Meet the Team
Our team includes seasoned prevention practitioners with extensive experience supporting prevention grantees through the delivery of quality T/TA and the development of user-friendly resources. Staff in our regional teams reside in the region, understand the prevention landscape, and have experience serving the varied demographic, language, and cultural groups present in their respective service areas.
SPTAC Core Team
- Gisela Rots
SPTAC Director - LaShonda Williamson-Jennings
Deputy Director - Carol Oliver
Director of T/TA
SPTAC Regional Directors
- Ivy Jones Turner
Regions I & II Team Lead - Jana Boocock
Regions III & IV Team Lead - Erin Ficker
Regions V & VIII Team Lead - Nicole Luciani
Regions VI & VII Team Lead - Alyssa O’Hair
Regions IX & X Team Lead
Core Leadership
Gisela Rots, M.S
Gisela Rots is a public health expert, project director, and highly skilled TA provider, Gisela supports grantees and communities in using evidence-informed strategies to improve outcomes for under-resourced populations. Areas of expertise include preventing substance use, strengthening childhood and youth prevention opportunities, and building resilience. For more than 18 years, she has led and directed technical assistance (TA) projects, developed award-winning training programs, integrated trauma-informed approaches into prevention, designed successful social marketing campaigns, advised state agencies and community coalitions, and developed cross-sector partnerships to improve services. As director of SPTAC, Gisela supports a team of TA providers, epidemiologists, evaluators, writers, and researchers to translate research into practice to address implementation hurdles across community, social, demographic, and environmental contexts. She is a Certified Prevention Specialist.
LaShonda Williamson-Jennings, M.Ed.
LaShonda Williamson-Jennings brings 20 years of experience creating supportive environments that reinforce continuous improvement, creative thinking, and sustainable outcomes-based change. Her vision as SPTAC deputy director is to build a system that delivers community-driven, high-quality T/TA that SAMSHA grantees need to build stronger communities. She is skilled in project coordination, face-to-face and online training facilitation, and TA delivery. In addition to her role on SPTAC, LaShonda is co- director of the South-Southwest Prevention Technology Transfer Center. Named Oklahoma Certified Prevention Specialist of the Year in 2015, she is a certified prevention specialist.
Carol Oliver, M.A.
Carol is a nationally recognized leader and trainer in the field of substance use prevention. She has expertise in evidence-based methods, stigma reduction, instructional design, and in-person and virtual learning. She specializes in developing systems to solve complex health-related problems and to create effective behavioral health workforces. A certified prevention specialist with deep knowledge of and commitment to culturally responsive practices, Carol led the T/TA work of SAMHSA’s Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies for eight years.
Regional Directors
Ivy Jones Turner, M.A.
Ivy is an experienced program leader, TA specialist, applied researcher, and evaluator, and an expert in behavioral and mental health promotion and prevention. Her expertise includes building the capacity of schools and organizations to research, implement, evaluate, and sustain interventions to prevent substance use, suicide, youth violence, and bullying, and to promote social-emotional and mental health. She delivers culturally competent, comprehensive support that helps federal, state, community, and school district programs address system-level issues, incorporate evidence-based practices, monitor progress, and support staff in achieving program goals. She is a certified specialist in prevention and conflict mediation in Massachusetts.
Jana Boocock
Jana is a behavioral health and wellness expert with more than a decade of experience strengthening communities through evidence-based prevention. A skilled trainer and technical assistance provider, she supports states and communities in advancing innovative strategies for suicide prevention, substance misuse prevention, and behavioral health promotion. She is a Certified Addiction Counselor and Certified Prevention Specialist in South Dakota.
Erin Ficker, M.P.A.
Erin Ficker is an expert in substance use prevention, an accomplished T/TA provider, an experienced project leader, and a certified senior prevention specialist. As SPTAC Team Lead for Regions V & VI, she brings extensive expertise in supporting continuous quality improvement (CQI), designing and delivering engaging professional learning, and providing comprehensive TA. Erin is also the prevention co-manager for the Great Lakes Prevention Technology Transfer Center.
Nicole Luciani, M.A., ICPS, CLSSGB, CKM
Nicole Luciani, M.A., ICPS, CLSSGB, CKM, brings over 15 years of experience in capacity building and organizational development to support behavioral health systems and substance use prevention programs. She previously worked closely with leadership at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (SAMHSA CSAP) as a public health advisor in the Office of the Director; served in a national training and technical assistance center delivering hundreds of services for prevention grant recipients and sub-recipients in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, and nationally; and coordinated prevention programs across a large rural, tribal, U.S.-Mexico border region of Arizona. Nicole's a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner & Trainer and she's a big fan of sharing private sector best practices to empower nonprofits and coalitions for stronger prevention impact.
Alyssa O’Hair, M.A., M.P.H.
With more than 17 years of experience providing and supervising T/TA, Alyssa has extensive subject matter knowledge in training design and facilitation, TA and consultation, conducting needs assessments, data-informed decision-making, risk and protective factors, evidence-based and practice-based interventions, SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Framework, and evaluation design and methodology. In addition to leading the SPTAC Region IX & X Teams, Alyssa is a Senior Manager for Workforce Development at CASAT at the School of Public Health at the University of Nevada, Reno where she also serves as the Regional Director for the Pacific Southwest Prevention Technology Transfer Center and the lead evaluator for the Pacific Southwest Rural Opioid Technical Assistance Regional Center. She is a Certified Prevention Specialist.