Speakers

Jenna Cassady, Melissa Currie, Jennie Green, Kelsey Gregory, Jonathan Lyle Hall, Jeremy Murrell, Jacqueline Sugarman, Todd Willard

Jenna Cassady, JD, Esq

Staff Attorney
Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs
Lexington, Kentucky

Jenna Cassady began her career as a victim advocate at the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in 2011. She later attended UK law school and worked in the Office of Victim Advocacy for the Kentucky Attorney General. Jenna’s law school seminar paper studied age of consent laws. She sought to expand Kentucky’s statutory rape criminal statutes, which had previously excluded sexual assault victims ages 16-17. In 2017-2018, she worked with legislators to amend Kentucky’s criminal sex offenses to include protections for older teenage victims. Jenna is a licensed attorney in Florida and Kentucky. She is a former Miami-Dade prosecutor of domestic violence crimes. She currently prosecutes sexual assault and child abuse cases.

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Melissa Currie, MD, FAAP

Professor, Fellowship Program Director, Medical Director, & Chief
Kosair Charities Division
Pediatric Forensic Medicine
University of Louisville School of Medicine
Louisville, Kentucky

Melissa L. Currie, MD, FAAP is Professor, Fellowship Program Director, Medical Director and Chief of the Kosair Charities Division of Pediatric Forensic Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. Dr. Currie received her medical degree from University of Louisville School of Medicine and completed her residency in Pediatrics at Medical College of Wisconsin. After two years on faculty as a child abuse pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, she returned to Louisville to join the faculty at University of Louisville School of Medicine. With the help of Kosair Charities, she began what is now the Kosair Charities Division of Pediatric Forensic Medicine in the fall of 2007, which has consulted on thousands of children in Kentucky and Southern Indiana who are suspected victims of child maltreatment. She is Board-Certified in Child Abuse Medicine (Nov 2009.) She sits on the Kentucky Child Fatality Review Panel and provides training about recognition, intervention, investigation and prosecution of child maltreatment to a wide variety of academic and professional audiences. She is a founding member of the Face It® Movement, which is a multidisciplinary community action group that is committed to ending child maltreatment in Jefferson County over the next decade.

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Jennie Green, MD, MSc, FAAP

Child Abuse Pediatrician
UK Division of Pediatric Forensic Medicine
Lexington, Kentucky

Following graduation from the University of Florida with a bachelors and medical degree, Jennie moved to Louisville for her pediatric residency and child abuse fellowship at University of Louisville, graduating in the Summer of 2020. She began employment in September 2020 as a child abuse pediatrician at Norton Children’s Pediatric Protection Specialists and the Family and Children’s Place Child Advocacy. In June 2023, she transitioned to the UK Division of Pediatric Forensic Medicine where she is currently employed

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Kelsey Gregory, MD

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
University of Kentucky College of Medicine
Lexington, Kentucky

Dr. Kelsey Gregory is a Child Abuse Pediatrician at the University of Kentucky Health Center. Dr. Gregory completed her medical training at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. She went on to complete her pediatrics residency at Vanderbilt University and her child abuse pediatrics fellowship at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Northwestern University McGaw Medical Center. Dr. Gregory has specific interests in transgenerational abuse, intimate partner violence, and community and medical education.

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Jonathan Lyle Hall

Forensic Biology Supervisor
Serology/Property Crimes section
Kentucky State Police
Frankfort, Kentucky

Forensic Biology Supervisor of the Serology/Property Crimes section.
Graduated from Western Kentucky University with a major in recombinant genetics. With the lab since 2003. Serology and DNA trained analyst.

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Jeremy Murrell

Deputy Director
Department of Criminal Investigations for Counter Exploitation
KY Attorney General’s Office
Frankfort, Kentucky

I recently retired from the Kentucky State Police with over 21 years of service. In my most recent assignment there, I served as the Chief Information Officer and a Major in the Technical Services Division, overseeing the Criminal Identification and Records Branch, Communications Branch, Computer Technology Branch, and the Electronic Crime Branch.

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Jacqueline Sugarman, MD, FAAP

Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Division of Pediatric Forensic Medicine
University of Kentucky College of Medicine
Lexington, Kentucky

Jacqueline M Sugarman, MD, FAAP, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Forensic Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Kentucky and serves as both the medical director for the Children’s Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass and the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Kentucky. Dr. Sugarman received her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine and completed her residency in Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She completed a fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, joined the faculty in the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at the University of Louisville, and evaluated children at Children First in Louisville (which would later become Family & Children’s Place). After a hiatus in private practice in East Tennessee, she returned to Kentucky to join the faculty at University of Kentucky Department of Pediatrics. She is Board-Certified in both pediatrics and child abuse medicine. Dr. Sugarman was a member of the committee tasked by the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs to write a Child Sexual Abuse Medical Protocol for the state of Kentucky. She collaborated with medical providers across the state to create the first Pediatric Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE -P) course in the Commonwealth and serves as both an educator and preceptor for SANE -P course trainees. She serves on the Kentucky Multidisciplinary Commission on Child Sexual Abuse.

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Todd Willard, JD

Assistant Attorney General
Special Prosecutions Division
Kentucky Office of the Attorney General
Frankfort, Kentucky

Todd Willard is from Oldham County, Kentucky. He graduated from Western Kentucky University with a degree in biochemistry, then earned his law degree from the University of Kentucky College of Law. Todd clerked for Judge Joe Huddlestone of the Kentucky Court of Appeals before spending several years in civil litigation, primarily medical malpractice defense. He joined the staff of the Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in July 2017 and works with the multi-disciplinary team that investigates and prosecutes crimes against children.

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