin Boudreaux, PhD); Exploratory Projects: CATS-PC (Rachel Davis-Martin, PhD), ADAPT (Feifan Liu, PhD), and LEMURS (Katherine Dixon-Gordon, PhD). Each Core and Unit also gave an update and participated in a gap analysis. Sharina Person, PhD, and Emmanuel Agu, PhD, led the Methods Core gap analysis, while Dr. Boudreaux led the Admin Core gap analysis. We also planned next steps for CAPES 2.0 including ideas for grant applications, various funding mechanisms, and our strengths and expertise. Center leadership and faculty are especially grateful for our CAPES Lived Experience Advisory Board (CLEAB) members who participated in breakout sessions and our group discussion. The retreat was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what we have done well over the past three years, and plan what we hope to accomplish together through collaboration and team science, in partnership with our CLEAB.

CAPES Showcase Series

For our June and August 2026 CAPES Showcase, the Dissemination and Community Engagement Unit and Education and Development Unit (EDU) are hosting a two-part series. Scholars presented on their research interests and potential plans for their scholar training. Our interns highlighted accomplishments and training opportunities she engaged in during her internship. Faculty also shared suggestions for conferences and training recommendations for our scholars.

In June, we highlighted three incoming scholars and one student intern.

See below for more information on our scholars and intern who presented at the June Showcase. You can read more about each presenter by clicking on their names below. Additional information about each scholar is also available on our CAPES Scholars page.

• Hoa L. Nguyen, MD, MS, PhD (Established Scholar)
• Candice Kaidi Huang, MS (Emerging Scholar)
• Daniel Coppersmith, PhD (Emerging Scholar)
• T’Leah McQuade, AA (Student Intern)
• The UMass Chan Research Computing Office (Bill Barnett and Jared Vessella-Smith) shared how they supported T’Leah in hosting the tools she has developed, which will be accessible to other CAPES faculty at the end of the summer.

Part 2 will occur on Wednesday, August 5, 2–3 p.m. EDT, via Zoom. In August, we will highlight our new EDU faculty lead, two incoming scholars, and two student interns.

• Daniel Amante, PhD, MPH (Lead, Education and Development Unit; Co-Lead, Implementation Science Unit)
• Alan Ardelean, MS (Emerging Scholar)
• Ramya Ramadurai, MA (Emerging Scholar)
• Anusha Purakayastha (Medical Student Intern)
• Gabby Amarosa (Master's of Public Health Candidate, Graduate Intern)

CHECK YOUR CALENDARS FOR MEETING INFORMATION

Suicide Prevention Month is just around the corner, be sure to check out the events that CAPES has planned in recognition of it:



• September 17 — Psychiatry Grand Rounds
  Lauren Weinstock, PhD, professor of psychiatry and human behavior at The Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, MPI of the National Center for Health & Criminal Legal Systems Integration for Suicide Prevention, director of training of the Brown Clinical Psychology Internship Training Consortium, and co-director of the Brown T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship in Suicide Research at Butler Hospital in Providence, RI, will be giving a presentation entitled "Moving Beyond the Clinic: Suicide Prevention Across the Incarceration-Reentry Curriculum." The event will be held virtually, 12–1 PM EST. Contact Dr. Anthony Rothschild, Grand Rounds Committee Chair, to register: Anthony.Rothschild@UMassMemorial.org

• September 26 — American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) Out of the Darkness Walk
  Join the CAPES team at the 2026 AFSP Out of the Darkness Walk where we will be walking to support suicide prevention to support research, advocacy efforts, and educational programs in schools, workplaces, and communities across Massachusetts. The event is at Polar Park in Worcester, MA. Registration will begin at 9AM and the event itself starts at 10:30AM. You can sign up to walk with us or donate to support the cause on our team page.

The CAPES Business Canvas Retreat on August 13-14 combines expert presentations with an interactive commercialization workshop where participants collaborate to solve a real-world innovation challenge using the Business Model Canvas in two half-day sessions.



Check your email and calendar for the REDCap registration survey. Please register even if you have already accepted the Outlook invitation.

CHECK YOUR CALENDARS FOR MEETING INFORMATION

Register for the CSPR Annual Summit here.

See our colleagues at the 3rd annual Center for Suicide Research and Prevention (CSPR) conference, which will take place on Sept. 17, 2026, 9AM – 2 PM EDT, on Zoom. Dr. Edwin Boudreaux, the Director of CAPES, will be part of a panel discussing implementation science for suicide prevention.

The event will feature two panels and a presentation. The first panel focuses on lethal means prevention, by Charles Branas, PhD (Columbia University), Matthew Miller, MID, MPH, ScD (Northeastern University), and Chana Sacks, MD, MPH (Mass General Hospital). The second panel focuses on implementation science for suicide prevention, by Brian Ahmedani, PhD (Henry Ford Health System), CAPES director Edwin Boudreaux, PhD (UMass Chan Medical School), and Emily Haroz, PhD, MA, MHS (John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health). The presentation will take a look at suicide in older adults, by Yeates Conwell, MD (University of Rochester Medical Center) and Kimberly Van Orden, PhD (University of Rochester Medical Center). The keynote speaker will be Rachel Zimmerman, MS (Author and Journalist at Washing Post).

Free registration is now open. We thank our colleagues at CSPR at Massachusetts General Brigham and Harvard University for coordinating this free virtual event.

Please remember that all CAPES manuscripts and presentations must include the following acknowledgment statement:

“This work was supported, all or in part, by the National Institute of Mental Health through the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School’s Center for Accelerating Practices to End Suicide (CAPES) [P50MH129701]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Mental Health or the National Institutes of Health.”

Thank you for taking the time to review our 13^th quarterly newsletter! Stay tuned for more Center-wide announcements and opportunities!

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