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Biographical Sketches of Speakers and Planning Committee

Michael Baker, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., CEHS/RS, joined Jefferson County in August 2016. Originally from Washington State, he has spent 20 years working in nearly every aspect of local public health. In Jefferson County, he is focused on making Jefferson County Public Health a more active partner and presence in the community. Dr. Baker’s professional interest is local public health in rural and frontier communities and balancing the obstacles of geography, limited resources, and staffing to meet community needs. He holds a Ph.D. in public health, an M.S. in public health, and bachelor’s degrees in both zoology and general biological sciences.

Raymond Baxter,✝* Ph.D., currently serves as the co-chair of the Population Health Roundtable of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine; a Trustee of the Blue Shield of California Foundation; and a member of the Board of Directors of the CDC Foundation. Dr. Baxter most recently was CEO of the Blue Shield of California Foundation. He currently serves on the advisory boards to the Deans of the University of California (UC) Berkeley School of Public Health and the UC San Francisco School of Nursing.

For 15 years, Dr. Baxter was Kaiser Permanente’s national senior vice president for community benefit, research, and health policy. There he built the largest community benefit program in the United States, investing more than $2 billion annually in community health. He led Kaiser Permanente’s signature national health improvement partnerships, includ-

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*denotes planning committee member, ^✝denotes roundtable member

ing the Weight of the Nation, the Convergence Partnership, and the Partnership for a Healthier America. Dr. Baxter also established Kaiser Permanente’s (KP) Center for Effectiveness and Safety Research and built out its national genomics research bank, served as president of KP International, and chaired Kaiser Permanente’s field-leading environmental stewardship work. He was a founding sponsor of the KP School of Medicine.

Previously he headed the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, and The Lewin Group. Dr. Baxter holds a doctorate from Princeton University. In 2001 the UC Berkeley School of Public Health honored him as a Public Health Hero for his service in the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. In 2006 he received the CDC Foundation Hero Award for addressing the health consequences of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast. In 2016, the San Francisco Business Times recognized his philanthropic contributions with its first Legacy Award.

Sara Beaudrault, M.P.H., a native Oregonian, is currently a Policy Analyst for Public Health Division and Multnomah County Health Department. Her work focuses on implementing public health system changes to eliminate health inequities and ensure that every person across the state has access to critical public health protections. Beaudrault collaborates with governmental public health and health system partners to address Oregon’s most pressing population health challenges through policy and system change.

Ms. Beaudrault’s early career was in the behavioral health field, working with at risk children and families. Since receiving her M.P.H. degree at Portland State University, she has worked for the Oregon Health Authority, Public Health Division.

Tia “Tee” Benally is Diné (Navajo) and White Mountain Apache, and a student in the Master of Public Health in Community Oriented Public Health Practice Program at the University of Washington School of Public Health. Ms. Benally is a recipient of the Rattlinggourd Endowed Scholarship & Fellowship.

Ms. Benally graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor’s degree in community health and then worked in a variety of settings, including conducting clinical and community outreach on diabetes prevention and commercial tobacco prevention and control. She primarily worked with the southwest tribes in New Mexico, including the 19 Pueblos, Navajo Nation, and Apache tribes.

Kyle Bernstein, Sc.M., Ph.D., is the chief of the Population Health Workforce Branch in the Division of Scientific Education and Workforce Devel-

opment. Previously, he was the branch chief of the Epidemiology and Statistics Branch in the Division of STD Prevention. Prior to joining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2014, Dr. Bernstein held leadership and epidemiology positions with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the California Department of Health Services, the Baltimore City Department of Health, and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Dr. Bernstein has extensive experience conducting innovative epidemiologic research in both academic and public health settings. He is a recognized expert and leader in the field of STD/HIV prevention, epidemiologic research, and workforce development and has authored or coauthored more than 160 scientific journal articles. Dr. Bernstein received a B.A. from Brown University and both a Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees in epidemiology from The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Kristen Bibbins-Domingo,✝ Ph.D., M.D., MAS, is professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Lee Goldman, M.D. Endowed Professor of Medicine. She is the inaugural vice dean for population health and health equity in the UCSF School of Medicine. Dr. Bibbins-Domingo co-founded the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital that generates actionable research to increase health equity and reduce health disparities in at-risk populations in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and nationally. She is one of the Principal Investigators (PIs) of the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute and leads the UCSF COVID Community Public Health Initiative.

Dr. Bibbins-Domingo is a general internist, cardiovascular disease epidemiologist, and a national leader in prevention and interventions to address health disparities. She is an National Institutes of Health-funded researcher who uses observational studies, pragmatic trials, and simulation modeling to examine effective clinical, public health, and policy interventions aimed at prevention. She leads the UCSF Cardiovascular Disease Policy Model group that conducts simulation modeling, disease projections, and cost-effectiveness analyses related to cardiovascular disease in the United States and in other national contexts.

Dr. Bibbins-Domingo was a member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from 2010 to 2017 and led the Task Force as the vice-chair and chair from 2014 to 2017. She is an inducted member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the National Academy of Medicine.

Renée Branch Canady, M.P.A., Ph.D., serves as CEO of the Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI), a Michigan-based and nationally engaged non-

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*denotes planning committee member, ^✝denotes roundtable member

profit public health institute dedicated to advancing population health through public health innovation and collaboration.

Dr. Canady has been recognized as a national thought leader in the areas of health inequities and disparities, cultural competence, and social justice. She has published and presented broadly on these topics, and her passion for this work is evident in her personal, academic, and professional life. Dr. Canady has been highly influential in broadening the discussion of health equity and social justice while serving on numerous national boards, review panels, and advisory groups.

Dr. Canady has been an outstanding public health advocate, researcher, educator, and facilitator, and is a highly sought after speaker. Her career path has also included serving as Directed of Student Affairs in the College of Nursing at Michigan State University and Assistant Area Director in the Department of Residence Life at the University of North Carolina. She earned her Ph.D. in medical sociology from Michigan State University, a master’s degree in public administration from Western Michigan University, and a bachelor’s degree in public health nutrition from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Theresa Chapple-McGruder, Ph.D., serves as the director of Oak Park’s state-certified local health department. Dr. Chapple-McGruder oversees an operation that is one of only four municipal health departments in suburban Cook County certified by the state to provide public health programming. The Oak Park Department of Public Health is responsible for protecting the community’s health from preventable death, disease, illness, and injury.

A governmental and applied epidemiologist, Dr. Chapple-McGruder has spent the majority of her career at local, state, and federal health agencies, and with organizations that directly support governmental public health. During the COVID-19 crises she has helped school districts craft reopening plans and provided expert consultations to recreational sports teams, news media operations, and community-based organizations to help flatten the infection curve and promote vaccination.

Prior to assuming her role, she led the Women’s Health Data and Evaluation team at the Health Resources and Services Administration in Rockville, Maryland. Dr. Chapple-McGruder lived in Oak Park from 2005 to 2009 while pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Her education also includes a master’s degree in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Clark University in Atlanta.

Dave Chokshi, M.D., M.Sc., FACP is the 43rd Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, one of the leading

health agencies in the world. Dr. Chokshi has led NYC’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its historic vaccination campaign. He grew the Health Department’s annual budget to its highest-ever level, reflecting investment in signature initiatives such as the Public Health Corps and Pandemic Response Institute. Dr. Chokshi also chairs the NYC Board of Health, which adopted a landmark resolution on racism as a public health crisis.

Dr. Chokshi’s prior work experience spans the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Dr. Chokshi served as inaugural Chief Population Health Officer at NYC Health + Hospitals and he has taken care of patients as a primary care physician at Bellevue Hospital since 2014.

He has written widely on public health and medicine including in The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and The Lancet. Dr. Chokshi received his M.D. with Alpha Omega Alpha distinction from the University of Pennsylvania, his M.Sc. in global public health as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and graduated summa cum laude from Duke University.

Merlin Chowkwanyun, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the Donald H. Gemson Assistant Professor Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Chowkwanyun’s work centers on the history of community health; environmental health regulation; racial inequality; and social movement/activism around health. He is working on a book examining localism and health politics in the post-WWII, using case studies on medical care and environmental health controversies in four regions (Los Angeles, Cleveland, Central Appalachia, and New York) and another about political unrest at medical schools and neighborhood health activism during the 1960s and 1970s. He is also the PI (co-PI David Rosner) on a recent National Science Foundation Standard Research Grant for ToxicDocs.org, a depository of millions of pages of once-secret documents on industrial poisons. Dr. Chowkwanyun is affiliated with the Department of History and a faculty member of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health and the Data Science Institute.

Kimberly Fowler, Ph.D., a native of Jacksonville, Florida, has been working to support indigenous communities for nearly a decade. Dr. Fowler has been employed at the National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH) since 2011 and as the current vice president of the Technical Assistance and Research Center, has led the development of various projects focused on Urban Indian Organization capacity-building and sustainability to support operational and programmatic growth, as well as supporting research centered on the urban Indian health sector.

She received her Ph.D. from Yale University and B.S. from Tennessee State University. Prior to joining NCUIH, Dr. Fowler supported several

initiatives through the coordination and delivery of technical assistance in health systems and clinical operations for communities of color, including managing a women’s health behavior intervention program to reduce health disparities risk. Dr. Fowler also completed her postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Colorado-Denver where she also received a Certificate in Public Health.

Bianca Kiyoe Frogner, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Family Medicine in the School of Medicine at University of Washington (UW). She is the Director of the UW Center for Health Workforce Studies and Deputy Director of the Primary Care Innovation Lab, which are housed in the Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Frogner is a health economist (NIH T32 trainee) with expertise in health services delivery, health workforce, labor economics, health spending, health insurance coverage and reimbursement, and international health systems.

She is the PI of two Health Resources and Services Administration Health Workforce Research Center grants, one focused on allied health and another focused on the training and education of health professionals to address health equity. In 2016, Dr. Frogner served on an Institute of Medicine Consensus Study Committee on Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health. She serves on the editorial boards of Medical Care Research and Review and Health Systems. She received the 2019 John M. Eisenberg Article-of-the-Year Award as lead author of a study investigating physical therapy as the first point of care for low back pain treatment published in Health Services Research. Dr. Frogner recently provided testimony on health care careers to the Worker and Family Support Subcommittee of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. Dr. Frogner’s has produced 115 publications including peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reports. Her research has been shared in more than 200 scholarly presentations and has appeared in popular media outlets including CNN, NPR, Wall Street Journal, Vox, and Politico.

Dr. Frogner completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. Dr. Frogner received her Ph.D. in health economics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and her B.A. at University of California, Berkeley in molecular and cell biology.

Becky Johnson, M.P.H., is a managing director primarily focused on supporting health departments with the systematic application and use of laws and policies to advance health equity. Ms. Johnson currently leads ChangeLab Solutions’ work under a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this role, she works with a

wide variety of internal and external partners to manage the provision of capacity building assistance on more than 30 areas of public health policy and policy. Additionally, Ms. Johnson has professional experience working on a wide range of topics, including health in all policies, children’s mental health, environmental health, and tobacco control policies.

Previously, she served as a lecturer at the California State University, East Bay, teaching courses on environmental health, health behavior, and health education. Prior to joining ChangeLab Solutions, Johnson worked at the National Association of County and City Health Officials, where she conducted research and developed tools and resources for local health departments. Johnson also worked at the American Psychological Association on the Socioeconomic Status Related Cancer Disparities Program. She has an M.P.H. from George Washington University.

JP Leider, Ph.D., is a senior fellow within the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Dr. Leider teaches health policy, as well as budgeting and financial management. Dr. Leider works with the Public Health Administration and Policy (PHAP) and Executive Public Health Administration and Policy (EPHAP) programs. He also directs the School of Public Health’s Center for Public Health Systems, which works with foundations, national public health organizations, public health researchers and academics, and public health practitioners. Current projects focus on public health systems, the public health workforce, and public health finance. Dr. Leider is also director of evaluation for the Region V Public Health Training Center and associate faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Monica Valdes Lupi,* J.D., M.P.H., joined the Kresge Foundation as the managing director for health in September 2020. With more than 20 years of experience in public health, Ms. Valdes Lupi leads the Foundation’s efforts to build equity-focused systems of health that create opportunities for all people to achieve well-being. She collaborates with other Kresge teams on efforts to lead with equity and partner with communities in their efforts to ensure access to safe and affordable housing, fresh food, clean air, and economic opportunities. She has also worked as a senior fellow with the de Beaumont Foundation where she advised on efforts to amplify and accelerate policy initiatives aimed at developing and advancing a health agenda on critical public health issues. In addition, Ms. Valdes Lupi served as a senior advisor to the CDC Foundation in its COVID-19 efforts.

Previously, Ms. Valdes Lupi was the executive director for the Boston Public Health Commission, the local health department for the City of Boston. She has led efforts for governmental public health at the national

level as the first chief program officer for health systems transformation at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). She led ASTHO’s work on health equity, Medicaid and Public Health Partnerships, government relations, state health policy, and public health informatics. Ms. Valdes Lupi has been appointed by the Biden Administration to serve on the Advisory Committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kusuma Madamala, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a public health systems and services researcher with Program Design and Evaluation Services within both the Oregon Health Authority Public Health Division and Multnomah County Health Department. Her work is focused on Oregon’s public health modernization efforts. She has more than 20 years of experience in public health practice and research with governmental agencies, community-based organizations, academia, and nonprofit settings.

Dr. Madamala’s work has primarily concentrated on the performance of local and state health departments with their system partners to achieve population health improvement. Specific areas of experience and interest have included service delivery in U.S. health departments, cross-jurisdictional sharing, public health quality and performance improvement, national public health policy development, and clinical/population health collaborations. She is a member of the Public Health Accreditation Board’s Research Advisory Committee, Advisory Board member of the National Center for Sharing Public Health Services, Science Board member of the American Public Health Association, former chair of the Health Administration Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA), and former Advisory Committee member of AcademyHealth’s Public Health Systems Research Interest Group. She is a member of the Dr.PH. faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health and affiliate faculty at Oregon Health and Science University at Portland State University (OHSU-PSU) School of Public Health. Dr. Madamala is the recipient of the Alan W. Donaldson Memorial Award, University of Illinois Constituent Leadership Award, W.C. Woodward Award, and Chair’s Award from the Health Administration Section of APHA.

Jewel Mullen,* M.D., M.P.H., M.P.A., FACP, is associate dean for health equity at Dell Medical School, as well as an associate professor in the school’s population health and internal medicine departments. She also serves as director of health equity at Ascension Seton. Dr. Mullen is an internist, epidemiologist, public health leader, and the former principal deputy assistant secretary for health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She also served as commissioner of the Connecticut Department

of Public Health and medical director of Baystate Mason Square Neighborhood Health Center. Her career has spanned clinical, research, teaching and administrative roles focused on improving the health of all people, especially those who are underserved. She is recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in building effective community-based chronic disease prevention programs and for her commitment to improving individual and population health by strengthening coordination between community, public health, and health care systems. She has contributed leadership for the governmental responses to the Ebola and Zika epidemics, as well as several other public health emergencies.

A former president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, Dr. Mullen serves on the Editorial Board of CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and the Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. She also is a member of the National Academies’ Study Committee on A Fairer and More Equitable, Cost Effective, and Transparent System of Donor Organ Procurement, Allocation, and Distribution.

Joana Fernández Nuñez is a public health and social welfare dual degree student at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Inspired by her experiences growing up as a first generation Mexican American in New Mexico, her multidisciplinary liberal arts undergraduate education at Williams College, and her work in hospital, nonprofit, academic, research, and private settings, Ms. Fernández Nuñez spends her time at UCLA studying the multidirectional effects of mental wellbeing, socioeconomic status, and availability and quality of care. After graduation, Ms. Fernández Nuñez plans to work with the California Latinx community in both a clinical role that allows her to provide mental health prevention and treatment services and a managerial role that focuses on improving access and quality of care through transformative change.

Ms. Fernández Nuñez joined the Steinberg Institute in summer 2021 as a health career connection fellow.

Ms. Fernández Nuñez has worked for the Massachusetts General Hospital Health Disparities Research Unit, the NYU Center for Neural Science, New Mexico Health Equity Partnership, A Community of Friends, and Sociedad Latina.

Kara Odom Walker,* M.D., M.P.H., MSHS, is executive vice president and chief population health officer of Nemours Children’s Health. She leads the Nemours Children’s National Office of Policy and Prevention, the Value-Based Services Organization, and the Delaware Children’s Health Network. She also serves as executive champion of Nemours Diversity, anti-Racism, Inclusion, Value and Equity (DRIVE) initiative. Prior to joining Nemours

Children’s Health in 2020, Dr. Walker served as cabinet secretary of the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services under Governor John Carney’s first elected term from February 2017 through 2020. She was previously the deputy chief science officer at the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute and is a board-certified family physician. Dr. Walker is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Walker holds an M.D. from Thomas Jefferson University, an M.S. in health services research from University of California, Los Angeles, and an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University.

Shauneequa Owusu, M.S., is chief strategy officer and is responsible for the development and execution of ChangeLab Solutions’ program and impact strategies. She oversees an interdisciplinary team of lawyers, policy analysts, and city planners, that work with community organizations, governments, and local institutions to design and implement equitable and practical policy solutions.

Prior to joining ChangeLab Solutions, Ms. Owusu worked for the New York Academy of Medicine, where she served as director of strategic partnerships and community engagement. In this capacity, she led community development and participatory planning initiatives and oversaw government relations. In addition, Ms. Owusu worked for Seedco, a national community economic development corporation, where she focused on advocating for support for small businesses, workers, and families and leading the government affairs team. Ms. Owusu also served as a legislative policy analyst for the New York City Council, where she co-led development of large-scale policy and legislative initiatives.

Jeff Oxendine, M.B.A., M.P.H., has been a health executive, educator, and consultant for 27 years. Since his own undergraduate internship in 1982, in Health Career Connection’s predecessor program, he has held senior administrative positions in hospitals, medical groups, academic institutions, and his own consulting firm. He is also a leader in California Health Workforce and Diversity efforts as Co-Director of the California Health Professions Consortium and The California Health Workforce Alliance. Mr. Oxendine teaches health care management at the University of California (UC), Berkeley School of Public Health and previously taught for 5 years at Harvard School of Public Health.

Prior to joining UC Berkeley, he held executive roles in leading organizations including Partners Healthcare System, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Bay Imaging Consultants Medical Group, and Alta Bates Medical Center. Mr. Oxendine obtained his master’s degree in business administration and public Health from UC Berkeley where he met HCC’s other Founders.

Montrece McNeill Ransom, J.D., M.P.H., currently serves as the director of the National Coordinating Center for Public Health Training at the National Network of Public Health Institutes. Ms. Ransom was appointed as a Presidential Management Fellow and worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for almost 20 years. For the last 10 years of her service, Ms. Ransom led CDC’s public health law related training and workforce development efforts. She is also a well-known public speaker, peer-reviewed published author, the co-editor of the forthcoming textbook, Public Health Law: Concepts and Case Studies, which is to be released by Springer Publishing in the Summer of 2021.

Ms. Ransom is the ABA Health Law Section’s 2019 Champion of Diversity and Inclusion Awardee, and the 2017 recipient of the American Public Health Association Jennifer Robbins Award for the Practice of Public Health Law. She is the president-elect of the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics and serves on the Advisory Committee for the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential. Devoted to helping people reach their human potential, Ms. Ransom also spends a lot of time working on career pathing and professional development with new public health practitioners and public health lawyers. She received her law degree from the University of Alabama, her M.P.H. from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, and her Executive Leadership Coaching Certification from Georgetown University. In addition, she has received a certificate in training and facilitation from the Association of Talent Development.

Nicole Alexander-Scott, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, is the former director of the Rhode Island Department of Public Health. She attended Cornell University, majoring in human development and family studies, and subsequently graduated medical school in 2001 from the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University at Syracuse. After completing a combined internal medicine—pediatrics residency at SUNY Stony Brook University Hospital in 2005, Dr. Alexander-Scott finished a 4-year combined fellowship in adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Brown in 2009. She is board certified in pediatrics, internal medicine, pediatric infectious diseases, and adult infectious diseases; and obtained a Master of Public Health degree at Brown University in 2011. Her time is balanced with serving at the Rhode Island Department of Health in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology as a Consultant Medical Director for the Office of HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB. Dr. Alexander-Scott strives to use her focus on infectious diseases to advance public health, with a passion for advocacy, social determinants of health, and addressing health disparities.

Joshua Sharfstein, M.D., is professor of the practice in health policy and management and vice dean for public health practice and community

engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is a former health commissioner of Baltimore City, health secretary of Maryland, and principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Lauren Smith, M.D., M.P.H., is the chief health equity and strategy officer for the CDC Foundation. In this role, Dr. Smith partners with the CDC Foundation’s other senior leaders to develop and drive strategic efforts to embed health equity across the Foundation’s COVID-19 response activities with an explicit focus on addressing systemic racism and its impact on vulnerable populations’ resiliency amid the pandemic.

Her previous leadership roles have included serving as the medical director and then interim commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the senior strategic advisor for a national innovation and improvement network focused on reducing infant mortality, and the medical director of the pediatric inpatient service at Boston Medical Center. She also held federal and state government roles as a policy analyst in the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as a W.T. Grant Health Policy Fellow in the office of the Massachusetts Speaker of the House.

Dr. Smith holds a B.A. with honors in biology from Harvard College, an M.D. from University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and an M.P.H. from University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. She completed her pediatrics residency and chief residency at Children’s Hospital Boston and her general pediatrics fellowship at Boston Medical Center, Department of Pediatrics.

Valerie Yeager,* Dr.P.H., M.Phil, is an associate professor at Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health. As a public health systems and services researcher, Dr. Yeager applies quantitative and qualitative tools to examine the public health workforce, health department accreditation, and interventions at the intersection of health care and public health. Current research includes studies of the recruitment and retention of public health workers, health department workforce development planning, hospital community health needs assessments and implementation planning, and hospital systems change for improved tobacco cessation. She has worked with governmental public health in local, state, and federal settings for more than 15 years and continues to collaborate with partners in practice.