Bev Baker
Chief Impact Officer, United Way
beverley@unitedwaychampaign.org
Bev Baker works directly with issues and needs facing young children, their families, and the community as a whole. She considers herself a problem solver and works with community partners, elected officials, and concerned residents and volunteers to address some of the most challenging needs facing Champaign County. She has been a member of the United Way team since 2007.
Brandi Barnes
Research Scientist, College of Applied Health Sciences
bbarnes@illinois.edu
Dr. Brandi Barnes' primary role is to work with faculty, administration, and external stakeholders to identify, expand, and support new initiatives aimed at reducing health disparities. Dr. Barnes also serves as a program coordinator for the Community-Academic Scholars Initiative, where she mentors undergraduates during a ten-week community-based research experience. In addition, she works with the Health Sciences Data Analytics Core at IHSI to collect and analyze data for strategic planning.
Allen Barton
Assistant Professor, Human Development and Family Studies, Extension Faculty Specialist
awbarton@illinois.edu
Allen Barton’s family-centered prevention science research uses basic and applied methods to promote the health and well-being of children, adults, and families. He investigates what makes some families strong and resilient. Barton seeks effective interventions for strengthening families and fostering positive youth development.
Liza Berdychevsky
Associate Professor, Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism
lizabk@illinois.edu
Dr. Liza Berdychevsky’s research revolves at the nexus of health and well-being in leisure and tourism contexts, adopting a gender-sensitive and a life course-grounded approach. In her work, she focuses on risky behaviors and vulnerable populations, exploring the impacts of risk taking on health and well-being. Specifically, Dr. Berdychevsky examines two interrelated aspects of health and risk behaviors that have gained little attention in both leisure and tourism literature.
Candi Crause
Infectious Disease Director, Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department
ccrause@c-uphd.org
Karen Crawford Simms
Founding Executive Director, Trauma & Resilience Initiative, Inc.
Karen@traumaresilienceinc.org
Karen Crawford Simms is an experienced consultant, trainer, facilitator, and coach. She has spent her career advocating for individuals, families and communities who have been marginalized because of race, gender, sexual orientation/identity, health, or their socioeconomic status. She is the founder of Trauma & Resilience Initiative, Inc. (TRI) a not for profit that trains, educates, advocates for, and promotes resilience and justice for individuals, families, organizations, and communities.
Kristen DiFilippo
Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health for the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Program
kdifilip@illinois.edu
Kristen DiFilippo's research explores the optimization of health through nutrition education for behavior change. Her work focuses on the evaluation and use of mobile app-based strategies to support the management and prevention of chronic diseases. Her recent work also centers on reducing food insecurity in rural communities.
Sharon Donovan
Professor and Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health; Director of the Personalized Nutrition Initiative
sdonovan@illinois.edu
Whitney Greger
Director Wellness & Health Promotion, Champaign-Urbana Public Health District
wgreger@c-uphd.org
Rachel Hoopsick
Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health
hoopsick@illinois.edu
Dr. Rachel Hoopsick utilizes epidemiologic methods and a socioecological lens to understanding risk and resilience for problems with substance use and mental health among populations with high-stress occupations and life circumstances. Her research has primarily focused on military populations, with a particular focus on never-deployed service members and veterans. Dr. Hoopsick also has substantial applied epidemiology and evaluation experience.
August Jenkins
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Human Development and Family Studies
aj34@illinois.edu
August Jenkins is a postdoctoral researcher in the Human Development and Family Studies department at the University of Illinois. Her research program examines socio-ecological determinates of couple/family functioning and mental health across multiple timescales for Black Americans from an intersectional perspective. The ultimate aim of her work is to remediate disparities and enhance the relational and mental health for Black Americans by producing and translating culturally relevant research for prevention and policy efforts.
Naiman Khan
Associate Professor; Associate Head for Research, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health
nakhan2@illinois.edu
Dr. Naiman Khan currently leads the Body Composition and Nutritional Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Illinois. His research has taken a multidisciplinary approach to integrate knowledge in the areas of nutrition, kinesiology, and cognitive neuroscience to understand the influence of health behaviors on specific aspects of attention, memory, and achievement. The overarching objective of his research program is to generate foundational knowledge in translating the impact of health behaviors to childhood cognitive function.
Hillary Klonoff-Cohen
Saul J. Morse & Anne B. Morgan Professor, College of Applied Health Sciences
klonoffc@illinois.edu
Professor Hillary Klonoff-Cohen integrates biological, behavioral, cultural, and socio-political aspects of disease and disease prevention. Her current research focuses on the barriers, concerns, successes, and risks of fertility preservation in girls and women of reproductive age with cancer, late effects and risky behaviors among childhood cancer survivors, and training of primary care physicians about caring for cancer survivors.
Karen Kramer
Associate Professor, Department of Human Development and Family Studies
kramr@illinois.edu
Laurie Kramer
Emeritus Professor in Applied Family Studies, Northeastern University
l.kramer@northeastern.edu
Dr. Laurie Kramer is Professor of Applied Psychology and Director of the University Honors Program at Northeastern University. She is also a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in the State of Illinois. Dr. Kramer was the founding Director of the Family Resiliency Center and The Pampered Chef Family Resiliency Program at the University of Illinois. Kramer’s research focuses on the mechanisms by which young children can develop positive relationships with their siblings.
Amy Leman
Assistant Professor, Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications Program
bunselme@illinois.edu
Dr. Amy Leman advances the understanding of effective strategies for teaching and learning in both K-12 classrooms and out-of-school time programs in community settings. Her work is informed by her background as a 4-H youth development educator and belief in youth empowerment. She currently teaches in the Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications program at the University of Illinois.
Christy Lleras
Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies
christylleras@gmail.com
Dr. Christy Lleras has conducted empirical research on racial disparities in socioemotional and cognitive development, mental health, educational attainment, and labor market outcomes with an emphasis on neighborhood and school-level factors for over 20 years. Dr. Lleras also teaches several graduate courses as well as an undergraduate course at the University of Illinois.
Sheena Martenies
Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health
smarte4@illinois.edu
Dr. Sheena Martenies’ research is focused on the independent and joint effects of ambient and pollution and neighborhood-level exposures on childhood health outcomes. In particular, she is interested in studying prenatal and early-life exposures to traffic emissions, features of the build environment, and social determinants like poverty influence birth weight, childhood obesity, and other indicators of long-term health risk.
Brent McBride
Director, Child Development Lab; Professor, Department of Human Development and Family Studies
brentmcb@illinois.edu
Dr. Brent McBride is a professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies and also serves as the Director of the Child Development Laboratory (CDL) program, and as a Professor of Nutritional Sciences. As Director of the CDL, he has been actively engaged in working with investigators from a variety of disciplines on the UIUC campus as they explore protocols and approaches for studying young children’s development in the context of classroom environments as well as in laboratory settings.
Jennifer McCaffrey
Assistant Dean, Family and Consumer Sciences Program
jmccaffr@illinois.edu
Jennifer McCaffrey focuses on building healthier families by providing statewide leadership for Extension programs in nutrition, family relationships, and personal finance. She has extensive experience in developing and implementing programs for limited resource families and currently oversees two federal grants that provide nutrition education for families throughout Illinois.
Ruby Mendenhall
Professor, Katheryn Lee Baynes Dellenbach Professorship in Liberal Arts and Sciences
rubymen@illinois.edu
Ruby Mendenhall is a Professor in Sociology, African American Studies, Urban and Regional Planning, and Social Work at the University of Illinois. She is also an affiliate of the Institute for Genomic Biology and the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Mendenhall research focuses on issues of social inequality over the life course and the role of public policy and individuals’ agency in facilitating social and economic mobility.
Tracy Parsons
Community Relations Manager, City of Champaign
tracy.parsons@champaignil.gov
Tracy Parsons is responsible for coordinating and facilitating the work of the Champaign Community Coalition. Mr. Parsons helps the Coalition successfully implement sustainable strategies which improve the lives of area youth and families through an effective collaboration of diverse community partners and service agencies.
Julie A. Pryde
Public Health Administrator, Champaign Urbana Public Health Department
jpryde@c-uphd.org
Julie Pryde is an accomplished grant writer, researcher, and speaker. She is also a licensed Social Woker in the state of Illinois. She has held many positions with the Champaign Urbana Public Health Department before becoming the first female Public Health Administrator in CUPHD’s history.
Minakshi Raj
Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health
mraj@illinois.edu
Dr. Minakshi Raj’s research focuses on using patient and clinician perspectives to improve healthcare quality. She uses mixed methods approaches to study ways of integrating caregivers into health care teams for older adults and patients with cancer with the goal of improving the quality of care for patients and supporting well-being among caregivers. Her research also explores the ethical and social implications of these different health information technologies, including privacy and trust implications of health information sharing.
Jenna Riis
Assistant Professor, College of Applied Health Science
jriis@illinois.edu
Dr. Jenna Riis’ research examines the etiology of health disparities and the processes by which environmental factors and social experience affect child development and life-long health. Her research uses salivary biomarkers to examine the interplay between the biological and environmental processes underlying health. This work includes a focus on advancing the field of salivary bioscience by expanding the range of analytes measured in saliva and increasing the application of salivary bioscience to new fields, including a broader integration into clinical, public health, and social science research.
Anne H. Silvis
Assistant Dean, Community and Economic Development, Illinois Extension
asilvis@illinois.edu
Rebecca Smith
Associate Professor
rlsdvm@illinois.edu
Dr. Rebecca Smith works in the framework of One Health, which is the concept that human, animal, and environmental health are inextricably linked and must be considered from a systems perspective. Much of her work is in the realm of vector-borne diseases for which there are not many effective resources to control diseases such as West Nile Virus or Lyme Disease at the ecological level, so we must rely on people to protect themselves – wear bug spray, do the tick check. The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed the role of social forces in the control of disease, how diseases develop, spread and affect our lives.
Shardé Smith
Associate Professor – Department of Human Development and Family Studies
snsmith@illinois.edu
Dr. Shardé Smith examines the impact of racial discrimination on mental health outcomes, and the supportive resources used to combat these effects, within the African American family context. She seeks to reduce mental health stigma, foster healthy family relationships, and ultimately contribute to the reduction in existing racial health disparities.
Leona Yi-Fan Su
Assistant Professor, College of Media
lyfsu@illinois.edu
Dr. Leona Yi-Fan Su is a faculty affiliate at the Institute of Communications Research, the Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA), and the Informatics Programs. She is on the editorial board of Environmental Communication. Su’s research examines the interplay between media and society, with a particular focus on how social media and new technologies influence human communication and social behaviors in the context of scientific and health topics.
Karen Tabb Dina
Professor, School of Social Work
ktabb@illinois.edu
Karen Tabb Dina, is a professor in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Social Work and faculty affiliate at Carle Foundation Hospital, the Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies, and the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives. Her research agenda focuses identifying risk factors for morbidity and mortality among perinatal women and clinical factors to improve minority health.
Margarita Teran-Garcia
Assistant Dean, Integrated Health Disparities Programs
teranmd@illinois.edu
Dr. Margarita Teran-Garcia conducts transdisciplinary research on obesity and other nutrition-related diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension, among low-income populations. She works on promoting health and wellness among families of Hispanic-heritage and translates evidence-based science to community-based programs that serve children and families in need. Her aim is to better understand the biological and psychological dimensions that could be modified in individuals and families, to tailor more efficient and practical interventions to prevent obesity and chronic diseases.