天美传媒

Elizabeth "Liz" Budd is a nationally recognized scholar of public health, health promotion and health equity. She holds leadership roles in the Physical Activity Section of the American Public Health Association. The goal of her research is to prevent the onset of chronic diseases, especially among groups with heightened risk, in order to achieve population-level health equity. Specifically, she examines the policies and environmental factors (social and physical) that influence physical activity and healthy eating. She has a particular interest in youth, adolescent girls, and Latino/a/x community members. Budd also works to implement, evaluate, and foster the sustainability of evidence-based interventions to promote healthy behaviors in community settings. 

She鈥檚 part of a team of researchers that designed a program that used culturally informed outreach with well-located community testing sites to triple turnout for COVID-19 testing in Latinx communities around Oregon. The researchers are hopeful their findings can help shape future public health and other outreach campaigns to Latinx communities across the country.

Budd is an Evergreen Assistant Professor situated within the College of Education, Counseling Psychology and Human Services Department, and affiliated with the Family and Human Services and Prevention Science programs. She鈥檚 also a member of the Health Promotion Initiative and Prevention Science Institute.

Dr. Bell鈥檚 research interests include examining the association of environmental exposures and adverse birth and child health outcomes, including neurodevelopment. She is particularly interested in the relationship between social factors and environmental exposures and their combined impact on child development. Dr. Bell most recently served as co-Principal Investigator of the Upstate KIDS study, a cohort study of over 6000 infants designed to examine risk factors for development differences, Autism and additional growth and developmental outcomes.

Currently, she is the co-Principal Investigator with the New York State Department of Health, of a cohort study to recruit and enroll participants into a prospective cohort of adults and children to examine the long-term health effects associated with consumption of drinking water contaminated with per and poly alkyl substances (PFAS).  She previously led the investigations of adverse reproductive outcomes by levels of air pollutants in the New York State Department of Health鈥檚 Environmental Health Tracking Program and previously served as a co-PI of the New York Center for the National Birth Defects Prevention Study/BD-STEPS multi-center studies funded by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).

Given the strong correlation between excess exposure to environmental contaminants, poverty and racial inequalities, her research and community service have more recently expanded into exploring the health outcomes related to these disparities. She currently serves on the executive committee of the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis and as a member of the Community Advisory Board for the Ezra Prentice neighborhood, an Environmental Justice Community in Albany, NY. She has previously served as a member on three of the Institute of Medicine Committees on Review of the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides. Currently, she is a member of the National Academy of Medicine's Committee on Guidance on PFAS Testing and Health Outcomes.

Dr. Bozlak is an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy, Management, and Behavior at the University at Albany School of Public Health. She also co-directs the HRSA-funded Maternal and Child Health Program at the School of Public Health. She will serve as the co-faculty director of the Maternal and Child Health certificate program at the University at Albany, once approved. Her expertise is in the area of maternal and child health. Dr. Bozlak previously co-chaired the American Public Health Association MCH Section鈥檚 Adolescent and Young Adult Health Committee, and she is a member of the New York State Youth Development Team. She is also a member of the National MCH Workforce Development Center鈥檚 Pipeline Team.  

Prior to joining the University at Albany in 2012, Dr. Bozlak was the Advocacy Program Manager for the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC), a program of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children鈥檚 Hospital of Chicago.  She holds her MPH in health policy and management, and she completed a fellowship in the Illinois Governor鈥檚 Office. She received her PhD in 2010 from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Public Health Community Health Sciences Division. She also served as an instructor and program administrative coordinator for the UIC Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health (formerly the Maternal and Child Health Program).

Dr. Bozlak鈥檚 research is in the area of maternal and child health, and specifically childhood obesity prevention with a focus on policy, systems, and environmental change strategies. She has conducted community-engaged research with faith-based organizations, youth-serving organizations, and organizations dedicated to addressing food insecurity. Her current partnership with the Alliance of New York State YMCAs began in 2013 and has resulted in three studies focused on childhood obesity prevention. She is also a co-investigator on the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research-funded 鈥淓nvironmental and Nutritional Benefits of Food Recovery and Redistribution: A Pilot Assessment in New York鈥檚 Capital Region鈥� study. Along with colleagues, she co-edited the book, "Participatory Action Research" (Oxford University Press).

I am a Professor at the University at Albany School of Public Health. I am a health communication scholar who uses theories, concepts, and methods from the fields of public health and communication. My research focuses on health literacy as well as the effects of media on attitudes, behaviors, and policies that put young people (children, adolescents, young adults) at risk for negative health outcomes.

My main area of expertise is health communication. My work in this area has primarily focused on the effects of media and/or technology use on health attitudes, knowledge, and behavior, health information seeking among youth and parents, and identifying best practices for the dissemination of health information to the general public, including through news and social media. It has also involved a focus on health literacy. Much of my work focuses on children, adolescents, young adults and parents, and I often seek to include groups impacted by health disparities. I also examine the use of digital technology for health information and health interventions, also known as eHealth.

I have published my work in journals such as the Journal of Health Communication, Pediatrics, Public Health Management and Practice, Journal of Children and Media, and Public Health Nutrition.

鈥婤efore starting at UAlbany, I was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania. I earned my Ph.D. from the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Specialization: Health Policy

Erika Martin is a Professor of Public Administration and Policy. She is a faculty affiliate in the Department of Health Policy, Management & Behavior, the Center for Collaborative HIV Research in Practice and Policy, and the Center for Technology in Government. Her research focuses on infectious disease policies and programs, the allocation of scarce public health resources, the adoption and impact of public health policies, public health infrastructure and data systems, and translating evidence-based research into practice. She applies diverse research approaches, including program evaluation, modeling, analysis of administrative and survey data, key informant interviews, and economic analysis.

She directs the Coalition for Applied Modeling and Prevention (CAMP), a multi-institution consortium funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CAMP is dedicated to creating models that improve public health decision-making at the national, state, and local levels in the areas of HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, and school/adolescent health. For more information, please visit the CAMP website.

At Rockefeller College, she teaches courses on research design and program evaluation.

Dr. Julia F. Hastings joined the University at Albany as an Assistant Professor in the Schools of Public Health and Social Welfare in 2012. Her scholarship concentrates on addressing disparities in health and mental health outcomes for underserved populations. Her research focuses on the interrelationships between race, mental health outcomes (depression), health conditions (Type II diabetes), risk and protective factors, and poverty. The research findings suggest ways for public health social work professionals to practice with awareness of cultural reality, appropriateness, and responsiveness. It is her goal to produce research that enhances health, lengthens life, and reduces the burdens of illness for racial and ethnic populations.

Dr. Hastings has published on culturally competent research methods within African American communities, welfare participation, depression, body weight, and Type II diabetes. Recently, she completed a NIMHD funded K-22 DREAM grant which utilized qualitative and quantitative research approaches to examine service utilization outcomes among low-income African Americans diagnosed with diabetes and depression in California and New York. In 2015, Dr. Hastings published a co-authored book entitled, African Americans and Depression: Signs, Symptoms, Awareness, and Interventions (https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442230323/African-Americans-and-Depression-Signs-Awareness-Treatments-and-Interventions). In 2017, Dr. Hastings was inducted as a Society for Social Work and Research Fellow.

Dr. Hastings' research grant portfolio includes funding from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), NIMH, the Ford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the University at Albany, and several community initiatives.

Dr. Daudet Ilunga Tshiswaka is an Assistant Professor of Public Health. He has a PhD. in Community Health from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests focus on health disparity, global health, and minorities鈥� health.

Much of his research has involved health promotion and studies of health issues of minorities such as Africans who immigrated to the United States. His doctoral dissertation, for example, examined perceptions of diabetes risk factors among Congolese immigrants in Illinois.

His current research examines such topics as understanding colorectal and prostate cancer screenings uptake among US and foreign-born men in the US, stress factors in transnational West African women, aspects of the Ebola outbreak, and knowledge of condom use as an HIV preventative measure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He has conducted studies on assistive technology use by people with disabilities, health insurance knowledge among Congolese immigrants and African-Americans, high blood pressure among African transnational migrants, and health education and health awareness. Peer-reviewed publications carrying his work include Journal of Public Health, Journal of Race and Policy, Journal of Pan African Studies, and Transnational Social Review: A Social Work Journal.

Dr. Steele is a visiting lecturer for the Department of Public Health.

Dr. Melanie Sutton, professor, teaches bioinformatics, health information systems, medical informatics, medical terminology, and computer and geographic information systems applications in public health.

Sutton applies her computer science training into the broader multi-disciplinary field of informatics by applying algorithms and tools from her object recognition research in new domains.

She has written and co-written many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on various aspects of computer vision, robotics, digital mammography, and online instruction and assessment.

She was co-principal investigator of two projects funded by Florida's Great Northwest to develop a software engineering graduate program, and health sciences and technology training retreats for high school guidance counselors and academy directors. She was also principal investigator for a grant that developed and assessed protocols for the efficient utilization of large-scale digital mammography databases.

During her tenure as co-director and academic advisor of the certificate in medical informatics program at UWF, she chaired a self-study committee that led to the accreditation of UWF's online master of public health program, just one three accredited online programs in the U.S.

Before coming to UWF in 1996, she was a software engineer for Harris Corporation in the space systems division.

She received a bachelor's degree in computer engineering, master's in computer science, and doctorate in computer science and engineering with a focus on computer vision and robotics, all from the University of South Florida.

George E. Downs, PharmD, is the Dean Emeritus of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (PCP) and Linwood F. Tice Professor of Pharmacy at Saint Joseph's University. Downs graduated from the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy with a B.S. in Pharmacy, and earned his Pharm.D. degree at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science.

Downs served in the U.S. Public Health Service and was a senior resident in Hospital Pharmacy at the University of Arkansas Medical Center. He was involved with the Drug Systems Research group that developed the first Medication Error Research Program. He was assistant director of pharmacy and central supply at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and director of society services at the American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists. He has been on the faculty of Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia since 1972 and has taught at both Hahnemann University Hospital and the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Downs has served as president of the National Rho Chi Honor Society, and has been honored by the American College of Apothecaries for his support of community pharmacy. He is past-president of the Health Promotion Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania and serves on the Board of Directors of SARPH, the impaired pharmacists program in Pennsylvania and the Public Health Management Corporation.

He is actively involved in numerous professional associations, including the:

American Pharmacists Association
American Society of Health Systems Pharmacists
American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy

Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Strategy & Accreditation at Creighton University鈥檚 School of Medicine.
Dr. Rengua Vivekanandan, M.D., is an infectious disease expert and an award-winning physician whose research and experience positions her as a prominent voice on public health, epidemiology, gender equity in health care, organ transplant outcomes and antibiotics stewardship. Dr. Vivekanandan is also the Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship & Hospital Epidemiology at CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center 鈥� Bergan Mercy.
Dr. Vivekanandan was named a 2021 Champion of Humanistic Care Award winner by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation. She earned a Distinguished Faculty Service Award from Creighton University and received The Walter J. O鈥橠onohue, Jr. Award from the Nebraska Chapter of the American College of Physicians. She was named a 40 Under 40 Honor by the Midlands Business Journal in 2019 and she was a finalist for the Inspire: Celebrating Women鈥檚 Leadership Award for Excellence in Healthcare in 2022.
In addition to publishing numerous research papers and articles, Dr. Vivekanandan is a regular presenter at national conferences, educational webinars and professional seminars. She mentors and collaborates with medical students, residents and fellows. Dr. Vivekanandan recently served as a member of the Big East Conference鈥檚 COVID-19 Task Force to help safely guide athletic departments through the pandemic.

Associate Dean, Professor, and Department Chair of Clinical Research and Public Health at Creighton University鈥檚 School of Medicine
Dr. Maureen Tierney, M.D., M.S., is a distinguished researcher and renowned epidemiologist whose expertise covers several medical fields, including public health policy, infectious disease prevention, pathogen analysis, and health professions workplace safety.
Dr. Tierney earned the Inaugural McKnight Prize for Healthcare Outbreak Heroes in 2020 after her investigative work helped contain an infection outbreak in a hospital specialty unit. She is a member of the Infectious Disease Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and the America College of Physicians. She has participated in CORHA (Council on Outbreak Response for Healthcare-Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance). She has served previously as the Medical Director of the Healthcare-Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance Program at Nebraska鈥檚 Department of Health and Human Services.
The principal investigator of a 2021 Centers for Disease Control-commissioned study on the impact of COVID, Dr. Tierney regularly publishes abstracts, articles, chapters, and regulatory documents to advise doctors, hospital administrators, and the general public.

With an emphasis in early childhood, Silvia鈥檚 research spans from the measurement of physical activity and sedentary behaviour, to the influence of such behaviours for children鈥檚 healthy growth and development, and how policies and practices within environments that young children are exposed to can influence their health and health-related behaviours (such as physical activity and diet).

Amanda鈥檚 work is focused on investigating the effects of lifestyle interventions on health outcomes, particularly around women鈥檚 health. 
She has published work focused on pregnancy, postnatal depression and menopause. 
She is the chief investigator on several on-going trials that are examining the effectiveness of community and general practice-based physical activity and weight control interventions. 
Amanda has published extensively in the field of physical activity and health.
She is most interested in conducting randomised controlled trials but she also has a strong interest in conducting systematic reviews and interrogating large datasets.  

Assistant Professor, Community Dentistry
Director, Geriatric Dental Program Lifelong Smiles
Teaching Information
Teaching Interests
Geriatric Dental Education and Clinical Care
Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Community Outreach

Research Information
Recent Funding
Title: Geriatric Dental Program
Sponsor: The First Energy Foundation 
Amount: $100,000
Project Period: 07/2022-07/2024

Education
Doctor of Dental Surgery Case Western Reserve University
Master of Public Health Case Western Reserve University
Residencies, Internships and Fellowships
General Practice Residency Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center
Additional Information
Fellow 鈥� Special Care Dentistry Association
Clinical Director 鈥� Special Olympics / Special Smiles

Katherine Baumgarten, MD, is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases, and has served as Ochsner Health medical director of infection prevention since 2008. Her expertise includes health care safety and clinical infectious diseases, along with emerging infections and adult vaccines. She has been interviewed by Newsweek magazine, CNN and numerous local outlets on COVID-19, measles and bird flu, among other topics. 
Dr. Baumgarten is a fellow of both the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. She is a member of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and the American Board of Internal Medicine.
A New Orleans native, she attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and earned a medical degree from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center - New Orleans. She completed an internship and residency at the University of California at San Francisco and completed an infectious diseases fellowship at Ochsner Medical Foundation in New Orleans.

Karen Hofman is Research Professor and founding Director of the SAMRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science/ PRICELESS SA at the University of Witwatersrand. A qualified paediatrician, she was on faculty at Johns Hopkins and served as Policy Director at the US NIH Fogarty Center. For the past 15 years, Karen has led policy research to evaluate interventions both inside the health system and in other sectors that provide the biggest return on investment for health.
She is widely published in global health with more than 150 peer reviewed publications and has received the Wits Vice Chancellor’s Social Impact Research Award in 2020 and the Science-for-Society Gold Medal from the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2022.

Flavia Andrade is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She also holds appointments in the departments of Sociology and Kinesiology and Community Health. She is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America.
What I Do

I am committed to advancing our understanding of health disparities at older ages. My hope is that everyone should age well and with good social support. My work aims to uncover factors that can help societies be more equitable and for individuals to reach better health outcomes. To do so, I use several datasets from many countries around the world, particularly Latin America and the United States.
Flavia Andrade is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. Prior to coming to UI, she was a postdoc at the University of Chicago at the Harris School of Public Policy.






Research Interests


Demography, Sociology, Public Health




Research Description


Dr. Andrade is exploring how transitions at the population level, such as demographic, socioeconomic, nutritional, and epidemiological, are influencing health across the life course. Currently, her work has been focusing on the health of adults and older adults in Latin America and the Caribbean and Latinos in the US. Her current research focuses on several outcomes: chronic conditions (e.g., diabetes and hypertension), quality of life, disability, cognition, mental health, oral health, and life expectancy.
Currently, she is involved in several international projects aimed at understanding the determinants of health disparities. The ultimate goal is to identify factors that are more malleable to changes through interventions and policies.




Education


PhD Sociology - University of Wisconsin-Madison
MS Population Health - University of Wisconsin-Madison
MA - Demography - Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Ba Economics - Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil




Additional Campus Affiliations


Professor, School of Social Work
Acting Director, Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies
Professor, Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies
Professor, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Professor, Women & Gender in Global Perspectives
Affiliate, Center for Social and Behavioral Science
Selected Publications


Guimaraes, R., Andrade, F. C. D. (2020). Healthy life-expectancy and multimorbidity among older adults: do inequality and poverty matter? Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 104157.
Andrade, F. C. D., Corona, L. P., Duarte, Y. A. O. (2019) Educational differences in cognitive life expectancy among older adults in Brazil. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 1-8.
Andrade, F. C. D. (2010). Measuring the impact of diabetes on life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy among older adults in Mexico. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 65B(3): 381-389.

Dariush Mozaffarian is a board-certified cardiologist and epidemiologist whose research focuses on the effects of diet and lifestyle on cardiometabolic health, including global impacts of suboptimal diet and effectiveness of policies to improve diets around the world. His work aims to create the science and translation for a food system that is nutritious, equitable, and sustainable. He is the Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition and the inaugural director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

Dr. Reece is the Assistant Dean for Student and Professional Affairs, Director of Interprofessional Education, and Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice, all with the PCOM Georgia School of Pharmacy. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Mercer University and completed a community pharmacy residency program with both Mercer University and The Kroger Company. Dr. Reece holds board certification in ambulatory care and advanced diabetes management. She served on the Board of Directors and as Treasurer of the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists. She serves as Chair of the Endocrine and Metabolism PRN of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy and Chair of the Advocacy Committee for ADCES. She also serves as core faculty, ambulatory care pharmacist and diabetes specialist with Northeast Georgia Medical Center Family Medicine Graduate Medical Education Program.
Dr. Reece has a blog, Reece's Pieces in a Diabetes World, and a YouTube channel, ReecesPieces Diabetes. She presents on diabetes and technology related topics nationally.  Dr. Reece was named a 40 under 40 Pharmacist for the Georgia Pharmacy Association (2003), and presented with the Silver Shovel Award by the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce (2011). She is a Fellow of the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialist (2017), an Outstanding Allied Health Professional by the Healthy Hall Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce (2019), a PCOM School of Pharmacy Teacher of the Year for Pharmacy Practice (2019), a PCOM School of Pharmacy Faculty Preceptor of the Year (2022 and 2023), and a Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (2022).