Faculty – MT-DIRC

Debra Haire-Joshu

Maggie Padek — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 19:42:56 +0000

Debra Haire-Joshu is an internationally renowned scholar of health behavior who develops population-wide interventions to reduce obesity and prevent diabetes among underserved women and children. She holds a joint appointment in the Washington University School of Medicine, and directs the Center for Obesity Prevention and Policy Research (COPPR) and the Washington University Center for Diabetes Translation Research (WU-CDTR).

COPPR aims to discover and integrate new science into policies designed to prevent obesity. The WU-CDTR, funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, supports over 80 investigators across the country conducting studies to eliminate the root causes of obesity and disparities in Type 2 diabetes. Haire-Joshu also serves as a faculty director for the Envolve Center for Health Behavior Change, an industry-academic research collaboration that tests, implements and evaluates behavior-based interventions in real-world settings.

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Shiriki K. Kumanyika

Maggie Padek — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:11:58 +0000

Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika is emeritus professor of epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School Of Medicine. She has an interdisciplinary background and holds advanced degrees in social work, nutrition, and public health. During her tenure on the Penn Medicine faculty. Dr. Kumanyika also served as the Associate Dean for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, held a secondary appointment as Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Pediatrics (Division of Gastroenterology, Nutrition Section), and was affiliated with numerous Penn institutes and centers. She was the Founding Director of Penn’s interdisciplinary, multi-school Master of Public Health program. Dr. Kumanyika’s research focuses on identifying effective strategies to reduce nutrition-related chronic disease risks, with a particular focus on achieving health equity for black Americans. She has led or collaborated on single- or multi-center randomized clinical trials or observational studies related to obesity, salt intake, and other aspects of diet. Several of these studies have evaluated interventions to promote healthy eating and physical activity in African American children or adults in clinical or community-based settings. Dr. Kumanyika founded (in 2002) and continues to chair the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network (AACORN) (www.aacorn.org), a national network that seeks to improve the quantity, quality, and effective translation of research on weight issues in African American communities. She has extensive experience in advisory roles related to public health and nutrition policy in the US and abroad. Dr. Kumanyika is a member of the Institute of Medicine and is President of the American Public Health Association for 2015.

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David Chambers

Maggie Padek — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 21:12:41 +0000

Dr. David Chambers is Deputy Director for Implementation Science of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, where he manages a team focusing on efforts to build and advance the field of Implementation Science through funding opportunity announcements, training mechanisms, dissemination platforms, and enhancement of partnerships and networks to integrate research, practice and policy. From 2008 through the fall of 2014, Dr. Chambers served as Chief of the Services Research and Clinical Epidemiology Branch (SRCEB) of the Division of Services and Intervention Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). He arrived at NIMH in 2001, brought to the Institute to run the Dissemination and Implementation Research Program within SRCEB, where he continues to manage a portfolio of grants that study the integration of scientific findings and effective clinical practices in mental health within real-world service settings. From 2006 to the fall of 2014, Dr. Chambers also served as Associate Director for Dissemination and Implementation Research, leading NIH initiatives around the coordination of dissemination and implementation research in health, including a set of research announcements across 15 of the NIH Institutes and Centers, annual scientific conferences, and a summer training institute. Prior to his arrival at NIH, Dr. Chambers worked as a member of a research team at Oxford University, where he studied national efforts to implement evidence-based practice within healthcare systems. He publishes on strategic research directions in implementation science and serves as a plenary speaker at numerous scientific conferences. He received his A.B. degree (with Honors) in Economics from Brown University in 1997, and an M.Sc. and D.Phil degree in Management Studies (Organisational Behaviour) in 1998 and 2001, respectively, from Oxford University (UK).

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Anne Sales

matchbox — Fri, 22 May 2015 15:29:03 +0000

Dr. Sales is a Research Scientist at the Center for Clinical Management Research at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, and a Professor in the Division of Nursing Business and Health Systems, School of Nursing, University of Michigan. Previously, she was Professor in the Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, and Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Healthcare Teams, and she continues an adjunct appointment at the University of Alberta. She has conducted over 25 funded research projects, focusing on improving quality of care, knowledge translation and implementation of evidence based best practice, with many peer-reviewed publications. Her training is in sociology, health economics, econometrics, and general health services research, and her focus is implementing evidence based practice to improve quality of care. She has had extensive experience conducting research in implementation and implementation science as well as quality and safety in inpatient care. She will provide expertise in implementation intervention planning and delivery, as well as evaluation.

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Enola Proctor

matchbox — Fri, 22 May 2015 15:27:45 +0000

Dr. Proctor is the Frank J. Bruno Professor of Social Work Research at the Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis. She has three decades of experience in research and research training in the areas of health services and implementation science. She currently is PI of a five year NIMH funded R25 grant providing national training to early and mid career implementation researchers. Its 22 fellows are drawn from eight disciplines in universities across the United States. Dr. Proctor also brings experience in training at the doctoral level, having chaired the PhD Program in Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis from 1989-1995; she chaired the national Group to Advance Doctoral Education in Social Work. She also directs a pre and postdoctoral training program, now in its 14th year (T32 MH19960). Her work to help shape research careers is also informed by her role directing the Center for Mental Health Services Research, established in 1993 with NIMH funding. As Center director, Dr. Proctor led the development of research infrastructure and she continues to guide the development of many of the Center’s associated projects. Finally, as Associate Dean for Faculty for the Brown School, she brings experience and perspective on career development among researchers.

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Christine Pfund

matchbox — Fri, 22 May 2015 15:26:14 +0000

Dr. Pfund is the Associate Director of the Delta Program in Research, Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin. Through her work, Dr. Pfund has focused on preparing current and future faculty to be effective teachers and mentors. Dr. Pfund played a key role in the design of the National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology and led an evaluation study of its impacts on faculty participants. Dr. Pfund has been integrally involved in developing, implementing, documenting, and evaluating a training seminar for research mentors working with undergraduate researchers as well as a seminar to support undergraduate researchers themselves. She has helped develop the manuals for facilitators of these seminars, Entering Mentoring and Entering Research, and co-authored papers documenting the effectiveness of these seminars. Dr. Pfund has incorporated mentor training in the research programs across multiple disciplines, including those focused on D&I research. Dr. Pfund is currently co-leading two NIH-funded research studies; one is randomized trial designed to test the impact of research mentor training on both mentors and mentees at 16 sites; the other is a mixed-methods study investigating specific factors in mentoring relationships that account for positive student outcomes and longevity in science.

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Jon Kerner

matchbox — Fri, 22 May 2015 15:22:54 +0000

Dr. Jon Kerner joined the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer in 2008 as the Chair of the Primary Prevention Advisory Group and Senior Scientific Advisor, Knowledge Translation. He continues to be engaged with the Partnership full time in his role of Senior Scientific Leader and is based in Toronto. Dr. Kerner obtained a bachelor of science from McGill University and his PhD in community psychology from New York University. He received post-doctoral training in cancer epidemiology, biostatistics and clinical trials design from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. Prior to joining the Partnership, Dr. Kerner spent 20 years as a peer-reviewed and funded researcher at two National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Georgetown University’s Lombardi Cancer Center. His community-based cancer control research integrated behavioural science, cancer epidemiology, and health services research and the development of research, practice, and policy partnerships within low income and medically underserved communities. He served on a large number of national grant review panels and was the first chair of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Community Prevention and Control Study Section (now the Community-Led Health Promotion Study Section). In 2000, Dr. Kerner joined the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as an assistant Deputy Division Director and later Deputy Division Director for Research Dissemination and Diffusion. There, he facilitated the translation of evidence-based interventions into community public health and clinical practice, developed the first NCI dissemination and implementation research funding opportunities and supported NCI, NIH, and Centers for Disease Control collaborative health disparities research initiatives. He received an NIH Directors special merit award for his leadership in the design, development and implementation of the Cancer Control P.L.A.N.E.T., and an NIH Directors award for his work supporting evidence-based cancer control for America’s First Peoples.

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Maureen J. Dobbins

matchbox — Fri, 22 May 2015 15:21:02 +0000

Dr. Dobbins is Associate Professor at McMaster University. Dr. Dobbins’s research efforts have sought to understand knowledge translation and exchange and evidence-informed decision making among public health decision makers. Her studies have included: the uptake of effective cancer prevention approaches (tobacco, physical activity), identification of barriers and facilitators to research use; understanding the information needs of public health decision makers at the local, provincial and federal level; evaluating the use of systematic reviews in provincial policies; exploring where research evidence fits into the decision-making process; evaluating the impact of knowledge translation strategies, and exploring knowledge brokering in public health. Dr. Dobbins brings important experiences from Canada, where she has been a leader in knowledge translation (the Canadian terminology for D&I research).

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Graham A. Colditz

matchbox — Fri, 22 May 2015 15:19:10 +0000

Dr. Colditz is Niess Gain Professor and Chief of the Division of Public Health Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine. He serves as Associate Director for Prevention and Control at Siteman Cancer Center. Dr. Colditz is an internationally recognized leader in cancer prevention and control with an exceptional record of publication (over 870 peer reviewed original articles, over 130 review articles, book chapters, and editorials), a long record of NCI funding, and collaboration with state and national organizations to implement cancer prevention.71 In particular through the 1990s he led efforts to promote colorectal cancer screening nationally and in New England. In the late 1990s he led the development of the web site, Your Disease Risk, which he continues to update and which has over 1,000 unique new users each day. This tool has received numerous awards for its ease of access and serves as a resource for numerous NIH funded research projects including adaptations for use in the primary care setting. For his service to cancer prevention and control he was awarded the ACS Medal of Honor in 2011. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine, of the National Academies, and also to the Academy of Science of St. Louis in 2006. He is the 2012 recipient of the AACR American Cancer Society Award for Excellence in Epidemiology and Prevention.

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Ross C. Brownson

matchbox — Fri, 22 May 2015 15:05:45 +0000

Dr. Brownson is a Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He is involved in numerous community-level studies designed to understand and reduce modifiable cancer risk factors such as physical inactivity, obesity, and tobacco use. In particular, he is interested in the impacts of environmental and policy interventions on health behaviors and he conducts research on D&I of evidence-based interventions. Dr. Brownson is the author of 7 books and over 300 peer-reviewed articles. His books include Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Control, Applied Epidemiology, Handbook of Obesity Prevention, Communicating Public Health Information Effectively: A Guide for Practitioners, and Evidence-Based Public Health. His book (co-edited by Drs. Colditz and Proctor), Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health: Translating Science to Practice, was published early 2012 and is highly relevant for the MT-DIRC. He is associate editor of the Annual Review of Public Health, and on the editorial board of four other journals. He is a former and founding member of the 15-person CDC Task Force developing the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Dr. Brownson is the recipient of the Award for Excellence in Prevention Research and Research Translation in Chronic Disease (2000, from CDC) and the Abraham Lilienfeld Award for outstanding contributions in teaching and mentoring (2003, from APHA). Dr. Brownson began his career as a cancer epidemiologist with the Missouri Department of Health and therefore has strong practice and academic experience in cancer prevention and control. He also has a long track record of NCI funding, receiving his first NCI grant in 1986.

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