Connect to Care in Schools Study Team Bios
Bios of the PIs and study team
Dr. Mueller is the Luther Dana Waterman Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Senior Research Program Leader for Mental Illness, Suicide & Addiction at the Irsay Institute at Indiana University Bloomington. She is also the co-convener for Indiana’s Innovation Think Tank on Suicide hosted by the Irsay Institute at IU and funded by the State of Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction.
Mueller is a leading expert on youth suicide and suicide prevention/postvention in schools and has won numerous awards for her contributions to suicide prevention science, including the Edwin Shneidman Award from the American Association of Suicidology. She is also co-author of the book Life under Pressure: The Social Roots of Youth Suicide and What to Do About Them (2024); a book described as “a devastating work of scholarship” by Malcolm Gladwell and a “must-read book on youth suicide” by Dr. Rory O’Connor (President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention).
She also has a long history of collaborating with school districts to improve suicide prevention through various community-engaged research projects:
- The Connect to Care in Schools Study (2024 – Present)
- Funded by the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction, the Humana Foundation, and Indiana University
- Social Worlds & Youth Well-Being Study (2018 – 2025)
- Funded by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the National Institute of Mental Health
- The Social Roots of Youth Suicide (2013-2016)
- Funded by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Mueller’s research is always guided by community advisory boards and the concerns school staff and leaders have shared with her. To learn more about Mueller’s approach to research and suicide prevention, we suggest the following resources:
- VIDEO: Anna Mueller in Conversation with Malcolm Gladwell about Life under Pressure
- BLOG: Dr. Mueller on “The Challenging Art of Supporting Students after Suicide Loss” for Psychology Today
- VIDEO: Dr. Mueller presenting “Strategies to Improve Youth Suicide Presentation in Schools, Families & Communities” to a Colorado school board
- REPORT: Dr. Mueller’s research report “Strategies to Prevent Suicide in Schools & Communities”
Mueller is a frequent public speaker and enjoys opportunities to exchange knowledge with schools so that together we can find better ways to translate suicide prevention science into policy that works for students, families, and schools. To request a community presentation, please email Prof. Mueller.
Dr. Chaku, Co-Principal Investigator, is an expert in adolescent development and the intersecting biological, cognitive, and social changes that are detrimental for some but not all youth. Her research aims to understand “What works when and for whom” and leverages personalized methods to study adolescent behavior, including help-seeking. Dr. Chaku will collaborate with Dr. Mueller in their development of new methods to capture youth help-seeking from school staff and feelings of belonging at school.
Dr. Singer is an award-winning professor of social work and co-author of **two editions of **the best-selling book Suicide in Schools: A Practitioner’s Guide to Multi-Level Prevention, Assessment, Intervention, and Postvention; the formative guide for school staff on building effective suicide prevention in schools. Prior to becoming a professor, he worked as a bilingual (English-Spanish) social worker in community mental health and in crisis intervention for suicidal, homicidal, and actively psychotic youth. Dr. Singer served as a consultant on Mueller’s NIH R01 grant (2021-2025) where he helped design prior iterations of our school staff survey (with Drs. Abrutyn and Phillippo) and assisted in developing policy recommendations based on the scientific findings. He is also the host of the award-winning Social Work Podcast which has over **55,000 **followers on social media and listeners in 208 countries and territories. Dr. Singer has used the podcast to advance understanding and prevention of suicide by exploring topics such as:
- Addressing suicide risk in schools with David Miller and Jim Mazza,
- Supporting a loved one who lives with suicidal thoughts with Stacey Freedenthal,
- Attachment-based family therapy for suicidal youth with treatment developers Guy Diamond and Suzanne Levy,
- Non-suicidal self-injury with Jennifer Muehlenkamp,
- The CASE Approach to suicide assessment with Shawn Shea, and The unique challenges faced by Black American males and their families with Sean Joe.
Dr. Phillippo is an award-winning professor of education and social work who is an expert on building school policies and practice that are attuned to youth needs and on helping school mental health staff make schools places that promote inclusivity and empowerment as well as places where youth can grow. A former school social worker, Dr. Phillippo has experience supporting suicidal students in schools and training future school social workers to be effective at suicide prevention. Dr. Phillippo has been collaborating with Drs. Mueller, Abrutyn, and Singer for 2 years, where her expertise in measuring school mental health staff’s strengths and needs regarding student mental health promotion proved vital.
Marianne Chirica (she/her) is a fourth-year PhD student at Indiana University in the Psychological and Brain Sciences– Clinical Science Program. Marianne’s research broadly aims to identify potential risk and protective factors for suicidal behavior, particularly among adolescents, in attempt to better understand and predict maladaptive outcomes. Using a developmental psychopathology framework, her research assesses various units of analysis across the lifespan, such as behavioral (i.e., social interactions and clubs), sociocultural (i.e., racial and ethnic differences) and biological (i.e., medications used) markers that interact both cross-sectionally and temporally to predict developmental trajectories. This work will ultimately help identify those at heightened risk for suicide and suggest potential targets for interventions. Before starting her PhD at Indiana University in 2021, she received her master’s degree in Psychology: Clinical Counseling from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science and is a licensed professional counselor. Her main clinical interests are youth with anxiety, OCD, and related disorders. Among a myriad of interventions, she have expertise in cognitive behavior therapy, exposure and response prevention, and is currently getting certified in parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT).
Dr. Abrutyn is an expert in youth suicide and suicide prevention in schools and is a long-term collaborator of Dr. Mueller’s. Together they have developed and piloted a staff survey designed to capture barriers and facilitators of school staff’s suicide prevention work in schools, including staff’s capacity to emotionally connect with students, regardless of students’ social identities, native language, or sociodemographic backgrounds. Dr. Abrutyn will collaborating with Dr. Mueller and the IU CSR in adapting the existing staff survey to a representative sample of schools and with data collection.