The Organizing Committee for Meaningful Community Engagement
The Organizing Committee comprises experts in design and community engagement—community leaders, researchers, designers, and policy advisors—who are diverse in many ways, including geographic location, race/ethnicity, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Their expertise and experiences have guided the Assessing Community Engagement project through conception, development, and implementation of its resources to support assessing engagement.
Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, MD, PhD is a Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine at the School of Medicine, University of California, Davis. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities at UC Davis Health and the Director of the Community Engagement Program of the UCD Clinical Translational Science Center (CTSC). He was co-chair of the NIH/CTSA Community Engagement Key Function Committee, co-chair of the Collaboration/Engagement Domain Task Force Lead Team, co-chair and member of the Lead Team of the Collaboration & Engagement Enterprise Committee’s Health Disparities Workgroup. He is a past member of the National Advisory Mental Health Council (NAMHC), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). He is currently a member of the NIH/National Advisory Council of the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), a member of the National Advisory Council of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) – Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), a member of the and board member of the California Health Care Foundation, Physicians for a Health California, and the Public Health Institute. In early 2022, he was appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Council on Physical Fitness and Mental Well-Being and is the Chair of the Best Practices Subcommittee. He is a national and international expert on health and mental health comorbidities on diverse populations. Over the last 28 years, he has held several World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) advisory board and consulting appointments and is currently a member of the Executive Committee of WHO’s World Mental Health Survey Consortium (WMH) and its Coordinator for Latin America overseeing population-based national surveys of Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina and a regional survey of Brazil, and two surveys of the city of Medellin, Colombia.
Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola’s applied research program has focused on identifying unmet health and mental health needs and associated risk and protective factors to better understand and meet population health and mental health needs and advance equity in health and mental health disparities in underserved populations. He and his team are committed to developing, implementing, evaluation and disseminating models of health/mental health service delivery at the point of need, where patients are at. He is also very active in translating health, mental health, and substance abuse research knowledge into practical information that is of public health value to consumers and their families, health providers, service administrators, and policy makers.
Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola is the author of over 190 publications. He is the recipient of multiple international, national, state, and local awards. Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola was a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM/NRC) Committee on Depression, Parenting Practices, and the Health Development of Young Children (2007-2009) report and a member of the IOM/NRC Women’s Health Research: Progress, Pitfalls, and Promise (2010) report. Since March 2019, Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola has been serving as co-chair of the Steering Committee of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Assessing Meaningful Community Engagement in Health and Health Care.
Dr. Syed M. Ahmed, as Associate Provost and Senior Associate Dean, served as a catalyst for the development of intra and extra-institutional initiatives which advance community engagement. Dr. Ahmed provided leadership in improving the health of the communities served by Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) through community partnerships and integration across the school’s four missions of research, education, patient care and community engagement. He established the first Community Engagement Core as a resource for community partners and academics to catalyze and facilitate CBPR and community engagement. His Office of Community Engagement was instrumental in the successful application for the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement for the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2015. In 2017, MCW was recognized as a finalist by the American Academy of Medical Colleges for the Spencer Foreman Award for outstanding community service. Under his guidance, in 2020, MCW also received the Campus Compact Richard Guarasci Award for Institutional Transformation. Dr. Ahmed has made nationally and internationally recognized contributions to the field of community health, community-academic partnerships, community-based participatory research, and community engaged research (CEnR). He has been an invited expert on community-academic partnership and community-based participatory research at Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and the National Institute of Health (NIH). He was a member of the Council of Public Representatives (COPR), an advisory board to the NIH director and the Co-Chair of the COPR’s Role of the Public in the Research Workgroup, which developed the first framework for Community Engagement in Research, and was adopted by NIH in 2010. Since 2019, he has been a member of the NAM & RWJF steering committee on assessing measures of Community Engagement in Health and Healthcare. Dr. Ahmed also has received numerous federal and foundation grants, presented at a variety of national and international conferences, published numerous academic papers, and book chapters focusing on the health and health care of underserved and uninsured populations, and Community Engagement. His many recognitions for outstanding service to underserved and uninsured communities include the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition in 2000 from the U.S. Congress, the Ohio Quality of Care Award in Service in 2001, the Humanism in Medicine Award in 2001 from the Association of American Medical Colleges, and President T. Michael Bolger award, 2019 from Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Ahmed received degrees in medicine and surgery from the Sir Salimullah Medical College, Dhaka University in Bangladesh and a master’s and a doctorate in Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. He completed a residency and a fellowship in Family Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Family Practice and a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physician.
Ayodola Anise is the Senior Director of Operations working across FasterCures, Center for Public Health, Center for the Future of Aging, and Feeding Change. She brings over two decades of experience in advising on and implementing strategy, leading operations, developing staff, and collaborating meaningfully with internal and external stakeholders for organizational effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. Anise brings programmatic expertise on advancing patient, community, and stakeholder engagement, health and health care quality and equity, patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER), and health payments based on value and population health. Most recently, Anise served as the Deputy Director for the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Leadership Consortium for a Learning Health System, translating the mission and vision into strategic approaches across the areas of culture, inclusion, and equity; evidence generation; digital health; and value incentives and systems. Previously, Anise worked as a Senior Program Officer for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) where she managed a $78 million patient-centered CER portfolio to improve health care systems and health care equity and led initiatives to foster collaboration among researchers and partners. Before joining PCORI, Anise worked at the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution, where she managed a range of initiatives related to health care quality and equity, including efforts with states and hospitals to standardize the collection of race/ethnicity and language data and use the data to reduce disparities. Prior to Brookings, Anise worked as a Senior Associate for the Lewin Group, a health care research and consulting firm, and as a Project Coordinator for a study on women’s health at Georgetown University. Anise earned a BA in English writing with minors in chemistry and biology from the University of Pittsburgh and a Master of Health Science from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
After successfully convening and leading a movement on Return to Culture and Heritage for Africans in America (1987-1992), Atum Azzahir was awarded titles of Elder, Shemsu and Mother of Communities of African People living in the United States, the Caribbean, and the African continent. Atum completed and received her Cultural Doctor of Literature (D-Litt Kemii) from the International Khepran Institute in 2007, where she examined Black life internationally and explored building sustainable cultural institutions in African communities throughout the African Diaspora. She has developed and managed organizations and written and produced materials on African intellectual heritage. She has designed rites of passage programs, initiations, and ceremonies for healing.
The institutions she has founded have created community models for workforce redevelopment, entrepreneurship, and meditation practices in order for the African in America to interface in mainstream communities. People who have studied with Elder Atum are in key leadership positions across the country in various institutions and many have consistently returned for coaching and mentoring for over 24 years.
From 1994 to 1996, Atum mobilized cultural activists in south Minneapolis and designed a community listening participatory study that interviewed 1,000 people. Under her thought leadership, a team articulated a celebrated theory of sickness, a definition of health and a field of study in cultural wellness. Cultural Wellness curriculum from each of the studies Atum has led is available through courses taught to professionals in sectors including academic research, health, community development, education, and economic development.
Kellan Baker is the Executive Director of the Whitman-Walker Institute, which is the research, policy, and education arm of Whitman-Walker, a federally qualified community health center in Washington, DC. Previously Kellan was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he worked on health and data collection policy at the federal and state levels and founded the Out2Enroll campaign (www.out2enroll.org), a partnership with the White House and the US Department of Health and Human Services to connect low-income LGBTQ people with health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Kellan currently serves as a consultant for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on a study assessing the health and well-being of LGBTQI+ populations, and he is an appointed member of an Academies consensus study committee convened to develop standards for the collection of sex, gender, and sexual orientation data for the National Institutes of Health. He holds a PhD in health policy and management from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, an MPH and MA from the George Washington University, and a BA with high honors from Swarthmore College.
Milton “Mickey” Eder, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota, where he directed the Clinical and Translational Science community engagement core and continues to serve on various CTSA external advisory boards. Through community-engaged translational research, he strives to produce some form of immediate community benefit through each project. Long term goals include improving health outcomes by transforming both community and individual relationships to health care and research. His research interests have consistently focused on the study of language and communication as behavior. He has planned and participated in mixed methods research involving practice-based primary care research, patient safety, translational science, community-engagement, and specific health conditions and disparities. He previously served as the director of research and evaluation at Access Community Health Network in Chicago. At this network of federally qualified health centers, he organized and initiated research involving practice improvement, health literacy, and the implementation of evidence-based medicine to improve both the quality of care and health outcomes. He has also served on and chaired biomedical Institutional Review Boards.
Dr. Tekisha Dwan Everette’s passion for social justice was fueled by her personal experiences and influences as a child. As a youth, she experienced delays in diagnosing asthma, and faced challenges accessing and navigating the health care system. These experiences gave Everette first-hand knowledge of the importance of health and health care access. This, combined with her admiration for social justice trailblazers such as Thurgood Marshall, Barbara Jordan, and Sandra Day O’Connor, inspired Everette to dedicate her life’s work toward eradicating health care inequities through advocacy and policy.
Everette has built a successful career in public policy, particularly health care policy, and advocacy in the non-profit, state, and private sectors. Before launching TDE Consulting, she served as the Managing Director of Federal Government Affairs with the American Diabetes Association, where she provided strategic leadership on policy and advocacy initiatives with the White House, several federal agencies, and Congress, which led to important victories for people with and at risk for diabetes. Prior to this, Everette worked as a government relations consultant with Drinker, Biddle, and Reath, LLC, where she represented the interests of several nonprofit health care organizations on issues such as health reform, Medicare, Medicaid, and federal appropriations. Everette has also worked for the Service Employees International Union, RESI, the State of Maryland, and the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. She currently serves as the Executive Vice President for Trust For America’s Health (TFAH). In this role, she works in partnership with TFAH’s President and CEO to chart and implement the organization’s strategic direction and priorities, provides counsel on current and emerging policy issues, and engages with key organizations, policymakers, and other partners to advance policy priorities to improve public health and promote equity.
Everette has earned a doctor of philosophy in Sociology from American University with a concentration in race, gender, and social justice as it relates to social policy. She received her Master’s of Public Administration (MPA) degree from the Center of Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (popularly known as Virginia Tech) and holds two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and Interdisciplinary Studies from the same institution. Everette is an alumna of the Masters Series for Distinguished Leaders and the National Urban Fellows America’s Leaders of Change program. She is a lifetime member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the Association of Black Sociologists.
When Everette is not advocating for health care policy and social justice, she enjoys fulfilling her thirst for cultural enrichment through travel. She believes seeing the world helps one to expand their worldview and cultural understanding and her goal is to visit every US city and touch every continent at least once. In her spare time, Everette enjoys listening to music, writing poetry, dancing, and cooking.
Kim is a professor of design and healthcare researcher with expertise is applying human-centered design to healthcare’s frontline problems. She directs the Equitable Healthcare Lab at the Institute of Design, which helps develop strategies and services for inclusive healthcare delivery. Kim works with community members, community-based organizations, health systems and healthcare providers such the University of Chicago Medicine, Rosalind Franklin University and Rush University.
Kim’s research blends human-centered design and implementation science to develop interventions that people want and will use. She has developed and piloted frontline solutions in diverse care settings, for diverse patient populations, and for a broad number of health conditions including sickle cell, asthma, COPD, and high-risk pregnancy. Currently funded projects target interventions for clinical effectiveness, with support from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institute of Health.
Kim is also a writer and strategist, with twenty years’ experience in innovation consulting. Her book, Communicating the New: Methods to Shape and Accelerate Innovation, describes communication methods that help teams create and diffuse critical knowledge inside organizations.
I became involved with community engagement and Community-based Practice Research nearly 20 years ago through my work with High Plains Research Network (HPRN) when the Community Advisory Council (C.A.C.) was formed in eastern Colorado. Through HPRN and the C.A.C, I have been involved in every stage of a research project—from idea conception through publication and presentation. The research conducted in our rural communities has been fun, meaningful, and successful; it has shown positive impact on the health of our communities. My community engagement work has grown from this experience; I continually collaborate on research teams and with projects as a community advisor and sometimes as a co-investigator. A native to northeastern Colorado, I recently retired from a long career at Northeastern Junior College, the local 2-year college, to assist with the daily operations of Felzien Farms, the family dry-land farm and cattle ranch. My husband and I have a daughter named Ella.
Elmer R. Freeman, MSW, PhD(c) is the Executive Director of the Center for Community Health Education Research and Service, Inc. (CCHERS) a community/academic partnership promoting engagement through education, research, and service. He has 40+ years experience in Boston’s communities of color as a community organizer, social work clinician, health center administrator, public health practitioner, and more recently as community researcher. His leadership of CCHERS has led to its recognition as a national model of a community/academic partnership promoting community engaged partnered research. Appointed by President Bush in 2007, he served a four-year term on the Council of Public Representatives, an advisory committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health, two years under President Obama. He is Co-Founder of the Community Health and Academic Medicine Partnership (CHAMP) with Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. CCHERS’ Boston BRI … DGE (Building Research Instructure, in the community … Developing Genuine Engagement, in the academy) has been funded consistently by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) part of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.
For more than 30 years, David Gibbs has led, managed, and supported strategic initiatives, projects and programs designed to create healthier, more equitable and sustainable communities across the USA.
He’s offered leadership, technical assistance, training, and process facilitation to 1) build highly effective leadership teams, coalitions, and organizations; 2) develop and implement community action plans, and 3) to deepen engagement and impact in communities most-affected by inequities.
Currently, he is leading the development of a 70+ Unit, mixed-income, mixed-use project with supportive services for Zion Hill, CDC in East Point, Georgia. During the predevelopment phase, he has secured resources for a market study, design-build cost model, pro-forma development and a LIHTC competitiveness assessment for the project – as well as the revision of preliminary architectural schemes.
Recently, David has managed several initiatives to advance equity and race equity for national and regional organizations. One such effort is the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s DEI Organizational Development process – Discovery/Data-collection, Equity Grounding, Program/Policy Audit-Assessment, Solutions Development, Action-Learning, and Institutionalization/Sustainability of more equitable policies and practices.
Previously, David served as a capacity-building technical assistance provider, strategic planner and leadership coach for numerous Health Equity community coalitions funded by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), the YMCA of the USA, and numerous other federal, national, and regional change-makers.
Prior, David spent nine years in philanthropy as a Program Officer, Senior Program Officer, and Director of Community Partnerships for two of the Top-25 Community Foundations in the nation (Milwaukee, WI & Atlanta, GA). In these roles he co-designed, launched and led several place-based and strategic community health initiatives focused on policy, systems, and environmental changes to a) promote healthier lifestyles; b) examine and identify the intersections of homelessness and healthcare; to c) formulate a philanthropic response to the region’s health safety-net; and d) work with a national advisory committee to engage HIV/AIDS social service providers in a strategic reorganization of the Atlanta AIDS Partnership Fund. He also led the Youth Civic Engagement Initiative (MKE), to promote and increase the opportunities for youth participation in public, civic, and community boards, committees, and councils – initiating and engaging several key partnerships with the Milwaukee Public Schools, the Regional Workforce Investment Agency (WIA), and Milwaukee County Government.
David’s early career centered around children, youth, and Family development with YMCAs in both Wilmington, DE and Milwaukee, WI; as well as the Youth Leadership Academy (MKE) – working with over 125 African American males in 3rd-12th grades (annually) – developing academic and cultural knowledge, as well as social and leadership skills – through a project-based, experiential learning curriculum.
David has a BA in Psychology from the University of Delaware, and a Certification in Accountability, Measurement & Evaluation certification from the Eisenhower Foundation. He’s a Hull Leaders in Philanthropy Fellow, and a founding member of the Southeastern Network of African Americans in Philanthropy. He’s served two terms on the Board of Directors for Voices for Georgia’s Children – including one term as policy committee chair.
Ella Greene-Moton has an extensive background in public health advocacy, public health policy, community-based participatory research and programming, spanning the past 40+ years in the City of Flint and surrounding areas. In addition, specific efforts in public health ethics have focused on providing an awareness at the community level, developing and elevating the community voice and advocating for community inclusiveness at the state and national Levels. Her areas of expertise include facilitating community/academic/practice partnership building and sustainability; developing, managing and evaluating community-based projects; and training programs for graduate students, community members, as well as middle and high school students partnering with community-based organizations, schools and public health agencies.
Ella joined the Flint Odyssey House, Inc. Health Awareness Center in 1995 and served as its assistant director from 1998-2005. She served from 2006-2019 as a community education coordinator and “Bridge” at the Center for Public Health and Community Genomics at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. She currently serves as the Community Based Organization Partners Community Ethics Review Board administrator and the executive consultant and co-chair of the Flint/Genesee Partnership, Health in Our Hands project. She also serves as an independent community-academic consultant working with other academic institutions nationally that are engaged in community based participatory research with their local communities.
On the state, regional and national levels, Ella is a member of the Michigan Public Health Association Board of Directors and serves as the Michigan Affiliate Representative to the Governing Council of the American Public Health Association. She represents Michigan on the Great Lakes Public Health Coalition and serves as the Regional Representative for Region V on the Council on Affiliates. In addition, and along with five of her MIPHA colleagues, Ella serves as a Cohort 10 and 11 Fellow of the Leadership Academy for the Public’s Health Michigan Health Equity Team.
Sinsi Hernández-Cancio is a national health and health care equity policy and advocacy thought leader with extensive experience spanning the government, labor, and non-profit arenas, dedicated to advancing equal opportunity for women and families of color and advocating for better health care access and quality for all. Sinsi believes our shared prosperity depends on transforming our health care system to meet the needs of our rapidly evolving nation so that it provides excellent, comprehensive, culturally centered and affordable care for every single person, family and community, which requires dismantling structural racism and other systemic inequities. Born in Puerto Rico, she holds a JD from NYU Law and an AB from Princeton University.
Felica Jones is the Executive Director at HAAF. She is committed to decreasing health disparities in Los Angeles County by addressing the Social Determinants of Health in South Los Angeles and the surrounding communities. Over the past 20 years, Ms. Jones has worked on numerous research projects in various roles from Community Researcher to Co-Investigator, addressing diverse topics as autism, depression, preterm pregnancy, diabetes, asthma, and more. She is a co-author on more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and has provided mentorship and training to junior researchers and community members. She views Community Partnered Participatory Research (CPPR) as a key method for improving community participation in research. Ms. Jones was one of the members of the partnership that received the 2015 UCLA Landmark Program of the Year Award, the 2015 Community Campus Partnerships for Health Award, and the 2014 Joint Team Science Award given by the Association for Clinical and Translational Science and the American Federation for Medical Research for Community Partners in Care, an NIH-funded CPPR project on depression in under-resourced communities.
Grant Jones is the founder and former executive director of the Center for African-American Health a community based organization dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of African Americans in metro Denver. At the Center he developed a number of innovative programs and community partnerships focused on Senior Wellness; Diabetes Self-Management; Home Blood Pressure Management Initiatives; Breast Cancer Patient Navigation and a host of community-based participatory research projects.
From 1988 until 2001, Jones was a program officer at the Denver based Piton Foundation where his work centered on strengthening neighborhoods and resident leadership development. There he spearheaded a number of philanthropic initiatives to expand the role of faith-based groups and in support of innovation in strengthening families, neighborhood improvement and building resident leadership capacity.
He has served on a number of boards and commissions, including the Colorado Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform, as board member of the Colorado Health Foundation, the PACT Council of the University of Colorado’s CTSA and as co-chair of the National Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute’s (PCORI) Addressing Health Disparities Panel.
In recognition of his leadership and life-long commitment to community improvement, Jones has received a number of awards and commendations including, the Dr. Bernard F. Gipson Sr. Health Leadership Award. He is a distinguished graduate of Regis University and in 2005, Regis presented him with their highest honor–Civis Princeps (First Citizen) Award. Grant received an Honorary Doctorate in Public Service presented by the Denver Institute of Urban Studies and Adult Education College in Denver; In 2006 he received the Lifetime Champion in Health Award presented by the Denver Business Journal and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Marita Jones, MPH (Dine’/Navajo), Executive Director, Healthy Native Communities Partnership, Inc.
Marita is Bitterwater Clan, born for Manygoats clan, maternal grandfathers are Folded Arms clan, and paternal grandfathers are Towering House clan. I am from the western part of the Navajo Nation and get to work in Shiprock, NM near the 4-corners area.
As the Executive Director of Healthy Native Communities Partnership, Inc. (HNCP), I bring over 30 years of experience in working with communities of diverse cultures throughout Indian country. My interest has been in connecting with local community to realize their own vision of wellness. Our vision is for healthy and strong Indigenous communities. We do this through our programs: Native Wellness Resource Network & Creating Community Circles for Change – we host opportunities for people to connect and share the wisdom for health and wellbeing; Native Health Communications Center – we support Native community voices for wellness through Digital Storytelling and Social Marketing and by; working with Tribes, organizations and agencies through custom designed consultation and training.
Dmitry Khodyakov (PhD in Sociology, Rutgers University; MA in Economy and Society, Central European University) is a Senior Behavioral/Social Scientist at RAND, a co-director of RAND Center for Qualitative and Mixed Methods, and a Professor of Policy Analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His research focuses on online methods of expert elicitation and stakeholder engagement, community-based participatory research, ethics of stakeholder-engaged research, and Medicare Advantage benefit design and innovations. As a methodologist, he specializes in qualitative and mixed-methods research and Delphi-based methodologies. He is a developer of ExpertLens, an innovative online system and methodology for conducting modified-Delphi panels. Dr. Khodyakov is currently co-leading evaluations of two large CMS model tests: Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design and Part D Senior Savings models. Some of his recent studies include a PCORI-funded project that developed an online approach to engaging patients in clinical guideline development, an NIH-funded project that identified best practices for participant and stakeholder engagement in the All of Us Research Program, and an NIH-funded project on ethics of stakeholder engaged research. Dr. Khodyakov is currently serving on the National Academy of Medicine’s Committee on Assessing Meaningful Community Engagement in Health & Health Care.
Lloyd Michener, MD is a family physician focused on linking health care, public health and community health. At Duke, he founded the division of Community Health and the Center for Community Research, and served as Chair of the Department of Community and Family Medicine for more than twenty years. He now serves as emeritus Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health, Duke School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor, Public Health Leadership, UNC School of Public Health.
Lloyd founded and leads the “Practical Playbook”, with the support of the deBeaumont Foundation, CDC and HRSA, linking disparate communities with health care and public health. He also serves as Chair of the Board of the Foundation for Health Leadership and Innovation, and is a member of the National Academies of Medicine Workgroup on Assessing Meaningful Community Engagement.
Nationally, he has served as the founding Co-Chair of the Community Engagement Steering Committee for the Clinical and Translational Science Awards of the NIH; a member of the (then) Institute of Medicine Committee on Integrating Primary Care and Public Health; the Board of Directors of the Association of Academic Medical Colleges; the NIH Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine; and as President of the Association for Prevention, Teaching and Research. His awards include the Mead Johnson Award from the AAFP and the Duncan Clark Award from APTR.
Lloyd is a graduate of Oberlin College, Harvard Medical School, and family medicine residency and Kellog fellowship at Duke.
Bobby Milstein, PhD, MPH, is Director of System Strategy for ReThink Health and the Rippel Foundation, as well as a Visiting Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management. With an educational background that combines cultural anthropology, behavioral science, and systems science, he concentrates on efforts to spark large-scale institutional and cultural change. He works with innovators who see themselves — and others — as shared stewards in a movement for well-being and justice. Bobby was lead editor of “Thriving Together: A Springboard for Equitable Recovery and Resilience in Communities Across America.” He is a member of the National Academies Roundtable on Population Health Improvement, co-founder of the Well Being in the Nation Network, and a frequent design consultant for new endeavors that advance the dynamic and democratic frontiers of shared stewardship. Previously, Bobby spent 20 years planning and evaluating system-oriented initiatives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he was the principal architect of CDC’s framework for program evaluation. He received CDC’s Honor Award for Excellence in Innovation, the Applications Award from the System Dynamics Society, as well as Article of the Year awards for papers published in Health Affairs and Health Promotion Practice.
Michael Orban (Dr. H) is a Vietnam War combat veteran who experienced significant readjustment challenges on returning to civilian life and culture. He then served in the U.S. Peace Corps Africa and USAID Cameroon, Africa.
Having lost a brother and friend to suicide Michael considers the veteran and family as the primary health care unit and focuses much of his attention on here. He was presented with the Red Cross Real Heroes Award in 2013. Mike received his Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2018 for his work concerning Veteran’s health.
Michael Orban co-founded The Warrior Partnership, a Medical College of Wisconsin program that offers veterans the opportunity to share their traumatic war experiences with medical students and offers students the chance to understand how to integrate the unique needs of the military veteran community into their care. He serves on the MCW Community-Academic Advisory Board for Milwaukee PROMPT (Prevention of Opioid Misuse through Peer Training project), a collaboration between MCW and local veterans that is developing innovative ways to address opioid deaths, misuse and disorder among veterans.
He is a member of the Southeastern Wisconsin Veteran Suicide Prevention Task Force, Betherewis.org, the Medical College of Wisconsin Captain John D. Mason Veteran Peer Outreach Program and supports various community engagement organizations.
Michael is the author of “Souled Out, Conquering the Experiences of War” and is the Co-Host of the podcast Stigma Free Vet Zone. Michael is married to Diane and resides in Wisconsin.
Debra Oto-Kent, MPH, is Founder and Executive Director of the Health Education Council, a nonprofit organization committed to promoting health and wellness in underserved communities.
For 30 years since its founding in 1991, the Health Education Council has worked at the forefront of cross-sector collaboration to create innovative, model programs promoting community well-being. In 2016, the organization received an Innovation Award from the California Department of Public Health and has twice (2016 and 2021) been named a Nonprofit of the Year for its work to reduce health inequities in the Sacramento region.
Ms. Oto-Kent received her undergraduate degree in health science studies from San Diego State University and a Master’s in Public Health degree from UCLA’s School of Public Health. She has written and presented extensively on her primary areas of expertise – coalition building among diverse stakeholders, community engagement and improving the public’s health with an emphasis on reducing health disparities. She serves on Boards and Committees in the region and is the recipient of a variety of awards and recognitions for her work.
Dr. Pusch has dedicated his career to changing the way society perceives and responds to bio-physical differences often mis-characterized as “disabilities”. From conducting research which advanced strength-based narratives, to teaching lay persons, professionals, graduate, and undergraduate students, to starting and leading not-for-profit corporations, he continues to promote and support the real world, lived-experience of persons with complex care needs.
At the Commonwealth Care Alliance (CCA), he serves as the Member Centricity Innovation and Strategy Consultant supporting the work of the Chief Experience Officer, overseeing CCA’s employee Disability Awareness training, and designing a member ombudsman program. Prior to his current responsibilities, he served as the Consulting Director of the Member Voices program and established a framework for the company’s Accessibility and Accommodations program.
Before joining CCA, he engaged in several career opportunities including designing and serving as the Director of the One Care Ombudsman Office at MassHealth, founding and running the Statewide Independent Living Council of Illinois, serving as the CEO of the Austin Resource Center for Independent Living, and establishing the Center for Independence in Washington State.
As an educator, he is considered a thought leader in disability models and healthcare. Burt has conducted educational programming for numerous groups such as: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Rehabilitation Services Administration, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology of North America, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and the Purdy Prison Pet Partnership.
Mona Shah, director, Research, joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2014. Drawing on her deep commitment to research and its potential to impact health and healthcare, she praises the Foundation’s work in making its extensive research accessible to the public and policymakers alike. As both a researcher and expert in health policy, Mona is involved in the process of understanding and measuring key health and healthcare issues essential to the Foundation’s overarching strategy to move our nation toward a Culture of Health.
Before joining the Foundation, Mona served as associate director of federal relations at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) in Washington. In this role she led and executed the organization’s strategy related to prevention, access to care, safety net programs, and health equity. Previously, as ACS CAN’s senior policy analyst, she managed a cancer prevention portfolio and led evaluation of healthcare reform efforts focused on prevention, early detection, and health equity.
Her prior experience includes leading epidemiologic research at the United States Military Cancer Institute, the New York City Department of Health, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–School of Public Health. Her published research covers cancer disparities, incidence and mortality, tobacco use, obesity, asthma, and utilization and access to clinical prevention services.
Mona earned her PhD in epidemiology from George Washington University, her MPH in epidemiology from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and her BA in Biology and Society from Cornell University. She also is a founder of Subcontinental Drift—a nationwide South Asian American artistic coalition that fosters and provides a supportive and inclusive community for creative expression, community engagement, and positive social change.
A New Jersey native, Mona resides in Princeton, N.J., with her husband and their two kids. She enjoys travel, listening to live music, and watching political dramas on TV.
Monique Shaw, senior program officer, joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in 2019. A committed public health practitioner, she draws upon her prior work in health education, health policy research, program coordination, and community outreach to support systems change and build a Culture of Health that provides everyone in America a fair and just opportunity for health and well-being. Shaw is a practicing full spectrum doula supporting and advocating for birthing people of color and low-income families, throughout their reproductive health journeys, to make informed decisions about their care. Shaw earned her doctorate in health policy from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, a Master of Public Health from Drexel University with a focus on community health and prevention, and a BS in psychology from Howard University.
Merri Sheffield served as a Community Leader with the Assessing Meaningful Community Engagement In Health & Health Care effort until she passed in April 2022. She was a member of the Citizen Advisory Council at the West Atlanta Watershed Association and Partnership for Southern Equity and worked at Because, Inc. She was a communications professional with a background in education, health care, housing, and government, and her passion for community and civic engagement and advocating for a wide variety of issues and populations shone throughout her work. To read more about Merri’s life, please visit the link here.
Julie Tarrant is an Associate Program Officer at the National Academy of Medicine, where she supports the Culture of Health Program and the Assessing Meaningful Community Engagement in Health and Health Care project of the Leadership Consortium: Collaboration for a Value & Science-Driven Health System. Previously, she was the Director of Production and Editorial Quality at a digital fundraising and advocacy firm in DC, serving clients that include organizations combating climate change and environmental threats, educator burnout, and gun violence. Her volunteer experience includes grant writing to support mutual aid efforts and tutoring first-generation college aspirants. Julie has a BA in English literature from Texas A&M University.
Nina Wallerstein, Dr.P.H, Distinguished Professor of Public Health, College of Population Health; Director, Center for Participatory Research (http://cpr.unm.edu), University of New Mexico (UNM), has been developing community based participatory research (CBPR) and empowerment/Freirian interventions for over 40 years. Among 170 publications, her book, Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) for Health: Advancing Social and Health Equity, 3rd edition, 2018, is viewed as a field-defining work. In 2016, she was awarded the inaugural UNM Community Engaged Research Lecture. Since 2006, she has had NIH-funding, Engage for Equity (E2), as Principal Investigator to identify best practices for community-engaged and CBPR projects that contribute to health equity outcomes, also providing a collective reflection/action toolkit to strengthen partnerships (https://engageforequity.org). Her current PCORI engagement award is assessing the capacity to scale up Engage for Equity to Academic Health Center policies and practices. She has worked with N.M. tribal partners for over 25 years with CDC & NIH funding to co-develop and establish effectiveness for an evidence-based intergenerational culture-centered family program. She also works internationally, particularly in Brazil, providing CBPR workshops and supporting a participatory research network. She has won over $25 million in funding. Dr. Wallerstein oversees the annual UNM CBPR summer institute in indigenous and critical methodologies, which draws participants globally.
John M (Jack) Westfall is a family doctor in Washington, DC and Director of the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care. He completed his MD and MPH at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, an internship in hospital medicine in Wichita, Kansas, and his Family Medicine Residency at the University of Colorado Rose Family Medicine Program. After joining the faculty at the University of Colorado Department of Family Medicine, Dr. Westfall started the High Plains Research Network, a geographic community and practice-based research network in rural and frontier Colorado. He practiced family medicine in several rural communities including Limon, Ft Morgan, and his hometown of Yuma, Colorado.
The High Plains Research Network aspires to a participatory research approach that includes an active Community Advisory Council. Meeting regularly for the past 15 year, C.A.C. members participate in all aspects of the research, from topic identification, research questions, methodology, interpretation of results, and dissemination. C.A.C. members have presented at numerous state, national, and international research conferences and serve as co-authors on dozens of peer-reviewed manuscripts. In his current role as Director of the Robert Graham Center for policy studies in primary care and family medicine, Dr. Westfall works to integrate a participatory approach into policy research.
Asia Williams is an Associate Program Officer at the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Leadership Consortium Collaboration for a Learning Health System. In this role she leads the Culture Inclusion & Equity Action Collaborative. Before this role, Asia attended Drexel University, where she studied health management and policy and received her MPH. At Drexel, she also conducted quality improvement research for intensive care units at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals and federally qualified health centers for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. Asia also received her BS in Human Services at Northeastern University. She has strong interests in social determinants of health research and promoting meaningful patient, family, and community engagement in developing and implementing equitable and sustainable health and health care programs and policies.
Richard Zaldivar is a nationally renowned and well-respected leader in both the Latino and LGBTQ communities. Based in Los Angeles, California, he is often sought for his expertise, leadership and strategic thinking in the topics of community engagement, empowerment, HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, mental health, LGBTQ issues, faith and community politics. Richard is the founder and executive director of The Wall Las Memorias Project, a ground-breaking community health and wellness organization dedicated to serving Latino, LGBTQ and other underserved populations through advocacy, education and building the next generation of leadership. Under his guidance, The Wall Las Memorias Project built the United States’ first publicly funded AIDS monument located in East Los Angeles. The organization continues to grow through community leadership and empowerment campaigns involving hundreds of thousands of Latino and LGBTQ community residents to address HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, mental health and the sudden rise of crystal meth.
Richard has long been a political force in local, state, national and international politics. In 2016, he was recognized by President Obama at the White House LGBTQ Pride Reception. In 2020, he was instrumental in establishing the Biden campaign’s headquarters and presence in Los Angeles and was elected as a delegate for “Joe Biden for President” and appointed to the Democratic Platform Committee. Richard has been honored by numerous organizations, elected officials and corporate entities. In 2012, the California State Legislature’s Latino Caucus presented Richard with the “Spirit Award,” and in 2013, the LGBT Caucus awarded him the “Pride Award,” making Richard the only person to receive awards from multiple caucuses from the California State Legislature. The Los Angeles Pride Parade honored Richard both in 2013 with the “Connie Norman Spirit Award” and in 2016 as one of the “Legends of Pride.” Most recently he was awarded the Zaragoza Award by UPEXT in 2021.
His effort to lead the Act Now Against Meth Coalition and formation of the Los Angeles Platform on Meth in 2020-2022 led the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to address thirty-two recommendations from the coalition. The effort has been recognized by the United States Academy of Medicine as a promising practice in community engagement.
Resources to help measure community engagement
1: Conceptual Model
Presents the dynamic relationship between community engagement & outcomes.
2: Impact Stories
Demonstrates how groups have engaged their communities & the outcomes observed.
3: Assessment Instruments
Presents Instruments & questions used in different contexts & communities to assess engagement.
Project Homepage
Get the background on the project, information on the organizing committee, and more.
Contact Information
We want to hear from you!
Assessing community engagement involves the participation of many stakeholders. Click below to share feedback on these resources, insights on using the resources, or email [email protected] and include “measure engagement” in the subject line to learn more about the NAM’s Assessing Community Engagement project.
