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 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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Maryan D. Reynolds, BA

Maryan D. Reynolds has been developing and implementing effective public health programs in states and localities, and at CDC for 20 years. Currently she is serving as the deputy branch chief within the Community Guide. Ms. Reynolds began her public health career in Chicago, Houston and then Fulton County health departments as a Public Health Advisor. Ms. Reynolds came to CDC in 1998 as deputy chief of the State Branch with the Epidemiology Program Office. There, she conducted short- and long-range planning; coordinated program operations; and collaborated with state, local, and tribal partners to build the public health system’s epidemiologic capacity. From 2004 through 2009 Ms. Reynolds focused her program planning on CDC’s efforts to build and strengthen the public health workforce, where she coordinated and assisted with the Office of Workforce and Career Development’s stand up and transformation; strategic planning; and coordination of workforce-development materials requested by Congress, HHS, CDC’s partners, and the media. Ms. Reynolds received her degree from The Ohio State University, with a dual focus on international relations, national security policy, and Russian.

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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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Sara R. Bedrosian, BA, BFA

Sara Reynolds Bedrosian is a health communications specialist at CDC’s Epidemiology and Analysis Program Office, where she primarily supports the Guide to Community Preventive Services Dissemination and Implementation Team. Prior to this position, Ms. Bedrosian worked with the Office of Public Health Genomics as a health communications specialist, where she was the managing editor for the Human Genome Epidemiology (HuGE) book 2nd edition published by Oxford University Press in 2010, and created and facilitated the CDC University Public Health Genomics Seminar Series from 2007 to 2010. She is a member of the CDC Health Literacy Council, and of the Advisory Council for CDC University’s School of Public Health Science, Research, and Medicine. Ms. Bedrosian holds a bachelor of arts degree in comparative religion, East Asian specialty, from Wellesley College and a bachelor of fine arts degree from Savannah College of Art and Design. Ms. Bedrosian is a certified Information Mapping® specialist in User Documentation.

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LCDR Allyson Brown, MPH, LCDR

LCDR Allyson Brown, MPH, LCDR Brown began her public health career at the Miami-Dade Department of Heath providing health education. In August of 2001, LCDR Brown started her career at CDC in the Hospital Infections Program as an ATPM Fellow. In September of 2002, LCDR Brown joined the Division of Strategic National Stockpile as a program services consultant. In that position, LCDR Brown had the opportunity to work with twenty-one different states to improve the ability to receive pharmaceuticals and equipment in times of national crisis. During LCDR Brown’s tenure with the DSNS she was deployed to Mississippi and Texas during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As a result of her efforts during the hurricanes she earned the PHS Outstanding Unit Citation and PHS Commendation Medal. LCDR Brown attended Florida A&M University, where she obtained her bachelor of science in biology, and Florida International University, where she earned a master of public health.

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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 Community Guide’s economic reviews. He previously served 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 at CDC. 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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Katelyn Dieffenderfer, JD

Katelyn Dieffenderfer is a presidential management fellow and health policy analyst with the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Ms. Dieffenderfer holds her bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication from St. Bonaventure University and her law degree from the University at Buffalo School of Law where she served on the Buffalo Law Review. During law school, Ms. Dieffenderfer worked with the Homeless Task Force at Neighborhood Legal Services, a not-for-profit legal entity providing free services to low-income people in Buffalo. Prior to entering CDC, Ms. Dieffenderfer served as a summer law clerk with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Counsel to the Inspector General and completed a legal externship with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection. Her public health interests include childhood obesity, health disparities, and cancer prevention and control.

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Onnalee Gomez, MS

Onnalee Gomez performs literature searches in various bibliographic databases in support of systematic reviews of the literature for the Community Guide. Ms. Gomez works in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Public Health Library and Information Center and has been with the CDC since 1988. She graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Mount Holyoke College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She received her master’s degree from Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science and worked in public libraries in Florida and at the Georgia Institute of Technology library before coming to the CDC. In addition to library work, Ms. Gomez has worked on the search algorithm for the Human Genome Epidemiology (HuGE) published literature database at the CDC’s National Office of Public Health Genomics and at the CDC’s Public Health Informatics and Technology Program Office developing vocabulary for decision support systems.

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Robert A. Hahn, PhD, MPH

Robert A. Hahn has served as an epidemiologist at the CDC since 1986 and is a member of the Senior Biomedical Research Service. He received his doctorate in anthropology at Harvard University (1976) and his master of public health in epidemiology from the University of Washington (1986). He has published studies on a variety of topics, including chronic diseases, syphilis, AIDS, obstetrics and internal medicine, 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 and Public Health: Bridging Differences in Culture and Society (Oxford, 2009). 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. He is currently coordinating scientist of systematic reviews interventions to promote health equity.

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David P. Hopkins MD, MPH

David Hopkins joined the Guide to Community Preventive services in July of 1997. He now serves as medical officer while continuing to coordinate and conduct systematic reviews on a wide variety of topics for the Community Guide. Dr. Hopkins graduated from the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine in 1989, completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in 1992, became board certified in Internal Medicine in 1992, and obtained a master of public health from the University of California at Berkeley in May of 1993. After two years practicing clinical medicine in California, Dr. Hopkins joined CDC as an EIS officer in July 1995 and spent two years assigned to the New York State Tuberculosis Control Bureau in Albany, New York.

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Pam Meyer, PhD, MSPH

Pam Meyer is on detail to the Guide to Community Preventive Services from the Public Health Surveillance Program Office (PHSPO). Before joining PHSPO in January 2010, she was the goal team lead for Healthy Homes. She has also led the Science Development Team in the Environmental Health Tracking Branch; led the Epidemiology and Surveillance Team in the Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch; and served as staff epidemiologist in the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch. Her public health career started in South Carolina at the State Department of Health and Environmental Control where she worked for the state epidemiologist; as state director for the childhood lead poisoning prevention program, and as staff epidemiologist with the state chronic diseases bureau. She moved to Atlanta to work for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists as staff epidemiologist. She has a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University, and master (MSPH) and doctoral (PhD) degrees in epidemiology from the University of South Carolina.

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Adesola Pitan, MBChB, MPH

Adesola Pitan is an associate service fellow at the Guide to Community Preventive Services evaluating the effectiveness of intervention strategies to increase tobacco use cessation. He’s also updating the effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints intervention to reduce alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes. Dr. Pitan joined the Community Guide in 2009 as an ORISE research fellow and helped to update the reviews on the effectiveness of interventions to reduce vaccine preventable diseases. A physician trained in Nigeria, and a member of the hospital technical team, Dr. Pitan completed several FHI/USAID-organized trainings about the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS. He also holds a master of public health in health policy and management from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. While at Emory, Dr. Pitan worked as a research assistant with the Tobacco Technical Assistance Consortium and on a federally-funded Emory University HOPE VI/AHA study on how environmental and social changes affect behavioral and sexual health of relocating residents.

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Anil Thota, MBBS, MPH

Anil is a senior service fellow at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Currently he is working with a team of experts prioritizing and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions aiming to reduce morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease. Prior to this, he worked with a coordinating scientist to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of collaborative care to improve delivery of depression care. 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 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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Consultants and Contractors

Deborah R. Bauer, MPH, RN, CHES

Deborah R. Bauer (Carter Consulting) is a partnership and dissemination coordinator on the dissemination and implementation team with the Guide to Community Preventive Services, a role that focuses on optimizing relationships with Liaisons to the Community Preventive Services Task Force and other Community Guide stakeholders and dissemination of Task Force recommendations. Just prior to joining the Community Guide, Ms. Bauer served as coordinator of the CDC Healthier Worksite Initiative. In addition to employee health promotion, 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 a partnership and dissemination coordinator on the dissemination and implementation team with the Guide to Community Preventive Services. In this role, she works closely with her co-coordinator to optimize relationships with Liaisons to the Community Preventive Services Task Force 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 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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Tonya N. Cooksey, MS, RD

Tonya N. Cooksey acts as a health scientist contractor (Chickasaw Advisory Services) for the Community Guide’s tobacco review update. Prior to her start at the CDC, she served as a research consultant for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Tropical Enteropathy Project. Tonya is excited about the progress the study has made and the impact it will have on pediatric populations of developing countries. Ms. Cooksey obtained a bachelor of science in biology from Spelman College and a master of science in health sciences with a specialization in nutrition from Georgia State University. Following graduate school, she went on to complete a dietetic internship at the VA Medical Center in St. Louis. As a registered dietitian, Tonya enjoys staying abreast on issues in nutrition, wellness and physical activity. She has an expansive interest in national and international public health issues. Such areas of interest include improving food access and reducing health disparities, obesity and malnutrition.

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Sylvia Greggs, BA

Sylvia Greggs is a contractor with McKing Consulting. With more than 20 years of administrative experience, Ms. Greggs serves as an executive assistant for the Guide to Community Preventive Services team. She has been with CDC for five years providing administrative support in areas such as travel, calendar management, meeting coordination and time and attendance. Ms. Greggs also has experience working with various CDC systems including GovTrip, Outlook, and TASNet. Sylvia has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently pursuing a MBA degree with an expected graduation date of May 2012.

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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. She has been Senior Publications Manager at the Guide to Community Preventive Services since 2010. Kate previously worked in the same capacity at the Community Guide from 2000-2007, and was part of the team that developed the 2005 book, The Guide to Community Preventive Services. What Works to Promote Health? She was also 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.

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Lori Kose, MBA

Lori Kose (Unisys Corporation) currently serves as the project manager for several program and financial management engagements within EAPO. She has supported EAPO since its inception by providing portfolio and program management services, including managing document libraries and coordinating cross-center workgroups. Ms. Kose also provides project management support to the Community Guide by managing resources, participating in key client meetings, reviewing and approving deliverables, and conducting periodic checkpoints with Community Guide leadership. She works with the Community Guide Technical Monitor to come to agreement on the approach, direction, and plan for all project activities. She has over 16 years experience and extensive knowledge of resource management, financial management/analysis and reporting, system implementation, training program development, and developing and implementing process improvement initiatives, including nearly five years supporting CDC’s Offices and National Centers. Ms. Kose holds a master of business administration degree from the University of Georgia with concentrations in finance and international business.

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Kimberly M. Lane, MPH

Kimberly M. Lane (Chickasaw Advisor Services) serves as a health scientist for the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Before joining the Community Guide, Kimberly worked as a safety specialist for the pharmaceutical industry for 9 years. Her main responsibilities included analyzing safety data, working with large databases, writing periodic safety reports to the Food and Drug Administration, and conducting literature reviews for marketed drugs. From 2000-2002, she worked as an infectious disease epidemiologist for the Georgia Department of Human Resources in the Notifiable Diseases Unit where she worked with the FoodNet project and investigated numerous food-borne outbreaks. She received her bachelor’s degree in natural science concentrating in biology from Spelman College. She also has a master’s degree in public health specializing in epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Oklahoma.

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Lauren Lantrip, BBA, CGFM

Lauren Lantrip is a senior consultant with Unisys Federal Systems. She has over six years of professional experience working with CDC in a variety of reporting, analysis, performance measurement, budget support, and project management roles. Ms. Lantrip currently provides project and financial management support to the Community Guide. She works closely with Community Guide leadership to ensure fiscal accountability of the program through detailed analysis and concise and frequent communication. Ms. Lantrip also provides project management support to Community Guide by collecting, analyzing, and reporting on the Community Guide systematic review status. In addition, Ms. Lantrip currently manages the Project Management Database Tool. Prior to her work at Community Guide, Ms. Lantrip provided communication and budget support to the National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM). Ms. Lantrip 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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Julia Wright, BA

Julia Wright (McKing Consulting) serves as junior publications manager for the Guide to Community Preventive Services. In this role, Ms. Wright facilitates the scientific clearance and submission of Community Guide reviews for publication in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and posting to the Community Guide Web site. Ms Wright spent two years in Malawi, Africa, developing a preschool program for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Georgia State University in Atlanta and before joining the Community Guide, she worked as personal assistant to a bestselling author and speaker. Her public health interests include mental health, nutrition, maternal and infant health, and HIV/AIDS related illness and prevention.

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Research Fellows

Sierra Baker, BA

Sierra Baker is an ORISE fellow who joined the Guide to Community Preventive Services in 2009 to work with the dissemination and implementation 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 STIs, 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 and implementation 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 implementation science, health communications, reproductive health, youth empowerment, refugee health, health inequities related to poverty, as well as, issues related to nutrition, physical activity, and obesity.

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Marissa Esser, MPH, CHES

Marissa Esser is an ORISE research fellow on the alcohol review team at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. She is working with a coordinating scientist and review team to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative forms of alcohol screening and brief interventions. Ms. Esser is also an alcohol epidemiology research fellow with the Alcohol Program in the Division of Population Health (previously the Division of Adult and Community Health). In this position, Ms. Esser is involved in leading a variety of alcohol epidemiology projects. Prior to joining the CDC, Ms. Esser completed a master of public health degree at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, with a concentration in behavioral science and health education. In addition to her interest in epidemiology, she is also a certified health education specialist (CHES). She also holds a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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Ramona Finnie, DrPH, MPH, CHES

Ramona Finnie is an ORISE research fellow currently working with the mental health benefits legislation review team at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. She received her master of public health from Emory University and doctor of public health (DrPH) with a concentration in global health from the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston. Prior to joining the guide, Dr. Finnie was a visiting faculty member at Arizona State University, Department of African and African-American Studies. Other research experience includes dissertation research on assessing factors related to delayed care-seeking and diagnosis for tuberculosis (TB) and non-adherence to TB treatment in Limpopo Province South Africa, and work at the Behavioral Research Center within the American Cancer Society as a research analyst for Special Populations Research [now Underserved Populations Research]. Dr. Finnie’s research interests include global health disparities, health communications, and the development and evaluation of community-based interventions.

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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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John A. Knopf, MPH

John A. Knopf is an ORISE research fellow at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. He is working on the mental health benefits legislation review as well as the health equity out-of-school time review. John obtained his bachelor of science in biology and psychology at the University of Georgia in 2010, and received his master’s of public health (MPH) at the University of Georgia in the summer of 2011. During his time at the University of Georgia, John received a certificate in global leadership and also traveled to Belize for medical service learning. His interests include clinical medicine, social epidemiology, health policy, and chronic disease management.

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Jerrel McBride, MPH, CHES

Jerrel McBride is an ORISE research fellow on the dissemination and implementation team with the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Her primary work is on developing and implementing the Project Management Database Tool for tracking Community Guide’s dissemination activities. Ms. McBride received her bachelor’s degree from Bethune-Cookman University and has a master of public health degree with a certificate in mental health from Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health. While completing her master’s, she obtained her health education specialist certification. While at Emory, she held several research assistant positions: The HOPE VI Project with the Emory School of Medicine and Public Health, Winship Cancer Institute, and The F.I.G.H.T. Against MeTs Study at Morehouse School of Medicine. Additionally, she served as a Substance Abuse Prevention Fellowship Program graduate student intern with SAMHSA. Prior to coming to the Guide, she worked for Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies, doing outreach and health education workshops at various community and health events throughout Georgia.

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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. Before joining The Guide, Ms. Patel worked with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where she was involved with surveillance projects to monitor health plan performance and ensure compliance with CMS guidelines. She also joined the Institute for Advanced Policy Solutions as a research assistant, worked with the CARE Food Resource Coordination Team, and interned for a summer with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Rural Economic Growth Team in Rwanda.

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Yinan Peng, PhD, MPH

Yinan Peng is an ORISE research fellow at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Under the guidance of a coordinating scientist, she and her teammates are working on two separate projects: 1) the effectiveness of tobacco control interventions, 2) the effectiveness of school dismissal in reducing transmission of pandemic influenza in schools and communities. Prior to joining the Community Guide, Dr. Peng served two years with the US Peace Corps in both Kenya and Botswana. In both countries, but especially in Botswana, Dr. Peng worked on HIV/AIDS related issues, and assisted in planning, coordinating, monitoring and evaluating HIV/AIDS activities. She 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.

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Krista Proia, MPH

Krista Proia is an ORISE research fellow on the cardiovascular disease (CVD) team with the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Prior to her fellowship, Ms. Proia worked as an epidemiology assistant and summer ORISE fellow at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities collaborating with the fetal alcohol syndrome surveillance (FAS) team which currently funds three states for multiple-source case ascertainment surveillance of FAS. Ms. Proia holds a bachelor’s degree in health science from the University of Florida, and recently received her master of public health degree from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health with a concentration in behavioral sciences and health education. Ms. Proia’s research interests include preventive medicine, translating evidence-based research into practice, and maternal and child health.

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Shuli Qu, MPH

Shuli Qu is an ORISE research fellow who joined the Guide to Community Preventive Services in 2011 to work with the mental health review team. Currently, she is working with a coordinating scientist on a systematic review on mental health parity legislation. Ms. Qu holds a bachelor’s degree in pharmacology science from Fudan University in China, and recently received her master of public health degree from University of Michigan School of Public Health with a concentration in health behavior and education. Ms. Qu’s research interests include mental health, health communication, evaluative research on health behavior change interventions, disease prevention and management.

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Veda Rammohan, MPH

Veda Rammohan is an ORISE research fellow on the health equity team at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. She works with Dr. Robert Hahn to evaluate the effectiveness of educational interventions on health outcomes. Along with Dr. Hahn, Veda has completed a systematic review on the effectiveness of dram shop and alcohol overservice regulations on alcohol-related harms. Prior to this fellowship, Veda assisted with the analysis and production of the National Healthcare Quality Disparities Report and the development of an MDR/XDR tuberculosis registry at the Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, Surveillance Branch. 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 as a federal intern. Veda holds a bachelor of sciencein community health education from the University of Florida and an master of public health in behavioral science from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

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Jeffrey A.Reynolds, MPH

Jeffrey A. Reynolds is an intern at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. His current focus is assisting on the mental health parity legislation review. Jeff obtained his bachelor of science in cellular biology and microbiology at the University of Georgia, and a master of public health (MPH) with a concentration in epidemiology at the University of Georgia. His interests include clinical epidemiology, neuroepidemiology, and disease prevention and management.

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Sharmily Roy, MPH, CHES

Sharmily Roy is an ORISE research fellow on the dissemination and implementation team with the Guide to Community Preventive Services.. She is assisting in developing a surveillance tool that monitors utilization of the Community Guide and conducting other evaluation activities. Most recently, she worked as a health communications fellow at the Office of the Associate Director for Communications (OADC) at CDC. She has also worked at CARE, USA, supporting polio prevention and elimination in Angola, Ethiopia, and India. In 2005, as a program coordinator for an International Labour Organization (ILO) project to eliminate the worst forms of child labor, Sharmily implemented a community-based pilot program through the YMCA of Trinidad and Tobago. Sharmily worked with Policy Leadership for Active Youth (PLAY), an obesity policy research initiative at Georgia State University. Sharmily holds a master’s degree in public health with a concentration in health promotion from Georgia State University, and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Agnes Scott College.

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Paramjit Sandhu, MD, MPH

Paramjit Sandhu is an ORISE research fellow with the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Currently, she is working on projects evaluating the effectiveness of alcohol and cancer interventions. Dr. Sandhu has a degree in medicine (MBBS) from India and master of public health from Emory University. She joined the CDC at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities in 2008 as ORISE fellow. She conducted population based study on pregnancy and smoking, also, participated in ongoing stillbirth projects. She also worked on a short assignment as a research associate with the Routine Immunization Team, CDC, where she participated in a literature review on unvaccinated children in developing countries. In India, Dr. Sandhu worked as Medical Officer, in charge of the Primary Healthcare Center at the Department of Health and Family Welfare, where along with providing clinical care to the patients, she was also responsible for the implementation of various national health programs for the population under jurisdiction.

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Patricia Saul, MS, MPH

Patricia Saul is an ORISE research fellow on the vaccine preventable diseases and the tobacco review teams 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 the CDC. 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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Kristin A. Tansil, MSW

Kristin A. Tansil is an ORISE research fellow on health communication and alcohol review teams at the Guide to Community Preventive Services. She recently completed a communication manuscript that received a “strong recommendation” by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, which evaluated the effectiveness of health communication campaigns that include mass media, and health-related product distribution; as well as concurrently working on another review assessing the effectiveness of alcohol electronic screening and brief interventions. 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 the 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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