Lauren Caton, MPH (Maternal and Child Health)

Lauren is a PhD candidate in the Department of Maternal and Child Health (MCH). Her research focuses on state-level political dynamics and implementation of maternal behavioral health policies. Before returning to school she led the women’s portfolio for a research-advocacy organization in Washington, DC. Prior, she worked at Stanford University’s Center for Behavioral Health Sciences and Implementation Research (CBHSIR) evaluating California’s medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) expansion projects and on reproductive justice projects at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and University of California, Berkeley’s Sexual Health and Reproductive Equity (SHARE) group. She holds a BS in Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology from the University of Texas at Austin and a MPH in Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health from the University of California, Berkeley.

Amanda Collins, MSPH (Epidemiology)

Amanda is a PhD student in the department of Epidemiology at the UNC Chapel Hill Gillings School of Public Health. Her primary research interests are focused on improving mental health and access to health services among people with disabilities. She is especially interested in expanding access to mental and occupational health services for people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), conducting social epidemiological research that focuses on people with autism as a marginalized group, rather than autism as an adverse health outcome, and keeping the interests of the autistic community at the forefront of ASD-related research. Her dissertation research centers around better understanding predictors of poor mental health and barriers to health care access among adults with ASD. Prior to her graduate work at UNC, Amanda earned an MSPH in Epidemiology and a BS in Public Health at the University of South Carolina, and she worked as a biostatistician for Prisma Health Heart Hospital.

Sarah Haight, MPH (Epidemiology)

Sarah is a PhD candidate in the department of Epidemiology at the UNC Chapel Hill Gillings School of Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding how social factors at the structural, interpersonal, and individual level contribute to inequitable perinatal mental wellbeing and care. Her dissertation research seeks to document racial and ethnic disparities in postpartum depressive symptoms, diagnosis, and care and understand the role of medical mistrust, residential segregation, and health care provider shortages in generating and perpetuating these inequities. Prior to starting her doctoral studies at UNC, Sarah earned an MPH in Epidemiology from Emory University Rollins School of Public Health and a BA in Anthropology from Macalester College.

Jodi Lewis, MPH, MS (Health Policy and Management)

Jodi is a PhD student in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UNC Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her minor focus is Health Politics and Policy, and her primary research interest is in racial/ethnic disparities in maternal mortality and morbidity. More specifically, her dissertation will seek to assess trends in preeclampsia prevalence in North Carolina, evaluate the efficacy of the NC-based Conservative Management of Preeclampsia initiative to reduce (racial disparities in) preeclampsia rates, and elucidate organizational factors that contribute to effective versus ineffective treatment of preeclampsia in North Carolina hospitals. Prior to attending Gillings, she obtained an MPH in Public Health Administration & Policy from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, an MS in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences from Drexel University College of Medicine, and a BS in Biology from Oakwood University.

Madison McCall (Clinical Psychology)

Madison is a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at UNC Chapel Hill. Her primary interests focus on the design, dissemination, and evaluation of digital technologies that improve mental health care effectiveness, efficiency, and accessibility for minoritized and underserved youth and their families. Her dissertation research investigates the role of neurocognitive functioning on standard-of-care treatment outcomes among children with early-onset behavior disorders and explores the feasibility and utility of employing a digital neurocognitive assessment with this population in clinical practice. Previously, Madison was a Health Policy Research Scholar at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and completed fellowships in the Mental Health Innovation Lab at Stanford University, Center for Leadership in Disability, and Georgia Institute of Technology. Madison earned her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia.

Mustafa Abid, MD (General Surgery)

Dr. Mustafa Abid is a 4^th year General Surgery resident at UNC.  Following Davidson College for his undergraduate degree, Mustafa attended Wake Forest School of Medicine for his medical degree before coming to UNC for his General Surgery residency. His clinical interests focus on Acute Care Surgery, which encompasses the care of Emergency General Surgery, Trauma, and Surgical and Trauma Critical Care patients. He is especially interested in Acute Care Surgery care environment in rural settings, including how and where patients from rural communities seek care for urgent and emergent surgical diseases and traumatic injury. Through the support of the AHRQ and Cecil G. Sheps Center fellowship, Mustafa will be studying General Surgery workforce density in rural settings, including how to determine a ‘functional’ workforce density, and how functional surgical workforce density impacts access and outcomes for patients presenting with common but potentially urgent surgical diseases. He will also be pursuing his MPH at UNC during this time.

Deborah Baron, PhD (Health Behavior)

Dr. Deborah Baron is a trained global public health professional and activist-scholar with 25 years’ experience in the HIV and gender empowerment fields. As a post-doctoral fellow with the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) Sheps Center, Deborah’s research focuses on developing and implementing equitable trauma-informed practices within HIV health services, especially for marginalized populations who are disproportionately exposed to childhood and community trauma. Recently, Deborah completed her PhD in Health Behavior as a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Predoctoral Fellow at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. Working at the intersection of HIV, sexual and reproductive health (SRH), resilience and trauma-informed care, Deborah’s dissertation was a mixed methods participatory study that explored how resilience operates across social-ecological levels to provide protective benefits and improve SRH outcomes among young women who have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). From 2007-2018, Deborah lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she managed multi-party HIV prevention research consortia conducting large-scale biomedical HIV prevention clinical trials across Southern and Eastern Africa. In her capacity as the Technical Head of Good Participatory Practice at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, Deborah also oversaw the institute’s stakeholder engagement activities.

Joshua Rivenbark, MD, PhD (Hematology/Oncology)

Dr. Joshua Rivenbark is a second-year Hematology fellow and population health researcher at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He received his MD and PhD in Public Policy from Duke University, for his dissertation entitled “How Social Status Permeates Inequalities in Health: Three Studies on Experiences of Social Disadvantage.” He completed his Internal Medicine residency training at University of Pennsylvania, before returning the the Triangle to join the fellowship program in Hematology. He is interested in how social inequities relate to inequities in health, and how public policies and healthcare institutions can reduce those inequities – with a particular focus on sickle cell disease.

Lizzy Simmons, PhD (Maternal and Child Health)

Dr. Lizzy Simmons is a maternal health researcher with over ten years’ experience in epidemiologic methods for observational study designs and advanced analytic approaches to complex survey and administrative data. Her research focuses on the impacts of policy on access to and quality of healthcare services for pregnant populations in the United States. She recently graduated from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill with a PhD in Maternal and Child Health and Epidemiology, where she received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Fellowship. Her dissertation examined the association of equitable Medicaid reimbursement policies and access to certified nurse-midwives, and changes to delivery outcomes when access to certified nurse-midwives was improved. Prior to her doctoral work, Lizzy worked as a research fellow at Boston University School of Public Health as part of a team leading a maternal and neonatal health registry in semi-urban and rural areas. In her postdoctoral fellowship, she will explore how policy impacts the prenatal to postpartum care continuum.

Mark Holmes, PhD

Director, Training Program
Director, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research
Director, NC Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished Chair in Public Policy, Department of Health Policy and Management, Gillings School of Global Public Health

Dr. Holmes’ interests include hospital finance, rural health, workforce, health policy, and patient-centered outcomes research.

Kathleen Thomas, PhD

Associate Director, Training Program
Associate Professor & Vice Chair of Research and Graduate Studies, Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy
Senior Research Fellow, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research

Dr. Thomas’ research seeks to enrich the knowledge base for ways to improve access to care for underserved populations with mental health needs, ranging from minority populations to disability policy and childhood autism. She is deeply engaged in understanding how people live – what motivates them to be transactional around the most important things in their lives – family, health, well-being.

Tim Carey, MD, MPH

Research Professor, Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, UNC School of Medicine
Former Director, Sheps Center and NRSA Training Program

Dr. Carey is a health services searcher and clinician whose research interests include epidemiology and utilization patterns in chronic back and neck pain, determinants of work disability, end-of-life issues including utilization of gastric feeding tubes, and health disparities in chronic pain treatment.

Katrina Donahue, MD, MPH

Professor and Vice Chair of Research, Department of Family Medicine
Co-Director, North Carolina Network Consortium
Director, HRSA T32 Primary Care Research Fellowship

Dr. Donahue has a strong interest in primary care practice redesign, chronic disease care and prevention, health behavior change and collaborations among public health and primary care.

Larissa Jennings Mayo-Wilson, PhD, MHS

Associate Professor, Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health
Associate Professor, Department of Maternal and Child Health, Gillings School of Global Public Health

Dr. Jennings Mayo-Wilson is a sexual and reproductive health behavioral scientist with methodological skills in epidemiology, biostatistics, and qualitative science.

Til Stürmer, MD, MPH, PhD

Nancy A Dreyer Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health

Dr. Stürmer is an internist and epidemiologist with expertise in state-of-the-art methods for nonexperimental treatment comparisons, including comparative effectiveness research, and real-world evidence based on real-world data.

Justin Trogdon, PhD

Professor and PhD Program Director, Department of Health Policy and Management, Gillings School of Global Public Health

Dr. Trogdon is a health economist whose current research focuses on assessing the economic burden of cancer, evaluating the cost and cost-effectiveness of policies and interventions, and developing methods to identify causal effects of policies and interventions and simulate new policies.