Our Team

Core Team

Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, FSAHM: Founder, Executive Director

Dr. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher is Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University and is the Director of Research for the Division of Adolescent Medicine.

Bonnie is a developmental psychologist whose research has focused on cognitive, psychosocial and environmental factors involved in adolescents’ and young adults’ health-related decision-making, perceptions of risk and vulnerability, health communication, and risk behavior.

Her research has focused on understanding and reducing health risk behaviors such as tobacco use, alcohol and marijuana use, risky driving, and risky sexual behavior. Dr. Halpern-Felsher’s research and committee work have been instrumental in setting policy at the local, state, and national level; and she contributed to the 2012 Surgeon General Report, "Preventing Tobacco Use among Youth and Young Adults.” Dr. Halpern-Felsher has been a member of five Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Sciences committees focusing on adolescent and young adult health and risk behavior, and she has served on the Board of Directors of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) and on Council for the Society for Pediatric Research (SPR). For more information, please see https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/bonnie-halpern-felsher.

Ira Sachnoff, MA: Co-founder, Director of Dissemination & Training

Ira Sachnoff is currently a school Alcohol, Tobacco, and Peer Helping Program Consultant for school districts and counties throughout California.

Ira has his own consulting company, Peer Resource Training and Consulting, where in the last 25 years has trained over 5,000 youth peer educators and over 1,000 adults in the art of setting up comprehensive prevention and education programs for youth. He was also the Founding President of the National Peer Helpers Association and was a Board Member of the California Association of Peer Programs for over 10 years. From 1980-1996, Ira was the Director for the San Francisco Peer Resource Programs. In this capacity, Ira was responsible for the supervision and training of 25 Peer Resource Program Coordinators, who trained over 1,000 youth who then served over 20,000 youth in the San Francisco Unified School District. Over the last 20 years Ira has trained thousands of Tobacco Peer Educators to act as advocates and peer helpers all over the state. Ira has also conducted over 100 Brief Intervention (BI) trainings and has trained over 1,000 people on BI techniques related to working with youth using substances.

Stephen Smuin: Co-founder, Director of Curriculum Development

Stephen K. Smuin is the former Founding Head of the Odyssey Middle School and Nueva Middle School, is completing his 42nd year as an educator.

Steve began his formal teaching/coaching career in Libby, Montana. After returning to graduate school at the University of Montana he assumed coaching and teaching at Loyola-Sacred Heart High School. Stephen then was a substitute teacher in San Mateo Union High School District and worked for the California Department of Education for two years before becoming Associate Director of the Independent Learning School in Palo Alto, CA. Stephen then spent 19 years at Nueva Learning Center in Hillsborough, CA, an international recognized elementary school for gifted and talented students. He left Nueva to become co-founder of Odyssey Middle School, a middle school for gifted and talented students.

Steve has taught on the elementary, high school and college levels and has published three major books: Turn Ons!; Can’t Anybody Here Write?; and More Than Metaphors. In addition, Stephen has published numerous magazine articles for such publications as People Magazine, San Francisco Magazine, Runner’s World, Women’s Sports, and other educational publications.

Steve has given over 125 workshops in the United States, Canada, Japan, China and Germany and is most proud of being invited to present at the World Gifted Conference on two occasions.

Recently, Steve become CEO of Da Vinci Educational Consultants, which provides, assessments, training, workshops and lectures in Japan, China and Stanford University.

Cannabis Awareness & Prevention Toolkit Project Co-Director

Adrienne Lazaro, M.S.
Department of Pediatrics
Division of Adolescent Medicine
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Cannabis Awareness & Prevention Toolkit Project Co-Director

Richard Daniel Ceballos, B.A.
Department of Pediatrics
Division of Adolescent Medicine
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Our Consultants

Cherrie Boyer, PhD
Professor of Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA

Emily Justice, MA
Manager, Tobacco Use Prevention Education (TUPE)
Contra Costa County Office of Education
Pleasant Hill, CA

Jim Kooler, DrPH
Administrator
Friday Night Live Partnership
Visalia, CA

Matt Rosen, MSW, MUP
Former Vice President of Programs
Youth Leadership Institute
San Francisco, CA

Kimberlee Homer Vagadori, MPH
Project Director
California Youth Advocacy Network
Sacramento, CA

Valerie Velez
Health Education Program Specialist
SCTI Project Director/TUPE Program
Hemet Unified School District
Hemet, CA

Carson Benowitz-Fredericks, MPH
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA

Jasper Fung
Computer Ninja Extraordinaire
Reed College, Class of 2020
Portland, OR

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Our Team

Core Team

Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, FSAHM: Founder, Executive Director

Ira Sachnoff, MA: Co-founder, Director of Dissemination & Training

Stephen Smuin: Co-founder, Director of Curriculum Development

Cannabis Awareness & Prevention Toolkit Project Co-Director

Cannabis Awareness & Prevention Toolkit Project Co-Director

Our Consultants