Elizabeth Crouch, PhD
Director, Rural and Minority Health Research Center Research Interests: Health Policy; Health Economics; Access to Care in Rural and Underserved Populations
Center Faculty & Staff
Peiyin Hung, PhD
Deputy Director, Rural and Minority Health Research Center Research Interests: Health Disparity; Health Care Quality; Maternal and Child Health; Access to Care; Consumer Choice
Demetrius Abshire, PhD, RN
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Obesity Prevention and Treatment; Men’s Health; Rural Health Disparities; Social Determinants of Health
Christina Andrews, PhD
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Impact of the Organization and Financing of Addiction Treatment on Service Access; Gender, Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Treatment Service Access; Adoption of Medications to Treat Opioid Use Disorder
Gabriel Benavidez, PhD
Outside Investigator/Research Interests: Healthcare Quality, Access,Utilization; Cancer Screening/Health Outcomes; Chronic Disease Prevention; Causal Inference Methods
Kevin Bennett, PhD
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Care Delivery for Vulnerable Populations; Quality Improvement Research
Emma Boswell, MPH
Research Associate/Research Interests: Maternal and Child Health; Social Determinants of Health; Adverse Childhood Experiences; Health Disparities; Perinatal Epidemiology
Jennifer Browder, LMSW
Maternal and Child Health Projects Coordinator/Research Interests: Maternal and Child Health; Community Health; Mental Health
Monique J. Brown-Smith, PhD, MPH
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: HIV Intervention and Prevention; Childhood Trauma; Social, Behavioral and Mental Health; Aging
Pam Gillam
Affiliated Investigator/Director, Core for Applied Research and Evaluation, Office of Research
Janie Godbold
Business Operations Specialist/Expertise: Business Manager; Pre- and Post-Award Management; Graduate Student Liaison; HR contact
Sayward Harrison, PhD
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Improving the health and wellbeing of youth who are impacted by acute and chronic health conditions
Anna Hoppmann MD, MPH
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Childhood cancer disparities, cancer epidemiology, social determinants of health
Daniel J. Kilpatrick, PhD, MPH, CEPR
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Environmental Health; Epidemiology; Emergency Management; Disaster Risk Reduction
Jihong Liu, Sc.D.
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Perinatal Epidemiology; Obesity and Physical Activity in Mothers and Children; Health Disparities; Reproductive Health; International Health
Mary-Katherine McNatt, Dr.PH, MPH
Outside Investigator/Research Interests: Rural and Border Health; American Indian Health Inequities; Public Health Preparedness; Online Transformational and Applied Education
Alexander C. McLain, PhD
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Problems that Arise in Biomedical Studies with Longitudinal Biomarkers
Melinda A. Merrell, PhD, MPH
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Rural Health Care Delivery; Rural Hospital Closures; Emergency Medicine; Community Health Development; Social Determinants of Health
Nabil Natafgi, PhD, MPH, CPH
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Quality of Care and Patient Safety; Performance Measurement and Reporting; Telehealth Effectiveness and Evaluation; Patient-Centered Outcomes
Cassie Odahowski, PhD, MPH
Research Associate/Research Interests: Rural and Racial Health Disparities; Access to Care; Social Epidemiology
Bankole Olatosi, PhD
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Managing Teams and Conducting Quantitative Analyses; Building System Capacity; Working with Different Stakeholders in Healthcare
Dwayne Porter, PhD, MS
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Exploring and expanding the increasingly important roles that technology and technological innovations play in monitoring, assessing, modeling, and managing our coastal environmental resources and associated environmental and public health issues
Stella Self, PhD, MS
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Bayesian Spatio-Temporal Modeling; Spatial Clustering Analysis; Disease Forecasting; Random Effects Models; and Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods
Hayden Smith, PhD
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System; Suicide and Self-Injurious Behaviors in Corrections; Officer Safety and Well-Being; Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA); Standards of Care; Program Evaluation
Myriam E. Torres, PhD, MSPH
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Hispanic/Latino Health; International Health; HIV/AIDS
Michael Wirth, PhD, MSPH
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Effects of circadian rhythm disruption on the human body and various health outcomes; dietary sources of inflammation; physical activity; stress on health
Lauren Workman, PhD, MPH
Affiliated Investigator/Research Interests: Community Health Development; Maternal and Child Health; Access to Healthcare; Qualitative Methods
Whitney Zahnd, PhD
Outside Investigator/Research Interests: Rural Health; Cancer Disparities; Access to Care; Spatial Epidemiology; Social Epidemiology
Graduate Research Associates
Shanikque Blackwell Barksdale, MPH, CHES
Research Interests: Health Disparity; Rural Health; Maternal and Child Health; Telehealth Effectiveness and Evaluation; Patient/Community Engagement
Nick Yell, MS
Research Interests: Time Series Analysis; Survival Analysis; Quality of Life and Health; Study/Experimental Design