Dan Cohen

Senior Education Researcher, SRI Education

Dan Cohen, PhD, MPH, focuses on preventing mental illness, suicide and violence in children and adolescents, primarily through school-based approaches. His work involves developing, refining and assessing prevention and intervention programs, as well as evaluating contextual factors in schools that impact student mental health such as school climate and discipline. He has expertise in mental health disparities, behavioral assessment and quantitative analysis.  

At SRI, Cohen has applied his expertise in violence prevention on a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded project focused on developing and evaluating schoolwide and targeted approaches to reducing violence in middle schools. He also leads Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program funded independent evaluations of two interventions focused on classroom behavior management and school engagement. In addition, Cohen is a researcher on an Institute of Education Sciences (IES)-funded effectiveness replication study of the BEST in CLASS intervention for young children who are at risk for delays in social or emotional development. Cohen also leads research efforts focused on leveraging artificial intelligence to prevent suicide and promote school safety. 

Before joining SRI, Cohen was an assistant professor of school psychology at the University of Alabama and co-director of the Center for Interconnected Behavioral and Mental Health Systems. He has received funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Alabama Department of Public Health and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs. His recent publications appear in the peer-reviewed journals Child Development, Behavioral Disorders, Psychology in the Schools, Prevention Science, School Mental Health, School Psychology Review and School Psychology. 

Cohen received his PhD from the APA-accredited doctoral program in school psychology at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He earned his MPH from Johns Hopkins University with a concentration in epidemiology and biostatistics. Cohen also holds a BA in psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

Key projects

• EIR Early Phase Study of Freshman Success, a Ninth Grade Engagement Program 
• Supporting High-Needs Elementary Students with the CW-FIT Program: Building for Scale and Sustainability 
• Effectiveness Replication of the BEST in CLASS Intervention for Young Children at High Risk for Delays in Social or Emotional Development