Our Team

Dr. Barnhorst is an emergency and inpatient psychiatrist whose work doing violence and suicide risk assessments led to her interest in firearm injury prevention. She’s a nationally recognized expert on firearms laws and mental illness, and her academic focus is on the interface between firearm violence, suicide, and mental illness. Drawing on her previous career as an educator, she is active in medical education and works with both state and federal legislators to craft evidence-based firearms and mental health laws. She has presented nationally on these topics, and writes about them for Psychology Today and the New York Times.

Angela has a PhD in Public Health and 17 years of experience designing, implementing, and evaluating public health projects in the US and Peru, and translating results for policy change. She has worked on sexual health education for adolescents in California, innovations for Black birthing people and families in California, text messages about sexual and reproductive health for Peruvian adolescents, a community center for HIV prevention and care for male sex workers in Lima, and caregiver-infant reading for early childhood development in Peru. Angela also taught public health courses and was a mentor in research fellowship programs for over a decade. She is excited to bring her skills of needs assessment, community outreach, stakeholder engagement, education, research, and program evaluation to the field of firearm injury prevention.

Dr. Toles is an attending physician and clinical educator in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UC Davis. She is also the Director of Equity and Inclusion for the Department. She trained at an urban, inner-city hospital and thus has lived experience and expertise in caring for violently-injured patients. She also has background in Africana studies and is passionate about ensuring that all patients, with a special focus on marginalized patients, receive excellent and equitable care.

Hilary creates and disseminates public education materials on firearm injury research, with a special emphasis on curricula to train clinicians in firearm injury prevention and outreach efforts with firearm owners. She studied public health with a concentration on trauma-informed care for community violence prevention and reducing health disparities. She is dedicated to incorporating the principles of cultural humility and health equity into her violence prevention work.

Dr. Wintemute is the founding director of the Violence Prevention Research Program and holds the Baker–Teret Chair in Violence Prevention at the University of California, Davis. He also directs the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis, the nation’s first publicly-funded center for research in this field. He was among the first to study firearm violence as a public health problem. He practices and teaches emergency medicine at UC Davis Medical Center and is a professor of emergency medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine. His current research focuses on violence risk factors and interventions to prevent violence.

Vicka is the Director of Education and Communication for the California Firearm Violence Research Center and the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, where she bridges research with practice by making research findings accessible, actionable, and meaningful for diverse stakeholders working to prevent violence. She is especially devoted to inclusive, equitable, and evidence-based prevention strategies that advance safety and social justice. She holds master’s degrees in public health and counseling psychology and has over a decade of violence prevention experience. Six of those years were spent in firearm policy advocacy, where she collaborated with academics and advocates nationwide in translating public health and related research for policymakers and the general public and applying research to develop interventions for firearm injury prevention.

Amanda is a Research Data Analyst at the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis. Her work emphasizes the social determinants of health and health equity, specifically in mental health and risk behaviors. She is interested in using mixed methods and participatory approaches to evaluate firearm violence and injury prevention programs and policies.