The Psychosocial Impacts of Whistleblower Retaliation

Jacqueline Garrick received her MSW from Temple University and is an LCSW-C in Maryland. She served as a US Army Social Work Officer and spent decades working with and addressing veterans’ issues with a primary focus on posttraumatic stress disorder and suicide prevention. She has worked for The American Legion, Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs and the US Congress. She founded Whistleblowers of America after experiencing a hostile work environment at the Pentagon and seeing the similarities to combat veterans. She is the author of several articles, books and chapters on traumatic stress and suicide and has presented testimony before Congress and at numerous events. She opened the Workplace Promise Institute in Pensacola, Florida after winning her case at the Merit System Protection Board.  Martina Buck, PhD received her BA in Microbiology from the University of California San Diego (UCSD). She then continued at UCSD, in the Biomedical Sciences Program at the School of Medicine, to earn a PhD in Molecular Biology.  Dr. Buck was a National Cancer Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at the Salk Institute, in the laboratory of Dr. Tony Hunter. She began her academic career at UCSD as a Research Scientist and rose to the rank of Associate Professor of Medicine with independent funding and tenure within ten years. Her academic career was cut short by retaliation brought on by her whistleblowing.  She is now the Co-Founder and CEO of Xfibra, Inc., a biotech start-up that researches and develops first- in- class, anti-fibrotic, anti-inflammatory therapeutics of her design. Because of her experiences, she is also an active advocate for whistleblowers through research and peer counseling with Whistleblowers of America.