Associate Professor
Health Policy and Management, Gillings School of Global Public Health
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Kristen Hassmiller Lich, PhD, MHSA is Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She specializes in the application of qualitative system mapping, operations research, and complex systems simulation modeling to inform and improve the population-level impact of health care delivery, policy, and efforts of cross-sector collaborations seeking to improve health. As a methodologist, she has worked on a variety of problems spanning substance use, cancer prevention, injury and violence prevention, mental health system strengthening, road safety, and maternal and child health. Her research passion is to advance the way we use system maps, models (both qualitative and quantitative), and local data with stakeholders to improve understanding of complex systems and to inform policy and practice. In addition to teaching these methods at UNC and through the Washington University Systems Science for Social Impact summer training program, she has been invited to introduce and train on the use of systems science methods in a variety of settings including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Veterans Health Administration. She serves as the Systems Core Lead on the HRSA-funded National Maternal and Child Health Workforce Development Center, developing systems science capacity among Maternal and Child Health (Title V) workforce. With colleagues she recently published the first primer on Complex Systems and Population Health (2020, Oxford University Press).

Research Assistant Professor, Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy
Colorado School of Public Health

Meredith Fort, PhD, MPH, is a Research Assistant Professor in the Colorado School of Public Health in the Department of Health Systems, Management and Policy and the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health. Currently, she is a K12 scholar in the University of Colorado’s IMPACT (IMPlementation to Achieve Clinical Transformation) program. Dr. Fort is dedicated to community-engaged research aimed at improving chronic disease prevention and care and works with community, public health and primary care partners in Central America, Mexico, and the United States. Her current research focuses on: systems science approaches to design and implement multi-level and multi-sectoral interventions to prevent cardiovascular disease; hypertension control in Guatemala’s public primary care system; diabetes prevention and care in Urban Indian Health Organizations; and regenerative foodscapes that promote food sovereignty and support healthy, equitable and sustainable diets and the environment.