Speakers

Manager of Research Translation
Center for Public Health Systems Science, Washington University in St. Louis

Stephanie Andersen, MPA is the Manager of Research Translation at the Center for Public Health Systems Science at Washington University in St. Louis. She oversees the Translational Science Benefits Model project, which is designed to help scientists demonstrate the impact of their research on downstream public health, clinical, and societal benefits. Stephanie also manages the CDC Best Practices User Guide project to develop a set of “how-to” implementation guides for state tobacco control programs and serves as Translation Lead for the Dissemination & Implementation Core of the ASPiRE project, which seeks to build a strong evidence base for retail tobacco control policies.

Director of Investments and Venture Development
CU Department of Innovations, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Gali Baler, PhD joined the University of Colorado CU Innovations office in February 2016 and serves as the "operational octopus" behind the CU Healthcare Innovation Fund and granting funding programs. His work spans the intersection of internal venture development and external innovation partnership opportunities with our healthcare system partners. He also engages in new venture development of high potential university technologies and spin-outs. Gali has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University, a Bachelors in Materials Science Engineering from Cornell University, and a certificate in Management for Engineers and Scientists from the Kellogg School of Management.

Research Scientist
Louisville Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation

Laura Balis, PhD, is a Research Scientist at the Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation's Louisville Center. Prior to this role, she was an Assistant Professor within the University of Arkansas System. She earned her PhD at Virginia Tech in Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise with an emphasis on implementation science. Dr. Balis' research focuses on building community organizations' capacity to implement evidence-based physical activity programs for diverse populations.

Assistant Professor of Practice
Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis

​Ellis Ballard, MPH, MSW is Director of the Social System Design Lab and Assistant Professor of Practice at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. His research and teaching focus on advancing participatory approaches to system dynamics modeling with communities to advance health access and social justice. As a researcher and consultant, Ballard works with community organizations, foundations, development banks, research teams, and corporations to build capabilities to develop system dynamics models for organizational strategy, research design, and advocacy.

Director, Innovation Ecosystem
Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Cathy Bodine, PhD, Coleman-Turner Endowed Chair in Cognitive Disability, Executive Director, Coleman Institute for Cognitive Technologies, Associate Professor, Department of Bioengineering, College of Engineering, Design and Computing, University of Colorado (CU), with appointments in the Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Orthopedics and Pediatrics, CU School of Medicine, Anschutz Medical Campus. She directs the Center for Inclusive Design and Engineering (CIDE) with a focus on assistive, medical, and accessible mainstream technologies; interdisciplinary research and translational applications and design innovations. She is Director, Innovation Ecosystem, Colorado Clinical Translational Sciences Institute, University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus and is developing transdisciplinary educational programs in the Department of Bioengineering focused on inclusive technology, disability and aging.

Associate Professor of Surgery, Co-Director of the Michigan Program for Value Enhancement, Surgery
University of Michigan

Lesly Dossett, MD, MPH is Associate Professor of Surgery, Chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology and Co-Director of the Michigan Program for Value Enhancement (MPrOVE). She studies the de-implementation of low value care in the preoperative setting and for patients with early stage breast cancer.

Associate Professor of Medicine
Medical Oncology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Richard Duke, PhD is a biotechnology executive, inventor, biomedical researcher and serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in building, financing, and managing start-up biotechnology companies based on inventions made in Colorado’s non-profit research institutions. He is currently the PI and Co-Director of the Colorado AMC Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH), also known as the Colorado SPARK program. Dr. Duke has been involved in the formation and/or management of more than 10 UC-AMC spin out companies, which as a group, have raised more than $250 million in financing and have advanced 9 products into phase 1 and 2 human clinical trials. In addition to his entrepreneurial activities, Dr. Duke has more than 35 years of experience in biomedical research at UC-AMC and has been the principal investigator or co-investigator on >$15 million in NIH grants, including 10 SBIR grants, has >70 research publications and articles, and has >30 patents. He received the Tibbets Award from the Small Business Administration in 2020. Dr. Duke has provided independent 3rd party research analysis in the life sciences sector to Janus Capital and to venture capital firms. He is a graduate of McGill University (B.Sc. and M.Sc.) and the University of Colorado (Ph.D.). Dr. Duke strongly believes in the merits and opportunities that arise from building new companies based on University technologies and enjoys working with academic entrepreneurs.

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.

Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy
Colorado School of Public Health

Heather Gilmartin, PhD, NP is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Colorado, School of Public Health, an investigator at the Denver/Seattle Center of Innovation at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center and associate director of dissemination and implementation at the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute.

Research Professor, Department of Family Medicine
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Russell Glasgow, PhD is the Director of the Dissemination and Implementation Science Program of ACCORDS (https://bit.ly/2BnJzuk) and research professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is one of the original developers of the RE-AIM (www.re-aim.org), PRISM and Dynamic Sustainability frameworks and directs an NCI funded implementation science center. He is an implementation scientist whose work focuses on public health issues of studying and enhancing the reach and adoption of evidence-based programs; adaptation and context; and pragmatic research methods and measures to enhance health equity and sustainment.

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

Mika Hamer, MPH, is a senior research assistant and doctoral candidate (Health Services Research) in at the Colorado School of Public Health Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy. She is a mixed-methods researcher, providing qualitative and quantitative data collection and analytic support to projects across a wide variety of topics, including mAb Colorado. Her varied research interests span health policy, equitable access to care, health care coverage/insurance benefit design, and care across the cancer continuum.

Reserach Investigator, Health Services Research & Development
US Department of Veterans Affairs

Christian D. Helfrich, MPH PhD, is a Core Investigator with the Seattle-Denver Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care, and Research Associate Professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington School of Public Health. His research focuses on testing strategies to promote the implementation of evidence-based healthcare practices and programs, and strategies to de-implement low-value care. He also has particular interest in organizational readiness to change in the context of evidence-based practices; when and why large-scale health care initiatives succeed or fail; and the causes of burnout in the healthcare workforce. Dr. Helfrich received his doctorate in Health Policy and Management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his Masters in Public Health from the Department of Health Services at the University of Washington School of Public Health. He can be found on Twitter at @helfrich_c.

Vice Chair for Research, Department of Family Medicine
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Jodi Summers Holtrop, PhD, MCHES, is Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the University of Colorado Department of Family Medicine and Associate Director and Senior Implementation Scientist with the Adult and Child Consortium for Health Outcomes Research and Delivery Science (ACCORDS) at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She also is a Senior Scientific Advisor for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for dissemination and implementation science and primary care research.

Assistant Professor, School of Social Work
Brigham Young University

Cole Hooley, PhD, LCSW is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Brigham Young University. His research focuses on scale-up. Specifically, he studies how to get what works to all those who need it more rapidly, more lastingly, and more equitably.

Associate Professor, Division of General Internal Medicine
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Amy Huebschmann's, MD, MS, FACP, overarching goal is to optimize the delivery of evidence-based interventions to improve the treatment and prevention of diabetes, asthma, cancer, and other chronic diseases in randomized-controlled trials, and to adapt those interventions to be feasible for delivery in real-world primary care and community-based settings. Dr. Huebschmann is a primary care physician and Associate Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine with the Division of General Internal Medicine, Adult & Child Center for Outcomes Research and Delivery Science (ACCORDS), and the Lead Scientist for Community Education and Outreach for the Ludeman Family Center for Women’s Health Research. She is the senior implementation scientist for several NIH-funded pragmatic trials, including serving as MPI for one of the 7 NHLBI-funded DECIPHeR UG3/UH3 awards to leverage implementation science to improve cardiopulmonary health inequities.

Professor, Civil and Systems Engineering
Johns Hopkins University

Tak Igusa, PhD is focused on applying system science and engineering to the implementation of evidence-based practices. He works closely with colleagues in the School of Public Health on smoking cessation programs in Maryland, food environment interventions in Baltimore City, child protection programs in Honduras and El Salvador, and service delivery redesign for maternal and newborn health in Kenya. He has also designed an app to support a training program for mental-health counselors in Zambia, South Africa, Thailand, Syria, and Ukraine.

Founding Director of ACCORDS, Professor of Pediatrics at the Colorado School of Public Health
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Allison Kempe, MD, MPH is the founding Director of ACCORDS. She is a tenured Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the Colorado School of Public Health and has conducted health services, outcomes, and implementation/dissemination research for over thirty years. She has extensive experience in conducting pragmatic trials, in program evaluation and in the conduct of surveys, with over 200 publications focusing on improving health care and health care delivery. Finding and testing methods of improving immunization rates and other preventive care delivery and decreasing disparities in health and health care delivery for children have been the major focus of her own research. She has received numerous R01 level grants from NIH, AHRQ, and the CDC throughout her career. Additionally, Dr. Kempe has played a major mentorship role for many fellows and junior faculty. She directed two federally funded primary care research fellowships for over 10 years and developed a fellowship for surgical and subspecialty faculty who wish to become outcomes or health services researchers. Currently, she is a Co-Director of a K12 from NHLBI that focuses on implementation and dissemination science.

Senior Analyst, Oregon Rural Practice-based Research Network
Oregon Health & Science University

Erin Kenzie, PhD is a senior analyst at the Oregon Rural Practice-based Research Network at Oregon Health & Science University, where her research focuses on applications of systems science methods to pragmatic research. She has a PhD in systems science from Portland State University and a background in the social and behavioral sciences.

Senior Research Fellow in Implementation Science, Faculty of Health
Institute For Physical Activity And Nutrition (IPAN), Deakin University

Harriet Koorts,PhD, MSc, BSc is a Senior Research Fellow in Implementation Science in the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. She leads the institutes implementation science cross-domain theme and her research focuses on the scaling up of population health interventions

Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine
University of Colorado School of Medicine

Hillary Lum, MD, PhD is a geriatrician, palliative medicine physician and health services researcher. She focuses on designing innovative models of care for implementation and dissemination in primary care, especially for older adults and care partners affected by serious illnesses. As part of the Colorado monoclonal antibody dissemination and implementation team, she partnered with health care providers and other stakeholders in a rapid, iterative process to increase awareness and equitable access to COVID-19 mAb treatment.

Distinguished Professor of Public Health, Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Spero M. Manson, PhD (Pembina Chippewa) is Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry, directs the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, and occupies the Colorado Trust Chair in American Indian Health within the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center. His programs include 10 national centers, which pursue research, program development, training, and collaboration with 225 Native communities, spanning rural, reservation, urban, and village settings across the country. A medical anthropologist, Dr. Manson has acquired $268 million in sponsored research to support this work and published 280+ articles on the assessment, epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of physical, alcohol, drug, as well as mental health problems over the developmental life span of Native people. His numerous awards include the APHA Rema Lapouse Mental Health Epidemiology Award (1998) and Award for Lifetime Contribution to the Field of Mental Health (2019); 4 special recognition awards from the Indian Health Service (1985, 1996, 2004, 2011); 2 Distinguished Mentor Awards from the GSA (2006, 2007); AAMC’s Nickens Award (2006); George Foster Award for Excellence (2006) and Distinguished Career Achievement Award (2020) from the Society for Medical Anthropology; NIH Health Disparities Award for Excellence (2008); Bronislaw Malinowski Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology (2019); CDC Foundation’s Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award (2021); election to the National Academy of Medicine (2002) and its Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health (2021). He is widely acknowledged as one of the nation’s leading authorities in regard to Indian and Native health.

Associate Professor, Division of Geriatric Medicine
University of Colorado School of Medicine

Dan Matlock, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, and Palliative​ care. His research is aimed at fundamentally changing and improving how patients make decisions around invasive technologies. He has been funded under an NIH career development award, three NHLBI RO1s (two Co-I, one PI), and four PCORI projects studying shared decision making among older adults making decisions around invasive technologies. He has participated in the American College of Cardiology’s shared decision making task force and he is also an active participant of the International Patient Decision Aid Standards writing committee. Recently, he has also been named Director of Implementation Research for the Denver Veterans Affairs Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center.

Assistant Professor, Division of General Internal Medicine
University of Colorado School of Medicine

Demetria McNeal, PhD, MBA is an academically trained health communication scientist with prior corporate and clinical experience. As a Dissemination & Implementation Scientist specializing in Health Disparities in the Black American community, her interests are to reduce health disparities in diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Dr. McNeal combines her business acumen and research agenda to design and implement evidence-based sustainable health interventions. Dr. McNeal is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Implementation Science Platform Lead
Health Sciences enAble Institute, Curtin University

Joanna C. Moullin, PhD is the Implementation Science platform lead in the Faculty of Health Sciences enAble Institute at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. Dr Moullin’s research encompasses a number of topics related to conducting implementation research and implementation in practice. In particular, Dr Moullin has extensive knowledge and experience in implementation theory, implementation research methodologies and measurement development.

Regents and Distinguished Professor, School of Public Health
Texas A&M University

Marcia G. Ory, PhD, MPH is Regents and Distinguished Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Texas A&M School of Public Health (SPH) in College Station, Texas. Additionally, Dr. Ory serves as principal faculty in the Texas A&M Center for Population Health and Aging which she established in 2016. Working with interdisciplinary teams, her primary goal is to reframe healthy aging as the new normal through innovative research, education, and service. Dr. Ory is an international leader in the translation of research to practice through investigations of behavioral, social, environmental, policy, and/or technological solutions to enhance health and quality of life for all.

Associate Executive Director
Global Action Research Center

Bill Oswald received his PhD from the University of Rhode Island, where he studied Community Psychology. His work is focused on supporting communities in finding their voice, becoming civically engaged, and inserting that voice into the public dialogue. With over forty years of experience his work has ranged from direct community organizing to providing training and technical assistance to community leaders to conducting participatory research in support of community campaigns.

Associate Professor, Public Health Policy & Management
New York University School of Global Public Health

Jonathan Purtle, DrPH is an Associate Professor in Department of Public Health Policy & Management and Director of Policy Research of the Global Center for Implementation Science at the New York University School of Global Public Health. He is an implementation scientist whose research focuses on mental health policy. His work examines questions such as: how research evidence can be most effectively communicated to policymakers and how it is used in policymaking processes, how social and political contexts affect policymaking and policy implementation, and how the implementation of policies "on the books" can be improved in practice.

Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine
University of California San Diego

Borsika Rabin, PhD, MPH, PharmD is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at the School of Medicine, University of California San Diego where she also serves as the co-Director of the UC San Diego D&I Science Center. Dr. Rabin serves as the co-lead of the Implementation Core for the Triple Aim QUERI Program for Denver VA and an Implementation Scientist at the Center of Excellence in Stress and Mental Health at the San Diego VA. She is a member of the ACCORDS Dissemination and Implementation Science Program at the University of Colorado. Her research focuses on dissemination and implementation (D&I) of evidence-based interventions, adaptations, measurement, and the evaluation and development of interactive, web-based interventions and tools with a special emphasis on tools that can support planning for D&I interventions. She designed and developed a number of web- based resources including the D&I Models in Research and Practice (https://dissemination-implementation.org/ websites.)

Senior Research Instructor, Department of Family Medicine
University of Colorado School of Medicine

Jenna Reno, PhD is a Communication and Dissemination Scientist with the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) Dissemination and Implementation Research Core and a Senior Research Instructor in University of Colorado's Department of Family Medicine. Her research aims to develop, implement, and evaluate theoretically-based, digital health interventions to promote positive healthcare decision-making and health behavior change. The goal of her research is to promote health equity through the development of effective strategies for advancing science translation specifically in the area of communication and dissemination of evidence-based practices for health promotion and disease prevention.

Research Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management
CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy

Nasim Sabounchi, PhD, MSc is a Research Associate Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy where she is also affiliated with the Center for Systems and Community Design (CSCD). She is an industrial and systems engineer, and a systems scientist in the field of public health and healthcare and recipient of the Systems Science Scholarship, Academy of Health - Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Her research interest involves adopting tools including systems science methodologies, systems engineering and data analytics to model complex systems and problems pertaining to health outcomes at both the individual and population levels. Dr. Sabounchi contributes to the advancement of system dynamics modeling and computer simulation for studying complex health and social systems and leads various projects in the domain of public health and health policy analysis including prevention of prescription misuse and opioid use, infectious disease, enhancing access to care for socio-economically disadvantaged populations, antibiotic resistance, Lyme Disease, HPV, and epidemics.

Associate Director, Office of Value Based Performance
University of Colorado Medicine

Julie Schwent, MHA received undergraduate degrees in Industrial Engineering and Mathematics from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Masters in Healthcare Administration from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has built her career in the value-based program space, managing teams of administrative and clinical employees focused on improving quality and reducing unnecessary utilization within the healthcare system. Julie's expertise surrounds regulatory interpretation, contract management with payers, and finance/budgeting activities supporting the sustainment of "Population Health" resources within the Patient-Centered Medical Home model.

Assistant Professor; Director of Dissemination and Evaluation, Psychiatry/ACTRI Dissemination and Implementation Science Center
University of California, San Diego

Nicole Stadnick, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego, Director of Dissemination and Evaluation of the UC San Diego Dissemination and Implementation Science Center, researcher at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center and a licensed psychologist. Her program of federally, state and privately funded research focuses on evaluating the implementation and sustainment of evidence-based practices in community-based health or mental health service contexts. She has received NIH-funded fellowships from the Child, Intervention, Prevention, and Services Research Mentoring Network (2015-2016), the Implementation Research Institute (2017-2018) and the Mixed Methods Training Program for the Health Sciences (2019-2020). She currently leads community-engaged, cross-system health services and implementation research in community settings including federally qualified health centers, low-and-middle income countries, publicly-funded mental health services and HIV/AIDS care programs.

Communications Program Director, Colorado Clinical and Translation Sciences Institute
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Robert Thompson, BA serves as the Program Manager for the CCTSI Dissemination Consult Service.

Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Pediatric Hospital Medicine
Children's Hospital Colorado

Amy Tyler, MD, MSCS is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Section of Hospital Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children's Hospital Colorado and serves as the Director of Quality Improvement for the Section of Hospital Medicine. As an health services and implementation science researcher, Dr. Tyler's research focuses on "de-implementation" to identify processes and strategies to stop or reduce over-testing and over-treatment that can be broadly adapted to varied contexts and disease processes to improve the delivery of guideline concordant, evidence-based care and improve patient outcomes.

President/CEO
The Global Action Research Center

Paul Watson, MSHS has over 40 years direct experience in human service administration, community organizing, youth development, and program development. He has also served as a consultant locally, nationally and internationally, providing training, research, and strategic planning. Paul has served as a Lecturer and Adjunct Faculty at Springfield College, UC San Diego, The New School of Architecture and Design, and San Diego City College.

Assistant Professor, Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health
University of Colorado

Venice Williams, PhD, MPH is a mixed methods health services researcher, focused on improving the implementation of evidence-based home visiting programs like Nurse-Family Partnership through program innovations, cross-sector collaboration, and systems integration. She has a range of experience in health services research, including conducting health impact assessments to inform child welfare policy, evaluating systems-change interventions with Urban Indian health centers, and developing collegiate tobacco control policies. She is passionate about engaging with communities to improve health outcomes among families experiencing adversities.