Nicole Stucke-Downes

Nicole is an experienced leader in the field of behavioral health, specializing in substance use prevention, treatment, and recovery, as well as community health. She leads teams through the development and delivery of evaluation and capacity-building projects, primarily funded through SAMHSA grant programs. Nicole oversees the provision of evaluation-related technical assistance, including support for logic modeling, needs assessments, strategic planning, and process data collection, for initiatives such as the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Services State Substance Abuse Block Grant and State Opioid Response Grant. Her work focuses on behavioral health and the well-being of children and families, ensuring that projects are effectively designed and implemented to achieve meaningful outcomes. Previously, Nicole was a Doctoral Research Scholars Fellow and Lab Manager at George Mason University, where she conducted research on the development of executive function, specifically neurocognitive skills related to self-control. Her studies explored the connections between executive function and outcomes like social functioning, behavioral health, and persistence, as well as children’s understanding of gender constructs in STEM fields. With a strong foundation in research and evaluation, Nicole excels in leading complex, multi-disciplinary projects aimed at advancing the evidence base for programming. She is skilled in conducting advanced quantitative analyses, such as hierarchical linear modeling and latent growth modeling, to analyze complex, nested, and longitudinal data. Her work often results in peer-reviewed publications that contribute to the broader field of behavioral health and education. In her free time, Nicole enjoys all sorts of puzzles, from jigsaw to word and logic puzzles! She also dedicates her time to caring for various houseplants (she has over 20 different cultivars)!