Community Guide Staff

Community Guide staff provide scientific, technical, and administrative support to the Task Force. They are based at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and include epidemiologists, behavioral and social scientists, systematic review methodologists, statisticians, economists, clinicians, communication specialists, health educators, and policy experts. Community Guide staff members:

• Coordinate systematic review teams
• Assure that each review is scientifically conducted according to approved methods
• Write and publish review findings
• Disseminate and participate in the translation of review findings to intended users including public health practitioners, policymakers, and researchers
• Create and maintain partnerships with representatives of intended user audiences
• Develop and refine systematic review methods
• Provide consultation and training about systematic reviews and developing evidence-based recommendations

 

Biographical Sketches

Shawna L. Mercer, MSc, PhD

Shawna L. Mercer is the branch chief and director of The Guide to Community Preventive Services. She previously served as senior advisor and health scientist on the Science Vision and Alliances Team in CDC's Office of the Chief Science Officer where she led a number of initiatives aimed at bridging gaps between research, practice and policy and developed CDC-wide mechanisms and information systems to ensure CDC's compliance with Office of Management and Budget requirements for scientific information. Dr. Mercer earlier served as a senior scientist and deputy director of the Office of Science and Extramural Research in CDC's Public Health Practice Program Office where she co-developed and oversaw a $12M extramural grant funding program for community-based participatory prevention research and led a research and evaluation program aimed at strengthening the rigor of participatory research and assessing its value and benefits for bridging research and practice. Dr. Mercer also served as an associate service fellow on the Global Team in the Office on Smoking and Health, where she explored the benefits of participatory research approaches for helping states to implement best practices for tobacco control following the Master Settlement Agreement.

Before joining CDC, Dr. Mercer worked at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and at the University of Toronto as an investigator and research associate on numerous cancer screening research grants and projects. She also worked as the first evaluation coordinator for the province-wide Ontario Breast Screening Program.

Dr. Mercer has a master's degree in health behavior from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada and a doctoral degree in epidemiology from the University of Toronto. She has a growing number of publications, serves as an editor for the American Journal of Health Promotion, and is a reviewer for a large number of journals.

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Michelle M. Wilson, MSW

Michelle M. Wilson is the (Acting) Deputy Director for The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Within the Community Guide, she has oversight for management and operations, policy, and budget. Ms. Wilson received her bachelor’s degree in applied behavioral sciences from the University of California at Davis in 1999, and her master’s degree in social work from the University of Southern California in 2001. Ms. Wilson joined the CDC as a Presidential Management Intern in 2001 with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). While at NIOSH, Ms. Wilson worked in the Institute's planning office with a focus on program planning, budget formulation and performance. Before joining the Guide to Community Preventive Services in 2009, Ms. Wilson worked in CDC's Office of the Director by providing leadership, guidance and recommendations to CDC Leadership on various policy, issues management and budget issues. Prior to coming to CDC, Ms. Wilson worked in front-line social work at the local level at the Yolo County Department of Social Services, Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, and Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Division of Adolescent Medicine: School-based Health Program. Ms. Wilson also worked at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles in the area of community-based research and helped the organization to launch their "Success by Six" Initiative.

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Randy W. Elder, PhD, MEd

Randy W. Elder joined The Guide to Community Preventive Services as scientific director for systematic reviews in April of 2005. He oversees the development of Community Guide methods and ensures the methodological rigor of the systematic reviews. He earned a master's degree in education with a focus on applied measurement and evaluation from the University of Alberta and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Emory University. Dr. Elder joined CDC's Injury Center in 1999 to conduct research in the areas of alcohol-impaired driving and alcohol epidemiology. During his tenure there, he conducted several Community Guide reviews on the effectiveness of community-based interventions to prevent alcohol-impaired driving. In recognition of the contribution of these reviews to traffic safety, his team received several awards, including MADD's Ralph W. Hingson Research to Practice Award and the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service.

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Carolyn Beeker, PhD

Carolyn Beeker is a behavioral scientist conducting evidence-based reviews of community interventions for The Guide to Community Preventive Services. In collaboration with Dr. Jeff Herbst of the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, she conducted a systematic review of behavioral risk reduction interventions for men who have sex with men. She is now leading a review of abstinence and risk reduction interventions to reduce adolescent pregnancy, HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections. Originally trained as a clinical psychologist, Carolyn later trained in Sociology and has been at CDC since 1990.

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Sajal K. Chattopadhyay, PhD

Sajal K. Chattopadhyay is the principal economic advisor for The Guide to Community Preventive Services. He directs the review, analysis, and use of economic findings for community-wide health promotion and disease prevention interventions previously reviewed for their effectiveness. Dr. Chattopadhyay's prior positions at CDC include serving as a senior economist at the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and as the chief of the Prevention Effectiveness Branch in the Epidemiology Program Office. Before joining CDC, he was a member of the economics faculty at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Chattopadhyay is a founding member of the International Health Economics Association. He coordinated the collaborative work between CDC and the Institute of Medicine on re-estimating health benefits of federal regulations with different health-related quality-of-life measures and, more recently, served as an economic advisor for the Purchaser's Guide to Clinical Preventive Services. Dr. Chattopadhyay received his doctorate in economics with a specialization in health economics from the University of Connecticut in 1991.

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Robert A. Hahn, PhD, MPH

Robert A. Hahn has served as an epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta since 1986 and is a member of the Senior Biomedical Research Service. He has conducted anthropological and public health research in Peru, Mexico, Brazil, the United States, Niger, and the Cameroon, and published studies on a variety of topics, including diverse chronic diseases, syphilis and AIDS, obstetrics and internal medicine in the U.S., perinatal ethics, racial and ethnic classification in public health, poverty and death, blindness and breast cancer, and the nocebo phenomenon. He is the author of Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective (Yale, 1995) and editor of Anthropology in Public Health: Bridging Differences in Culture and Society (Oxford, 1999). In 1998 - 1999, he worked as a Capitol Hill fellow in the House of Representatives Committee on Veterans' Affairs and in the office of Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. Dr. Hahn is currently coordinating scientist of systematic reviews on violence prevention and excessive alcohol consumption for The Guide to Community Preventive Services. He received his doctorate in anthropology at Harvard University (1976) and his master of public health in epidemiology from the University of Washington (1986).

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David P. Hopkins MD, MPH

David P. Hopkins is a medical epidemiologist with The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Dr. Hopkins graduated with a degree in medicine from the University of California at San Francisco in 1989. He completed his post-graduate training at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and was board certified in internal medicine in 1992. He then received a master of public health in epidemiology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1993. Dr. Hopkins joined the CDC as an epidemic intelligence service fellow in 1995 and served for two years with the Tuberculosis Control Unit of the New York State Health Department. He joined the Community Guide in 1997 as a physician in the United States Public Health Service. Dr. Hopkins has worked on a variety of projects for the Community Guide including a systematic review of tobacco prevention and control interventions, a set of reviews regarding interventions to increase vaccination coverage in high-risk adults, and reviews of interventions appropriate for worksites. His current projects include updating existing Community Guide reviews, and assisting in the development of new intervention reviews for the topic of asthma.

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Theresa Ann Sipe, PhD, MPH, CNM

Theresa Ann Sipe has served as the statistician for The Guide to Community Preventive Services since August 2005. Dr. Sipe assists the teams conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses with statistical analyses. In addition, she is the co-coordinating scientist for a systematic review on HIV prevention programs for adolescents and the coordinating scientist for a systematic review on mental health. Prior to joining CDC, Dr. Sipe worked for 10 years at Georgia State University where she conducted data analyses, managed large datasets and held state contracts for the evaluation of the Georgia Fatherhood Program. Dr. Sipe is a Registered Nurse and a Certified Nurse-Midwife. She received her doctorate in research, measurement and statistics in education from Georgia State University (1995), and a master of public health in health education and a master of nursing from Emory University (1986).

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Robin Soler, PhD

Robin Soler is a Coordinating Scientist for the Worksite Health Promotion, Youth Development, and Health Marketing/Health Communication systematic reviews being conducted by the Guide to Community Preventive Services. In this role she supervises fellows and collaborates with other members of the Community Guide to lead reviews and further develop and document Community Guide methods. She is also responsible for Web site redevelopment. Prior to joining the Community Guide, Dr. Soler was a technical director for ORC Macro where she coordinated an evidence-based treatment study of parent-child interaction therapy in children's mental health services, and provided technical assistance and training for a national evaluation project of children's mental health services. From 1996­ to 2000 she served as a faculty associate at the Rollins School of Public Health and Project Director for Project Excellence—a substance use prevention program for African-American children living in Atlanta Public Housing complexes. She holds a doctorate in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan and is mother of two children.

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Deborah R. Bauer, MPH, RN, CHES

Deborah R. Bauer (Carter Consulting) is partnership & dissemination coordinator for The Guide to Community Preventive Services, a role that focuses on optimizing relationships with Liaisons to the Task Force on Community Preventive Services and other Community Guide stakeholders and includes dissemination of Task Force recommendations. Before joining the Community Guide, Ms. Bauer served as coordinator of the CDC Healthier Worksite Initiative. She has many years experience in worksite wellness for various sizes of public and private sector organizations. Ms. Bauer's public health interests include cancer prevention and control, having served as statewide professional education consultant for the Georgia Department of Human Resources Breast and Cervical Cancer Program.

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Krista Hopkins Cole, MPH

Krista Hopkins Cole (McKing Consulting) is partnership & dissemination coordinator for The Guide to Community Preventive Services. In this role, she works closely with her co-coordinator to optimize relationships with Liaisons to the Task Force on Community Preventive Services and disseminate Task Force recommendations. Before joining the Community Guide, Ms. Cole served as a health communication specialist for CDC's Injury Center where she led communication activities for the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention and worked to promote the application of behavioral sciences to injury prevention. She also has experience leading health communication activities for state and county agencies as well as nonprofit organizations. Ms. Cole has a master of public health in health behavior, health education.

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Kate W. Harris, BA

Kate W. Harris (McKing Consulting) is a professional editor who has specialized in public health and medical editing for the past 20 years. Now serving as a part-time consultant to The Guide to Community Preventive Services, she previously worked at the Community Guide full time from 2000-2007, and was part of the team that developed the book, The Guide to Community Preventive Services. What Works to Promote Health? She also was instrumental in working with Community Guide scientists and the Task Force to develop segments of the terminology used in Community Guide reviews and Task Force recommendations. In her current capacity, she edits Community Guide articles that will appear in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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Lauren Lantrip, BBA, CGFM

Lauren Lantrip is a consultant with Unisys Federal Systems. She has experience working with CDC in a variety of financial management, business analysis, and project management roles. Lauren has provided successful project management, coordination, and financial management to the National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM) and Health Communication Science Offices within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lauren provided support in budget formulation and execution, including extensive communications and training support for NCHM Office of the Director, NCHM Project Officers, and Division Leadership. She also provided ad hoc support for NCHM Leadership’s financial management and analysis needs. Most recently, Lauren supported NCHM’s Strategic Planning and Performance Management process by creating and distributing process guidance and templates, facilitating a cross-center work group, and helping determine timelines and objectives of the process as a whole. She has also provided communication support by collaborating with FMO budget analysts as well as NCHM program staff throughout both Agency-wide and NCHM internal budget formulation and execution efforts. Lauren has served as the NCHM liaison with external offices such as MISO, OSI and ITSO during the three most recent annual Health Impact Planning cycles, and was instrumental in the creation of NCHM’s successful MASO reorganization package. While at FMO, Lauren provided extensive support for the global error handling process and supported the Accounting Branch with analysis and mapping of the Salary and Travel Advance processes. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree from the University of Georgia with a concentration in Finance and is a Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM).

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Rosa C. Norman, MA

Rosa C. Norman (McKing Consulting) is senior publications manager for The Guide to Community Preventive Services. In this role, she works closely with staff, review teams, and internal and external authors to coordinate publications. Ms. Norman also edits content for the Community Guide Web site and articles that will be published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Before joining the Community Guide, Ms. Norman served as health communications specialist for CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention and web content specialist for CDC's Division of Oral Health. She also has many years of experience in broadcast journalism, including work for CNN, ABC, CBS, and FOX news, where she produced visually compelling news and feature stories for local, national, and international audiences. Ms. Norman's public health interests include global poverty, HIV/AIDS prevention, and the elimination of health disparities. She has a master's degree in international affairs and a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Georgia State University.

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Sierra Baker, BA

Sierra Baker is an ORISE fellow who joined The Guide to Community Preventive Services in 2009 to work with the internet and dissemination team. She holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies with a minor in psychology from Beacon College, where she was an active participant in the Gamma Beta Phi honors and community service society. During college Ms. Baker was also active in the Tri Mu sorority, and supported student organizations, that advocated acceptance of diversity and human rights. Ms. Baker's public health interests include: prevention of disease through vaccination, mental health, prevention and treatment of cancer, reducing the incidence of STI, physical fitness, nutrition, adolescent health, and social environment health. Ms. Baker is also a volunteer member of the Clayton County chapter of Arc, an organization that advocates for and supports individuals with developmental disabilities.

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Starr Banks, MPH

Starr Banks is an ORISE research fellow on the dissemination team with The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Currently, she is working to help develop, implement and evaluate the Community Guide’s dissemination strategy. Before joining the Community Guide, Ms. Banks worked at the UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs as a research assistant. Passionate about international health issues, she also worked in Kampala, Uganda as an intern at Young, Empowered and Healthy (Y.E.A.H.), a national health communications initiative aimed at reducing HIV/AIDS prevalence among youth. Ms. Banks received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Georgia State University and recently graduated from the UCLA School of Public Health, with a master of public health degree in community health sciences, specializing in population and reproductive health. Her public health interests include health inequities related to poverty, health communications, reproductive health, youth empowerment, and refugee health, as well as issues related to nutrition, physical activity and obesity.

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Gema Dumitru, MD, MPH (NCEH)

Gema Dumitru is an ORISE research fellow working on the asthma review team with The Guide to Community Preventive Services. The Community Guide and the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch of CDC are conducting a systematic review of community interventions to reduce asthma morbidity and mortality. Dr. Dumitru works closely with a coordinating scientist and a team of national and international experts on the systematic review team. This work involves managing the review process as well as helping to screen, critically assess, and summarize scientific articles, synthesize their findings, prepare draft documents, and communicate the results. Dr. Dumitru is a physician trained at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania; she received her ECFMG certification in 1998. She also holds a master of public health in environmental and occupational health from the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. Before joining the Community Guide she worked as a fellow and as a contractor with the CDC Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity and the Division of Adolescent and School Health.

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Verughese Jacob, PhD, MPH

Verughese Jacob is an ORISE research fellow on the economics team at The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Prior to this fellowship, Mr. Jacob consulted as an economist on a health disparity project with the CDC and the feasibility of a national twin registry with the NIEHS. Mr. Jacob holds a doctorate in economics from Southern Illinois University, and a master of public health from Emory University.

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Jennifer Murphy, MSPH

Jennifer Murphy is an ORISE research fellow on the vaccine-preventable disease review team at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Ms. Murphy is currently working with a senior coordinating scientist to update the existing reviews for vaccine interventions. Before obtaining her master’s degree, she worked as a research assistant with the Georgia Institute for the Prevention of Human Disease and Accidents. In this position, Ms. Murphy assisted the principal investigator and study coordinator in evaluating the role of lifestyle behaviors upon the development of insulin resistance, Type II diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular risk among prepubertal youth. Prior to her fellowship with the Community Guide, she interned with the Physical Fitness Program, Tennessee Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program and the Division of Minority Health and Disparity Elimination at the Tennessee Department of Health. Ms. Murphy received her bachelor's degree in biology from South Carolina State University and her master of science in public health from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Mona Patel, MPH

Mona Patel is an ORISE research fellow on the economics team at The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Ms. Patel received her undergraduate degree in economics from Mercer University, and has a master of public health from Emory University with a focus on health policy. At Emory University, Ms. Patel was a Center for Health, Culture, and Society fellow, an interdisciplinary fellowship created for graduate students interested in the intersection of public health, culture, and society. Before joining The Guide, Ms. Patel worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where she worked on surveillance projects to monitor health plan performance and ensure compliance with CMS guidelines. Ms. Patel also worked as a research assistant with the Institute for Advanced Policy Solutions. In this position, she conducted research for topics such as obesity prevention, smoking cessation, and health information technology, and assisted with conducting focus groups to assess perception of health care and healthcare reform in the United States. She also has experience working with Title II food aid programs and international development. Ms. Patel interned for a summer with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Rural Economic Growth Team in Rwanda where she visited People Living with HIV/AIDs Associations (PLWHA) to assess the strengths and weakness of the US-funded food aid program, and worked with the CARE Food Resource Coordination Team in Atlanta for 3 years during her graduate program.

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Yinan Peng, PhD, MPH

Yinan Peng is an ORISE fellow working on the vaccine preventable disease review team at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Currently, Dr. Peng is working with a senior coordinating scientist on a rapid review, which examines the effects of school closure on the transmission of influenza viruses, especially H1N1 that was raging through the world during 2009. Prior to joining the Community Guide, Dr. Peng served two years with the US Peace Corps. Her first assignment was in a Kenyan district hospital in the Great Rift Valley, providing health education on a range of topics and thoroughly enjoying her life at 8000 ft above sea level. Her time in Kenya was cut short by the country's post election violence in December 2007, and she chose to transfer to Botswana to complete her service. In this country, best known in the US as the setting for "The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency", she worked in a District AIDS Coordinating Office and assisted in planning, coordinating, monitoring and evaluating HIV/AIDS activities in the district. She just completed her service in May 2009, and received her master of public health degree from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in August 2009. Dr. Peng also holds a doctoral degree in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology from Stony Brook University, and a bachelor of science from Binghamton University. During her two years in Africa, Dr. Peng was hit by a bad case of wanderlust that is not fading. She is currently working on a globe-trotting travel schedule.

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’Sola Pitan, MBChB, MPH

Adesola Pitan is an ORISE research fellow on the vaccine preventable diseases and the tobacco review teams at The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Currently, Dr. Pitan is working with a senior coordinating scientist to update reviews for vaccine interventions. Dr. Pitan is a physician trained at the Obafemi Awolowo College of Health Sciences, Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital Sagamu, Ogun State, Nigeria. He also holds a master of public health in health policy and management from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. Before joining the Community Guide, Dr. Pitan worked as a graduate research assistant with the Tobacco Technical Assistance Consortium (TTAC) and with a federally-funded Emory University HOPE VI/AHA study on how changes in neighborhood conditions and social network characteristics shape relocating residents’ HIV risk behaviors, incidence of sexually transmitted infections, drug use behaviors, and health service utilization patterns. During his work as a medical officer in one of Nigeria’s largest OB/GYN centers, Dr. Pitan underwent several FHI/USAID organized trainings on the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS (PMTCT) and on the promotion of family planning services in health facilities.

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Veda Rammohan, MPH

Veda Rammohan is an ORISE research fellow on the alcohol review team at The Guide to Community Preventive Services. She will be working with a coordinating scientist to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions regarding alcohol sales privatization and enforcement of over-service laws on excessive consumption and related harms. Prior to this fellowship, Ms. Rammohan worked with the Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, Surveillance Branch as an epidemiology research assistant. In this position, she assisted with the analysis and production of the National Healthcare Quality Disparities Report and the development of an MDR/XDR tuberculosis registry. She has also worked with the Office of Health Disparities on a systematic review of the methodologies implemented in measuring HIV/AIDS health disparities, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as a federal intern. Ms. Rammohan holds a bachelor’s degree in community health education from the University of Florida. She also holds a master of public health in behavioral science from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

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Maren Robinson, MPH

Maren Robinson is an ORISE research fellow involved with the health marketing review team at The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Currently, she is working with a coordinating scientist on a systematic review to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of health marketing campaigns. Ms. Robinson received her Bachelor of Arts degree from UC Berkeley in Anthropology and is a recent graduate from the UCLA School of Public Health, with a Master of Public Health degree with an emphasis in Health Communications. She is also a certified nutrition consultant, and has a passion for the fields of nutrition and maternal and child health. Recently, she was part of a student team that collaborated with the Los Angeles Department of Public Health to develop a fotonovella from which to teach families about preventing Turtle-Associated Salmonellosis among children under the age of five. The fotonovella was written in both Spanish and English and is in the dissemination and evaluation planning phases. Last summer, during her intern work at MATRIX Public Health Solutions, Inc. in New Haven, CT, Ms. Robinson developed a comprehensive cancer resource inventory guide for the Connecticut Department of Public Health and wrote a detailed needs assessment highlighting existing gaps in services experienced by Connecticut cancer survivors. She has worked in the medical and public health arena over the last decade in various capacities, including as a rape-crisis counselor, as a member of the sexual assault response team for Bay Area Women Against Rape, as a nutrition educator for primary school students, and as a medical assistant. Lastly, and not insignificantly, Ms. Robinson is an avid tea drinker, having worked intimately in the tea world for several years. She enjoys loose leaf teas from China and Taiwan, particularly Bai Ho white tea, Lung Ching green tea, and various Tikuanyin Oolongs and Pu-erh teas.

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Martha Rider, PhD, MS, CHES

Martha Rider is a Guest Researcher on the dissemination team with the Guide to Community Preventive Services. She is currently working to develop tools to improve and evaluate awareness and usage of the Community Guide. Before joining the Community Guide, Dr. Rider was an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii and served as the State Director for the Hawaii Physical Activity and Nutrition Coalition. While in Hawaii, she also coordinated the Healthy Hawaii Initiative Evaluation Team. Her doctorate degree is from the University of Tennessee in Community Health, with a specialization in Communication. At UT, she served as president of the UT Science Forum, taught undergraduate public health courses, and was involved in research on environmental health, exercise compliance in older adults, and e-learning. Dr. Rider is a Certified Health Education Specialist with additional research interest in worksite wellness, health promotion and communication, food security, public health emergency preparedness, and alcohol consumption.

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Paramjit Sandhu, MD, MPH

Paramjit Sandhu is an ORISE research fellow on the alcohol review team with The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Currently, she is working with a coordinating scientist to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions regarding alcohol consumption and related harms. Dr. Sandhu has a degree in medicine (MBBS) from Rajindra Medical College, Patiala, India and master of public health from Emory University. During her master’s program, as part of her practicum, she participated on projects at Marcus Institute (fetal alcoholic syndrome) and Emory Clinic’s surgery department (bariatric), as a research assistant. Before coming to the Community Guide, Dr. Sandhu worked with the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD), CDC, as a guest researcher on the birth defects surveillance team. In this position, she was involved in conducting the population based ‘Healthstyles Survey’ study on pregnancy and smoking. Her duties in this position included: finalizing the questions for the questionnaire, analyzing the data using SAS program, writing the manuscript paper as first author, and attending monthly prenatal smoking cessation meetings with the Division of Reproductive Health to discuss the ongoing research work on pregnancy and smoking. During this fellowship she also participated in ongoing stillbirth projects where her work included: reviewing birth defect records for diagnostic coding, writing a stillbirth cluster study protocol manuscript for developing general guidelines to conduct future stillbirth cluster studies, and coordinating and organizing regional workshops. She also worked on a short assignment as a research associate with the Routine Immunization Team, Strengthening Immunization Services Branch, Global Immunization Division, CDC, where she participated in a literature review on unvaccinated children in developing countries.

Prior to her master’s program, Dr. Sandhu worked as Medical Officer, in charge of the Primary Healthcare Center at the Department of Health and Family Welfare for eight years in India, where along with providing clinical care to the patients and supervision of the staff, including a pharmacist, midwives, nurses and other multipurpose health workers, she was also responsible for organizing various health care mobile clinics including free eye checkup and cataract clinics, family planning clinics, immunization clinics, specialist service clinics, and public awareness programs in collaboration with various voluntary health organizations (VHOs) and non-government organizations (NGOs), and implementation of various national health programs for the population under jurisdiction.

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Patricia Saul, MS, MPH

Patricia Saul is an ORISE fellow on the vaccine preventable diseases review team and the tobacco review team with The Guide to Community Preventive Services. She is currently working with a coordinating scientist on a systematic review of the effectiveness of school closure as predicted by simulation and mathematical models as a community mitigation strategy in the managing of influenza pandemics. Ms. Saul holds a master of public health degree in epidemiology from Columbia University and a master of science degree in biology from New York University. Prior to joining the Community Guide, she was an ORISE fellow at the National Center for Environmental Health at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the past two years she has served as an American Public Health Association (APHA) Epidemiology Section liaison to the APHA Student Assembly.

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Su Su, MS, MPH

Su Su is an ORISE research fellow on the mental health review team with The Guide to Community Preventive Services. She is currently working with a coordinating scientist on a systematic review to evaluate the effectiveness of the collaborative care model in addressing depression in the community. Ms. Su has a master of public health in epidemiology from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and also holds a master of science in international health from Karolinsa Institutet, Sweden. Before coming to the Community Guide, Ms. Su worked on a systematic review to investigate the impact of prenatal low- to-moderate alcohol consumption on pregnancy outcomes at National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prior to that, Ms. Su was a research assistant at China CDC where she coordinated a large randomized trial funded by NIH to evaluate the changes in quality of life in HIV-positive individuals in former plasma donor areas as a result of a community behavior intervention.

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Kristin A. Tansil, MSW

Kristin A. Tansil is an ORISE research fellow on the youth development review team at The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Currently, she is working with a coordinating scientist to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions focused on promoting positive adolescent health outcomes. Prior to this fellowship, Ms. Tansil worked in the psychology department at the University of Michigan as a research assistant. In this position, she assisted the principal investigator in exploring racial identity, perceptions of stereotypes, and achievement gap for African American and Latino children and families. Ms. Tansil has also interned at the Corner Health Center (Ypsilanti, MI) and Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan where she organized and facilitated sexual health programs aimed at preventing the transmission of HIV and other STDs. Ms. Tansil holds a master of social work, with a concentration in management of human services, and a bachelor of arts in psychology, both from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

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Anil Thota, MBBS, MPH

Anil Thota is an ORISE research fellow on the mental health review team with The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Currently, he is working with a coordinating scientist on a systematic review to evaluate the effectiveness of the Collaborative Care model in addressing depression in the community. Dr. Thota has a degree in medicine (MBBS) from Manipal University in India and a master of public health from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Before coming to the Community Guide, Dr. Thota was a short-term consultant at the World Bank in Washington, DC. In this position, he worked on a review evaluating the effectiveness of health service delivery strategies in low-income settings and also participated in a World Bank systematic review looking at community empowerment strategies in low-income countries.

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Elena Watzke, MPH

Elena Watzke is an ORISE research fellow on the mental health review team at The Guide to Community Preventive Services. Ms. Watzke has a master of public health from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and a bachelor of science and management in finance from Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business. While at Rollins, she interned on Capitol Hill during the summer for Congresswoman DeGette gaining experience in health policy. Prior to changing careers from finance to public health, she was a financial analyst at The Irvine Company, a large real estate company, in Southern California and also worked in property management for a short time. Ms. Watzke’s personal interests include New Orleans Saints football, chocolate, baking, and her crazy dog, Sasha.

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