Faculty & Staff

Vicki is a Prevention Training Specialist at FCPR and the coordinator of the Calhoun/Liberty Sexual Violence Prevention Program sponsored by the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence. Vicki formerly worked with the Panhandle Area Educational Consortium where coordinated and implemented the Green Dot Bystander Intervention project in Calhoun and Liberty counties as a partnership with FCPR. She also provided prevention strategies to middle school students and parents in these counties by coordinating the CARE Prevention Partnership Grant. Vicki was the Drug Epidemiology Network representative for Washington County where she collected surveillance data on opioid deaths and local drug patterns and trends for the State Outcomes Epidemiological Workgroup. She continues to work with local community coalitions to increase community connectedness and awareness of the prevention projects. Prior to her work with prevention projects, she taught at Blountstown Elementary School and Blountstown High School and brings with her 35 years of teaching experience and expertise. She holds a BA and MS from Florida State University in elementary education and reading. Her work with FCPR provides her the opportunity to continue to offer school-based prevention programs, including in her hometown community of Blountstown and to the students of Calhoun and Liberty counties.

Kaley de Leon is a Research Assistant at the Florida Center for Prevention Research (FCPR) where she assists with multiple research projects. Kaley graduated from Florida State University with a degree in Family and Child Sciences and a minor in Psychology. Kaley is currently a doctoral student in the Human Development and Family Science program at Florida State University. At FCPR, she serves as the Data Manager on a federal Healthy Marriage grant and assists with Continuous Quality Improvement efforts to support partner organizations for multiple evaluation studies. Through her specialized coursework at FSU, she obtained her license as a provisional Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE-P). Additionally, she is trained as a Green Dot Bystander Intervention Facilitator and Active Parenting Instructor.

Marie Denis-Luque is a researcher at the Florida Center for Prevention Research where she is responsible for the management and reporting of performance measurement data for several federally-sponsored adolescent pregnancy prevention evaluation projects. Mrs. Denis-Luque holds an MSPH in Epidemiology and an MPH in Community Health from the University of South Florida (USF). She is now pursuing a doctorate in Public Administration at Florida State University. Mrs. Denis-Luque has worked in different research projects on maternal and child health, women’s health, infectious diseases, and substance abuse at five universities and taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels at three different institutions. In addition to her work at the FCPR, she is the Executive Director of Caring for Haitian Orphans with AIDS, Inc.(CHOAIDS), a nonprofit she founded during her Public Health training while at USF in 2003. She is interested in research that can improve people’s lives and making the world a better place, especially giving a voice to disenfranchised populations. She recently conducted a qualitative study that assessed strategies first responders in a Florida rural county used to manage additional stress experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Michele Parker joined the Florida Center for Prevention Research as a researcher in March 2021. She is an Assistant Professor in the Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) Program in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at FSU. She was also appointed as a Research Faculty at the FSU Multidisciplinary Center in 2019. Dr. Parker specializes in research on best collaborative care therapy practices in healthcare settings that benefit treatment outcomes. She has investigated clinical approaches for families and couples with a variety of treatment concerns, including developmental disabilities, infidelity, intimate partner violence, and divorce. In addition to her clinical research, Dr. Parker is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of Florida. She currently practices couples and family therapy in Tallahassee and provides clinical supervision for a range of mental health disciplines, including MFT, mental health counseling, and art therapy. Dr. Parker received her Bachelor’s degree in Criminology and Sociology from the University of Oklahoma and her M.S. in MFT from Oklahoma Baptist University in 2005. She completed her Ph.D. in Child and Family Development with an emphasis in MFT from the University of Georgia in 2009. Prior to her faculty position at FSU in 2018, she was an Associate Professor and MFT Program Director at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, Connecticut from 2010-2018. She practiced as an LMFT at the Hospital for Special Care Autism Center in New Britain, Connecticut where she continues to collaborate on research projects with families and children diagnosed with autism.

Bonnie Wertenberger joined the Florida Center for Prevention Research as Prevention Program Director in January 2021. She has managed state and federally funded prevention programs including grants in the areas of sexual violence prevention, alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse prevention, juvenile delinquency prevention, and participated in the drug epidemiology network. She has also managed a multi-district virtual education program and has over 20 years experience as a classroom and virtual instructor. Ms. Wertenberger has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Education and an M.S. in Vocational Education with a technology specialty from University of Central Florida. Ms. Wertenberger holds a Florida Teaching Certification in Business Education, as well as training certifications in the following prevention strategies: Green Dot, LifeSkills, Too Good for Drugs, Guiding Good Choices, Active Parenting of Teens, Motivational Interviewing, and TOPS.

Dr. Cynthia Wilson joined the Florida Center for Prevention Research as Executive Director in February 2019. Dr. Wilson has served as Principle Investigator on multiple private, state, and federally-funded projects, including grants in the areas of marriage education, adolescent pregnancy prevention; sexual violence prevention, alcohol and other drug abuse prevention, and juvenile delinquency prevention. She is an experienced program evaluator, and has evaluated programs in marriage education, adolescent pregnancy prevention, and alcohol abuse prevention. Dr. Wilson has a Bachelor’s degree in Family & Child Sciences and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Family Relations from Florida State University. Dr. Wilson is a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) and serves on the national advisory board for the CFLE program. She has experience delivering a variety of community-based family life education programs, primarily in the areas of parenting, human sexuality, and relationship education. In addition to her role at FCPR, she is an adjunct professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at FSU. Dr. Wilson has served in academia since 2010, having formerly taught at Baylor University and the University of Montevallo prior to joining the faculty of FSU in 2017. She has also worked in local church ministries for over 20 years in the areas of children, youth, and family ministry.

Dr. Yun joined the Florida Center for Prevention Research as a postdoctoral scholar in September 2021, where she performs statistical analyses of data related to marriage education. She received a Ph.D. degree in Family Relations, with a certificate of education measurement and statistics from Florida State University in 2015. Prior to joining FCPR, she was an assistant professor at Fort Valley State University in 2015 – 2017 and also worked as a researcher at the Florida Center for Reading Research at FSU in 2019 – 2021. Before moving to the U.S. to pursue her Ph.D. in 2011, she engaged in several research projects at the National Youth Policy Institute and Korea Academy of Gifted Education in South Korea.