A $2 million gift from the Epstein Family Foundation has underwritten the establishment of the new RAND-USC Epstein Family Foundation Center for Veterans Policy Research, which will expand research opportunities to better inform federal, state and local policy on veterans and military families. Carl Castro, professor, director of Military and Veterans Programs (MVP) and director of the Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans and Military Families at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, has been appointed to serve as director of the Epstein Center. 

The focus of the center will be on three important areas: reducing veteran suicide, eliminating veteran homelessness and improving veteran success post-transition, especially those who experienced military-related trauma or comprise vulnerable veteran groups. The gift also endowed a faculty fellowship and Sara Kintzle, research associate professor, has been named the first Epstein Fellow. She will be principal investigator on the upcoming Southern California Veterans Study, a first-of-its-kind regional study of the issues facing veterans today, funded in part by the Epstein Center, which is expected to be a major driver of veteran policy in the region. 

“USC has been a leader in the military space for many years and was the first school to establish a military social work program,” Castro said. “We are excited that the new Epstein Center is going to give us the resources to expand this work to get to another level of impact nationally.”  

Castro is a combat veteran who joined the USC faculty in 2013 after serving 33 years in the U.S. Army, retiring at the rank of Colonel. He has served in a variety of research and leadership positions, and is currently chair of a NATO research group on military veteran transitions.  

“Our current needs are with the wars ending in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Castro said. “The new Epstein Center will give us the resources to ensure that those wars are not forgotten, as so many have been, and that the challenges that service members have, and will continue to have, will be met.”  

Transdisciplinary research to address the spectrum of policy issues 

“The military population touches a variety of disciplines and schools at USC, from public policy to medical to education and, of course, social work,” Kintzle said. “The new Epstein Center will enable us to really connect research across the university and better inform policy issues.”  

The center will partner with the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute, also established in 2021 through a grant from the Epstein Family Foundation, to share findings and highlight reciprocal research with policy stakeholders at the local, state and federal levels.  

“By working together, RAND and USC will strengthen the quality and impact of research about issues faced by our nation’s military veterans,” said Rajeev Ramchand, co-director of the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute. “We are pleased to partner with USC on this effort and look forward to strengthening our collaboration in support of those who served our nation.”  

Critical support for initial-phase research 

The Epstein Center will also provide an important, and often difficult to find, funding mechanism for introductory research that can provide evidence-based support to establish the need for larger studies funded through traditional military research funding mechanisms.  

“It’s very exciting to have the opportunity to do pilot work that may lead to larger studies,” Kintzle said. “The Epstein Center provides the infrastructure and resources to do that.”  

The first of these pilot studies will be led by Kintzle and will look at the National Guard, which has coming under increasing demand in recent years to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at the border, at the U.S. capitol, in cities and during the pandemic. The National Guard has traditionally been included with the active duty population although the experience and needs are very different. The pilot will look at the unique stress and demands of serving in the National Guard and how it affects wellbeing, as well as how its service members balance military and civilian life.  

The Epstein Center will continue the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work’s distinguished history of military social work education and influential research on behalf of U.S. veterans and military families.