Notes on Contributors

Gregory A. Aarons, PhD, is a psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, director of the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, and codirector of the Center for Organizational Research on Implementation and Leadership. His research, funded by the US National Institutes of Health, focuses on identifying and improving system, organizational, and individual factors that support successful implementation and sustainment of evidence-based practices in health. He developed the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale and with colleagues developed the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) implementation framework. With Mark Ehrhart he developed measures of implementation leadership, climate, and citizenship. His current work focuses on training supervisors to become effective leaders and improving organizational supports and processes for evidence-based practice implementation and sustainment.

Carmen Alvarez, PhD, RN, is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Her research experiences and publications primarily address health behavior and health services for underserved populations. As a family nurse practitioner, Alvarez practices in a community health center.

Ronald Bayer, PhD, is a professor and codirector at the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. His research has focused on AIDS, tuberculosis, illicit drugs, and tobacco. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and has served on its committees dealing with the social impact of AIDS, tuberculosis elimination, vaccine safety, smallpox vaccination, and the Ryan White Care Act. He has been a consultant to the World Health Organization on ethical issues related to public health surveillance, HIV, and tuberculosis. He codirects Columbia’s WHO Collaborating Center and chairs the global network of such centers. His articles on AIDS have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The Lancet, the American Journal of Public Health, and The Milbank Quarterly.

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, MACP, FACEP (E), FNAPA, is the executive director of the American Public Health Association. He is a former secretary of health for the state of Maryland and former acting commissioner of health for the District of Columbia. Benjamin is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Brigitte Brikho is currently a master’s student in the school counseling program at San Diego State University (SDSU). She received her bachelor’s in psychology from SDSU and during that time was a research assistant in the ACT Laboratory at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, where she worked on developing and pilot testing the ACT SMART Implementation Intervention in community-based organizations serving youth with autism.

Amy Drahota, PhD, is an assistant research professor at San Diego State University, a research scientist at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, and a licensed psychologist at Rady Children’s Hospital–San Diego. Her research, funded by the US National Institutes of Health, focuses on improving the lives of individuals with mental and behavioral health needs, especially focusing on the needs of individuals with autism, by building up community agencies that provide services to individuals with mental and behavioral health needs, improving access to care, and developing innovative interventions through collaboration with researchers, practitioners, and innovators. Current work includes building community-academic partnerships, testing an implementation intervention for community agencies serving individuals with autism to deliver evidence-based practices, and piloting a weight-loss intervention for youth with autism.

Sarah Dufek, PhD, is a psychologist at the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at New York–Presbyterian Hospital and an assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. She is a licensed psychologist and board certified behavior analyst with expertise in the assessment and treatment of autism spectrum disorder across the life span. Dufek has been working with children, adolescents, and adults with autism spectrum disorder and related developmental disabilities in clinical and research contexts since 2000. She received her PhD in psychology from the University of California, San Diego.

Rita Colwell, PhD, is a distinguished university professor at both the University of Maryland at College Park and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Colwell previously served as the director of the National Science Foundation. She is a US science envoy, a recipient of the National Medal of Science, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Jasper A. Estabillo is a doctoral student in child clinical psychology at Louisiana State University. Her primary research interests include early identification, differential diagnosis, and comorbidities of autism spectrum disorder and related neurodevelopmental disorders. She previously studied at the University of California, San Diego and later worked as a research coordinator at the Autism Discovery Institute at Rady Children’s Hospital–San Diego.

W. Douglas Evans, PhD, is professor of prevention and community health and global health in the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University. He conducts research on health communication, social marketing, and the development and evaluation of new health technologies. He works both in the United States and in developing countries and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters, and four books: Public Health Branding (Oxford University Press 2008), Psychology of Branding (Nova Science Publishers 2013), Social Marketing: Global Perspectives, Strategies and Effects on Consumer Behavior (Nova Science Publishers 2013), and Social Marketing Research (forthcoming).

Amy L. Fairchild, PhD, MPH, is a historian and professor in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and a core faculty member with the school’s Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health. She codirects Columbia’s World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Bioethics, which focuses on the historical and social context surrounding ethical debates in public health. Her work’s central intellectual theme has been to explore the functions and limits of the state, particularly when it seeks to address health issues that touch on groups marginalized by virtue of disease, class, and race. Her publications include Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force(Johns Hopkins University Press 2003) and Searching Eyes: Privacy, the State, and Disease Surveillance in America (University of California Press and Milbank Memorial Fund 2007).

Emily D. Gomez earned a BA in psychology from San Diego State University and is currently a behavior consultant at AEFCT, an autism behavioral therapy agency in San Diego. She previously served as a research intern at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, working with the Autism Model of Implementation research team.

David Merritt Johns, MPhil, MPH, is a doctoral candidate with the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia University and an affiliate scholar with the Data & Society Research Institute, a think tank focused on the social, cultural, and ethical implications of “big data.” His research examines the use of science in policy and the history of the evidence-based movement. In 2014-2015, he was a fellow at both the Data & Society Research Institute and the Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard University. He received his MPhil and MPH degrees in sociomedical sciences from Columbia University and his BA from Stanford University. His work has been published in Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, Big Data & Society, and other journals. He is also a journalist, a contributor to Slate, and a former National Public Radio reporter.

Bita A. Kash, PhD, MBA, is the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Health Organization Transformation (CHOT). The NSF-CHOT is an industry-university cooperative research center (I/UCRC) funded by the NSF and health organizations. Kash conducts research to support the implementation of evidence-based transformational strategies in health care. This cooperative model ensures that research is relevant and provides immediate decision support to practitioners. Kash’s areas of research include organizational capacity for change and transformation, implementation of new innovative models of care in primary care and surgical settings, and health care strategic planning. Kash received a master’s in business administration from The Citadel in Charleston, SC. She worked as a management consultant with RSM McGladrey, Inc., before pursuing a PhD in health services research.

Paula M. Lantz, PhD, is professor and associate dean for research and policy engagement at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Her teaching and research focus on policy responses to social inequalities in health over the life course and primary and secondary prevention strategies. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and an active member of the Institute of Medicine’s Population Health Improvement Roundtable.

Scott Levin, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, is director of the Systems Institute, and works as a member of the Department of Operations Integration at the Johns Hopkins Health System. Levin’s research focuses on the development and application of systems engineering tools to study and improve the safety and efficiency of health care delivery. Levin has been involved in research efforts for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Institute of Medicine, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Guruprasad Madhavan, PhD, is a senior program officer and project leader at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. A biomedical engineer, he has previously worked in the medical device industry as a research scientist developing cardiac surgical catheters for ablation therapy and has been a strategic consultant for technology startup firms and nonprofit organizations. Madhavan is a vice president of IEEE-USA of IEEE, the world’s largest professional society for engineering and technology. Madhavan has received the Innovator Award and the Cecil Medal from the presidents of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He has been named as a distinguished young scientist by the World Economic Forum.

John E. McDonough, DrPH, MPA, is a professor of practice at the Harvard University TH Chan School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management. Between 2008 and 2010, he served as a senior advisor on national health reform to the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, where he worked on the writing and passage of the Affordable Care Act. Between 2003 and 2008, he was executive director of Health Care For All, a Massachusetts consumer health advocacy organization, where he played a leading role in the passage of the 2006 Massachusetts health reform law. From 1985 to 1997, he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives where he cochaired the Joint Committee on Health Care. His articles have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, and other journals. He has written several books, including Inside National Health Reform in 2011 and Experiencing Politics: A Legislator’s Stories of Government and Health Care in 2000, both by the University of California Press and the Milbank Memorial Fund. He holds a doctorate in public health from the University of Michigan and a master’s in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Holly Mead, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy at The George Washington University with extensive experience studying racial/ethnic and gender disparities in quality health care for low-income patients. Her research focuses specifically on issues related to delivery system models and patient-centered care in the safety net, with an emphasis on incorporating patient experience into recommendations for health care delivery system change. Mead is the principal investigator on a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) project evaluating cancer survivorship care models and a Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit Fund project examining changes in the safety net under health reform.

Rosemary D. Meza is a doctoral student in child clinical psychology at the University of Washington. Her research interests include the implementation and sustainment of evidence-based practices in public mental health settings. Previously, Meza was a research assistant in the ACT Laboratory at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, where she worked on developing the ACT SMART Implementation Intervention and assisting with the startup of the pilot test of this implementation intervention.

Meghan Naaf is currently the coordinator for the Office of Human Research Protection Program at San Diego State University (SDSU). Previously she served as a research assistant at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, contributing to the implementation of evidence-based treatments in community environments and how to effectively translate autism intervention research into a classroom setting. Her current work focuses on the protection of the rights and welfare of all human participants in research at SDSU.

Charles Phelps, PhD, is a university professor and provost emeritus at the University of Rochester. Phelps’s research cuts across the fields of health economics, health policy, medical decision analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis of various medical interventions, and related topics. He wrote a leading textbook in the field, Health Economics (now in its fifth edition). He serves as the chairman of the board of directors of VirtualScopics, Inc., and as a consultant to the division of research at Kaiser Permenante. Phelps is a fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Rino Rappuoli, PhD, is chief scientist and head of external research and development for GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines. Previously, he was global head of vaccines research for Novartis Vaccines and chief scientific officer and vice president of vaccines research for Chiron Corporation. Earlier, he served in various leadership positions in vaccine discovery and research within the company at IRIS, the Chiron S.p.A. Research Institute. His awards include a fellowship to the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, the Albert Sabin Gold Medal, and the Maurice Hilleman Award in recognition of his work in the field of vaccine discoveries, and the Gold Medal by the Italian President for contributions to public health. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and the US National Academy of Sciences.

Edward Shortliffe, MD, PhD, is a professor of biomedical informatics in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University, an adjunct professor of biomedical informatics in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, an adjunct professor of health policy and research at Weill Cornell Medical College, and a scholar-in-residence at the New York Academy of Medicine. Previously, he served as the president and chief executive officer of the American Medical Informatics Association. Shortliffe is an elected fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Aubyn C. Stahmer is an associate professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Davis MIND Institute and an editor of Autism, the International Journal of Research and Practice. She also participates on the California Best Practice Guidelines Committee and the National Standards projects developing guidelines for autism treatment. Stahmer is an expert in the translation of evidence-based autism research to community-based practice and delivery. Her US Department of Education and National Institutes of Health–funded research aims to develop ways to help community providers help children with autism and their families by providing high-quality care through researching the areas of parent coaching, early intervention, inclusive education, and services research in autism.

Lisa Stewart, MA, is a patient advocate and anthropologist. She currently is an engagement officer for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Prior to joining PCORI she collaborated with principal investigators on medical and public health research studies, representing patients and community stakeholders and serving as a coinvestigator and engagement lead. She served as the cochair of the community advisory board for the Children’s National Clinical and Translational Science Award. She is a graduate of Florida A&M University and the University of Virginia.

Sarah F. Vejnoska is a doctoral student at the University of California, Davis pursuing her degree in developmental psychology. She graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a BA in psychology in 2012. From 2012-2015, Vejnoska worked as a research assistant at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center in San Diego on the Classroom Pivotal Response Teaching study, examining the effectiveness of the translation of an evidence-based intervention into special education classrooms. Vejnoska currently works as a doctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis MIND Institute.

Joshua R. Vest, PhD, MPH, is an associate professor of health policy and management at the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and an affiliate scientist at the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. Vest is a health services researcher focused on the adoption and effective use of health information technologies by health care organizations and public health agencies. His particular focus is on health information exchange technology.

Volume 94, Issue 1 (pages 215–223)
Published in 2016