MCCEI Webinar Series

About the Presenters

Dr. Jodi J. Frey, PhD, LCSW-C, CEAP is a full Professor with tenure at University of Maryland, School of Social Work. She serves as Associate Dean for Research and chairs the Social Work in the Workplace & Employee Assistance Sub-specialization. She is the Founder and Faculty Executive Director of the Behavioral Health and Well-Being Lab (BHWell Lab). For 10 years (until 2022), she chaired the Financial Social Work Initiative. Dr. Frey’s research focuses on adult and emerging adult behavioral health and well-being with an emphasis on suicide prevention, mental health, substance use and the workplace. She has published over 100 articles, books and book chapters, in addition to presenting research at international conferences and receiving numerous awards for her research and teaching. Dr. Frey co-chairs the Workplace Suicide Prevention and Postvention Committee where she is working to disseminate the National Guidelines for Workplace Suicide Prevention. You can follow Dr. Frey on Twitter at: @JodiJFrey

Dr. Marianne Cloeren, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and an international leader in work disability prevention. Her work in this area has included publications, teaching, research and treatment of patients with complex work disability issues. She recently completed a project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via the Maryland Department of Health to create a training module about the Maryland Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) and evaluate its impact on opioid-prescribing providers’ attitudes and behaviors. Before joining the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 2017, her decades of work with patients recovering from work injuries highlighted the important role of opioid use (prescribed or not) as a risk for long-term work disability. Joining forces with Dr. Jodi Jacobson Frey in the School of Social Work in 2019, this interprofessional team launched “Operation PROSPER – Peer Reintegration and Other Services Promoting Employment in Recovery,” a multiphase project to study the impact of interventions delivered primarily by peer specialists to increase work participation of patients in treatment for opioid use disorder. In 2020, this team began work for the Maryland Department of Health on a project called “Workplace PROSPER – Partnering to Reduce Opioid Stigma and Promote Employment in Recovery” to develop a Maryland toolkit for management of opioids in the workplace. This team recently focused its efforts on the construction industry, as the industry most impacted by opioid use disorder in Maryland and many other states. 

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