Chad McDonald, Ph.D., LCSW, is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, College of Social Work, and the Director of the Social Research Institute (SRI). With over 20 years of experience in child welfare, including roles as a trainer and administrator for the Division of Child & Family Services (DCFS) in Utah, Chad focuses on workforce development within child welfare, specializing in skills development through enhanced teaching/learning methods and competency assessment.

As Principal Investigator (PI) for the Title IV-E Training and Education grants, Chad has been at the forefront of pioneering efforts to strengthen the child welfare workforce by integrating innovative technologies grounded in evidence-based learning theories, including Deliberate Practice, Cognitive Load, and Multimedia Learning Theory. He co-leads the development of the Virtual Social Work Trainer (VSWT) project, a transformative training tool designed to enhance social workers' skills and preparedness through immersive, theory-driven learning experiences. His expertise and dedication have attracted over $35 million in federal and state grants and contracts, aimed at improving workforce effectiveness and competence in child welfare.

In addition to his work at the University of Utah, Chad serves as the Vice-Chair of the National Staff Development and Training Association (NSDTA) Executive Advisory Council (EAC), where he collaborates with national leaders to advance training standards and support best practices in social work education and workforce development across the U.S.

Matt Davis, Ph.D., specializes in integrating evidence-based training, implementation science, and continuous quality improvement methodologies to enhance human service delivery effectiveness. He is a Research Associate Professor in Population Health Sciences, Health Systems Innovation and Research Division.

His research portfolio as Principal Investigator exceeds $6 million in federal grants, spanning key agencies including the Administration for Children and Families, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA), and National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Dr. Davis led the Title IV-E Waiver Demonstrations in Utah and Idaho, implementing innovative approaches to child welfare services. He is the past Director of the Social Research Institute at the University of Utah and past Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Utah. In his role as evaluation consultant to the Child Welfare Capacity Building Collaborative, he continues to shape federal initiatives aimed at strengthening child welfare outcomes nationwide.

Dr. Davis co-leads the development the Virtual Social Work Trainer, a deliberate practice approach for training social service and medical professionals to learn complex skills prior to on-the-job practice, including Motivational Interviewing. This training approach is being tested and/or implemented across more than 31 states, counties, and universities across the United States. He previously directed the development of a continuous quality improvement approach for the implementation and fidelity to evidence-based interventions. The approach has been found useful for reliably improving program quality as rated on standardized assessment tools, such as the Correctional Program Checklist. The Administration on Children and Families, Children’s Bureau has cited this approach as leading the field in child welfare.

Roger Altizer, Ph.D., is a national leader in digital health innovation, dedicated to creating human-centered technologies that advance equity, training, and care delivery. He serves as Co-Director of the Digital Health Initiative at University of Utah Health and as the founding director of The Therapeutic Games and Apps Lab (The GApp Lab), where he oversees the design and development of engaging, evidence-based tools across health and human service domains.

Dr. Altizer co-founded the top-ranked Entertainment Arts and Engineering (EAE) program at the University of Utah, where he helped pioneer interdisciplinary education in applied games and interactive technologies. His expertise lies in participatory design, serious games, and scalable digital interventions. He focuses on translating research into usable, impactful technologies—especially for underserved populations and frontline professionals.

As a collaborator on the VSWT Center, Dr. Altizer contributes expertise in design and responsible digital dissemination. He brings a deep commitment to training the next generation of innovation leaders and building tools that work in the real world, where care happens.

Cole Benson, M.S., LCSW is a senior research analyst at the University of Utah in the Social Research Institute at the College of Social Work. He received a MSW and a MS in Sport Psychology from the University of Utah. His background includes over a decade of experience in child welfare and education, with a focus on foster care. His research expertise includes child welfare workforce development, competency assessment, skill development/performance, childhood trauma, and trust development. His current work at the University includes developing and implementing the Virtual Skills and Workforce Trainer, a deliberate practice approach for training social service and medical professionals to learn complex skills prior to on-the-job practice, including Motivational Interviewing. His work also includes the training curriculum development, evaluation, and implementation of state-wide child welfare workforce development efforts. Additionally, he oversees various University classes in the social work department.

He previously sat on Utah’s Trafficking In Persons (UTIP) task force as an evaluator for 4 years and currently holds private consulting contracts with Utah Adult Probation & Parole (APP) and Utah Department of Corrections (DOC) aimed at improving workforce competency, offender outcomes, and cultural/organizational dynamics.

As a clinician, he is a co-founder and clinical director at the 1999 Collective, a non-profit aimed at supporting those with experience in the child welfare system. He also practices as a licensed clinical
therapist specializing in Motivational Interviewing and child welfare involvement as well as work in an emergency room crisis therapist.

Jonah Brooks is the lead software developer for VSWT. He works at the Software Development and Systems Design Core (SD2C) at the University of Utah. He received a Master of Entertainment Arts and Engineering degree with a focus on game engineering from the University of Utah in 2022 and a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from Oregon State University in 2016. Over the last 15 years, he has worked for a variety of software development and multidisciplinary organizations on projects ranging from tools to analyzing growth rate of crops and the DNA structures of clonal organisms to making frameworks for studying artificial intelligence in video games.

Since 2020, he has worked on numerous projects in the Serious Games field, leveraging his skills and training in video games and software development to make games and applications for use in training, therapy, and education. In that time, and throughout his work at the Therapeutic Games and Apps Lab (Gapp Lab), Population Health Sciences, and the Software Development and Systems Design Core, he has worked with subject matter experts and teams of software developers to create tools for training social workers, helping spinal cord injury survivors and pediatric cancer patients in their recovery and daily lives, and many other tools and applications.