Michele J. Eliason University of California, San Francisco, USA

Michele (Mickey) Eliason, PhD, is an adjunct professor at the Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco. She also teaches courses about sexuality and gender at San Francisco State University. Formerly, she was a faculty member in the College of Nursing at the University of Iowa for nearly 20 years. Dr. Eliason has been an applied researcher in the substance abuse treatment field for over 15 years, and is particularly interested in diverse populations including women and sexual/gender minority clients. Her interest in the evidence-based practice movement came out of a four year involvement with the Iowa Practice Improvement Collaborative, funded by CSAT to develop a statewide practice-research collaboration. This highly rewarding experience highlighted the complex barriers to implementing evidence-based practices in the poorly funded and stigmatized settings of community based treatment programs.