Speaker Bio:

Chris Wagner, PhD

Chris Wagner, PhD, is a clinical psychologist who works in the Virginia Commonwealth University College of Health Professions. His practice has included motivational interviewing since the 1990s and he began contributing as an academic to the development of MI theory and practice soon after. 

His most significant contribution was co-authoring, along with Karen Ingersoll, the Guilford-series MI in Groups book, currently under revision. Chris frequently provides training on MI and other therapeutic approaches, has led five international training of trainers, and served on the international MI Network of Trainers ( MINT) steering committee (2000-2008) and board of directors (2018-2020).

Speaker Bio:

Karen Ingersoll Ph.D.

Karen Ingersoll Ph.D. is a Board-Certified Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, where she directs the UVA Precision Health Initiative.

As a clinician, Dr. Ingersoll provided evidence-based treatment using Motivational Interviewing for people living with HIV who have behavioral, mental health, and addiction challenges at UVA’s Ryan White Clinic for 12 years.

As a teacher, she has trained physicians, nurses, social workers, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, community health workers, community corrections workers, and others in MI. Dr. Ingersoll was the first MI trainer in the Commonwealth of Virginia and she has been training people in MI skills since 1993. She has been a member since 1998 of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT). Dr. Ingersoll served on the MINT Board of Directors from 2015-2019. She trained new MINT trainers 5 times at MINT events and regularly provides MI training and consultation regionally, nationally, and internationally.

As a clinical researcher, Dr. Ingersoll tested Motivational Interviewing and technology-based interventions to improve health among people living with HIV, women at risk of alcohol-exposed pregnancies, and students with risky alcohol use. She has received NIH funding continuously since 1999. She is the author of over 110 peer-reviewed journal articles and co-author of 2 books, including Motivational Interviewing in Groups (2013) and Women and Drinking: Preventing Alcohol-Exposed Pregnancies (2015) She has contributed many chapters on Motivational Interviewing, most recently in UpToDate and the ASAM Principles of Addiction Medicine, 7 th Edition.

She and her colleagues received the CDC’s Charles Shepard Award for Scientific Excellence in 2008 for the CHOICES intervention to reduce the risk of Alcohol-Exposed Pregnancy. She and Dr. Rebecca Dilllingham were named the UVA Innovators of the Year by the UVA Licensing and Ventures Group (2020) for the PositiveLinks platform, an evidence-based mobile health program to support patients in HIV care that has been awarded as an evidence-based best practice by CDC (2019), NASTAD (2019), the American Academy of HIV Medicine (2020) and HRSA (2021).