Nihmotallahi Adebayo is a Research Assistant at the Center for Health Equity Transformation, where she works on the Health for All: Real Talk Clinical Trials and 4R Cancer Care Coordination projects. She holds both a BA in Neuroscience with a minor in Global Health and an MS in Health Communication from Northwestern University. Before working with CHET, she was a fellow of the ChicagoCHEC 2019 cohort, and was also an NIH Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Trainee. She has recently been accepted into medical school and will be matriculating in August 2022.

Negeen Aghassibake is the Data Visualization Librarian at the University of Washington Libraries. Her interests include critical data studies and visualization. She holds an MS in Information Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

Carolyn D. Aird, MPH, INHC, is a lay health educator, community advocate, and Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. She is also the founder and principal owner of Thousand Pounds of Kale, LLC. Ms. Aird is passionate about helping people of all ages and cultural backgrounds achieve optimal wellness through proper nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction. Since 2012, she has worked in various capacities on projects at NYU Langone Health related to men’s health, hypertension management, sleep hygiene, dementia, and clinical trial participation. Skilled at culturally competent communications and community engagement, Ms. Aird has recruited more than 1000 participants across various research studies. Most recently, Ms. Aird created and chaired a 10-person community advisory board for NYU Langone Health’s Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. In 2020, Ms. Aird co-authored her first peer-reviewed paper entitled, “Use of Tablets and Smartphones to Support Medical Decision Making in US Adults: Cross-Sectional Study,” which was published in JMIR Mhealth Uhealth (doi: 10.2196/19531). Ms. Aird earned her BA in psychology from Rutgers University, MPH from Walden University, and certification as an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

Jen Brown is Co-Founder & Co-Director of the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities (ARCC) at Northwestern University. She is passionate about ARCC's work to grow and support authentic community-academic research partnerships that honor, are driven by, and share power with communities to improve health and equity. Jen has over twenty years of experience building and supporting community-academic engaged research partnerships at project, institutional, and multi-institutional levels through partnership brokering, capacity-building, seed grants, storytelling, and advocacy. She is on faculty at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine Department of Preventive Medicine and the Center for Native American & Indigenous Research. Jen serves on the Patient Engagement Advisory Panel for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Chicago Consortium for Community Engagement, Partnership for Healthy Chicago, Associate Editor of the Progress in Community Health Partnerships journal, 2020 inductee into the Gold Humanism Honor Society, and was a Chicago United for Equity 2019 Racial Justice Fellow.

Rabih Dahdouh contributes an extensive background in behavioral health, technology and preventive medicine. Most recently he worked with over 40 clinical partners delivering mental health services with an integrated digital platform to underserved populations across the country. Previously he worked in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine as research project manager for the Keep Your Heart Healthy (KYHH) program. He also served as Director of Communications & Engagement with the All of Us Research Program at Northwestern with a mission to enroll 1M people to speed up health research breakthroughs to advance precision medicine. Rabih completed his BS in Child Learning & Development and MS in Psychological Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. He works on multiple projects at the Simon Lab under the Center for Health Equity Transformation.

Moderator, FHIR® DevDays Patient Innovator Track
BMJ Patient Advisory Panel inaugural member, 2014-2020
OpenNotes Advisory Board
Co-founder and Chair Emeritus, Society for Participatory Medicine

"e-Patient Dave" deBronkart is one of the world's leading advocates for patient empowerment and engagement. Having survived a near-fatal cancer in 2007 by being hyper-engaged, his convincing advocacy for participatory medicine led to his being the first patient blog captured in the the NLM's History of Medicine Division, and his message has received global recognition: he was the Mayo Clinic's 2015 Visiting Professor in Internal Medicine, and his book Let Patients Help is in eight languages and his TED Talk has been translated into 27 languages. More information about Dave is available on his website.

Will is a Research Assistant with the Center for Health Equity Transformation (CHET). Prior to joining the CHET Team, Will spent time at both Lurie Children's Hospital and the Erie Family Health Centers in Chicago. He received his BA in American Studies from Amherst College and will be attending medical school in the fall of 2022.

Araceli (she/her) is a Research Project Coordinator for the Center for Health Equity Transformation (CHET). Araceli received her B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She supports recruitment and outreach efforts with the Health for All – Real Talk: Clinical Trials project, which aims to help Chicago Public Library patrons make informed decisions about joining clinical trials. She is a Chicago native and volunteers locally as a Spanish interpreter at CommunityHealth.

Jon Eldredge occupies a unique niche as both an active researcher and as a practicing librarian. Jon has published over 65 peer reviewed journal articles and 22 book chapters. Last year, Jon’s colleagues selected him for the Health Sciences Center Faculty Research Excellence Award at the University of New Mexico. He also holds 11 other research awards. He conducts both quantitative and qualitative forms of research, although during the past decade he has focused upon randomized controlled trials. He has led the effort to define the Medical Library Association’s Research Agenda. Jon’s passion for integrating research results into practice led him in 1997 to found the US movement currently known as Evidence Based Library and Information Practice.

At the University of New Mexico Jon integrates his research skills into his teaching. He is Co-Chair of the Quantitative Medicine Block required of all second-year medical students. He also co-teaches the College of Population Health’s Determinants and Equity in Public Health required of all MPH students. He is domain leader and instructor for the Biomedical Informatics course required of all students in the Masters of Science in Clinical Research degree program. He is Associate Program Director of the Clinical Informatics Fellowship. He is a full professor in the Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center, the School of Medicine Family & Community Medicine Department, and the College of Population Health. He holds degrees from Beloit College in Wisconsin, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Michigan.

Lisa Federer is the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Data Science and Open Science Librarian, focusing on workforce development for data science and open science in the biomedical research and library communities, as well as advancing data best practices to enhance research reproducibility and promote data reuse. Prior to joining NLM, Lisa spent five years as the Research Data Informationist at the National Institutes of Health Library, where she developed and ran the Library’s Data Services Program. In addition to publishing numerous peer-reviewed papers, she is the editor of the Medical Library Association Guide to Data Management for Librarians. She holds a PhD in information studies from the University of Maryland and an MLIS from the University of California-Los Angeles, as well as graduate certificates in data science and data visualization. Her research focuses on quantifying and characterizing biomedical data reuse and development of meaningful scholarly metrics for shared data.

Lisa can be contacted at lisa.federer@nih.gov

Edgar Gil Rico is the Director for Innovation and Program Development at the National Alliance for Hispanic Health (the Alliance). He leads efforts to improve health outcomes in Hispanic communities in the areas of non-communicable diseases, physical activity, nutrition and environmental health in the U.S. and Latin America. Mr. Gil Rico serves as the Co-Principal Investigator of Todos Juntos: All of Us Research Program, a Hispanic outreach Initiative to educate, motivate, and facilitate enrollment in NIH’s All of Us Research Program.

Sally Gore, MS, MS LIS, is the manager of Research and Scholarly Communication Services for the Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School. In this role, she oversees the Library's collaborative efforts with basic science and clinical researchers on campus, including expanding support and instruction in data services. Her department leads all scholarly communication endeavors for the Library, including providing bibliometrics analysis, tracking research impact, ensuring funder-based public access compliance, promoting open science initiatives, and managing eScholarship@UMMS, the University's institutional repository. Sally also serves on the Board of Directors of the Medical Library Association and as the Associate Editor of the Journal of eScience Librarianship.

Prior to her current position, Sally served as the research evaluation analyst for the University of Massachusetts Center for Clinical & Translational Science. She has also been an NLM-grant funded informationist at the Lamar Soutter Library, UMass Medical School, a reference and instruction librarian, and a consumer health librarian.

Sally holds an MS in Library and Information Science from Syracuse University, MS in Exercise Physiology from Ithaca College, BS (Summa Cum Laude) in Sports Medicine/Exercise Physiology from the University of Southern Maine, MDiv from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and BA in Philosophy from James Madison University.

Sally writes the blog, "A Librarian by Any Other Name" (http://librarianhats.net/) and can be found on Twitter at @mandosally.

Ashley Green is the lead Outreach Coordinator and a research analyst for the All of Us Data and Research Center. She is also a member of the Demonstration Projects team where she works closely with Demo Project researchers as they work toward publishing their research. Her background is in information science and education, and she is passionate about user access to data and information.

Candace Henley is the Chief Surviving Officer of the Blue Hat Foundation,Inc. and has over 18 years of tireless advocacy for colon cancer prevention and support. Her battle with colon cancer and its devastation on her life and her children inspired her to create The Blue Hat Foundation. The organization was built on unconditional support and compassion for people fighting colon cancer. Its mission is to provide education, information, and free screenings for colon cancer in the minority and medically underserved communities through community partnerships with healthcare providers, hospital systems, and FQHC's.

Ms. Henley developed a strong understanding of healthcare inequities by pursuing her Masters's in Public Health, which grew her advocacy to include healthcare equity, health equality, and research. She serves on the Community Advisory Board for the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center and the University of Chicago Medicine, the University of Illinois at Chicago Cancer Center, and Duke Center for Research to Advance Healthcare Equity. Ms. Henley is the first member representing a patient advocacy organization and focuses on patient engagement in the design and conduct of clinical trials and past community chair for the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities (ARCC) at Northwestern University. As a speaker on community engagement, Ms.Henley often lectures on understanding the history of ethical breaches to human experimentations on minorities, genomic paternalism, and strategies for healthcare providers and academic researchers to apply community engagement and equity lenses to their work.

Ms. Henley has expanded her reach to international audiences as a patient advocate for Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and a guest lecturer for WELLCOME Genetics. She has contributed to several articles regarding colorectal cancer, the financial toxicity of cancer, the importance of minority participation in clinical trials, and several articles written about her cancer journey and her tireless advocacy.

Angela Ingram is the Staff Assistant to the Division Chief of General Information Services at Chicago Public Library. She assists with day-to-day operations and management of the main public service points at the Harold Washington Library Center. Angela is an experienced operations professional with a Master's degree in Library and Information Science and a 34-year career with the CPL.

As an assistant professor in NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health, I study how health communication can improve individual decision making and reduce population health disparities for conditions or behaviors that lead to preventable mortality and morbidity. I received my BA in English from the University of Virginia, MPH in Behavioral Science from Saint Louis University, and PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan.

Historically, I have done work in cancer prevention and clinical trial participation in community-based settings. My research has expanded to include cardiovascular disease broadly, with a particular interest in hypertension-related decision making. In August 2018, I received a 5-year career development award from the NIH/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to explore patient and clinician preferences for hypertension management. Prior to receiving my career development award, I obtained a 2-year diversity supplement from the NIH/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to explore study teams’ awareness and use of recruitment support tools.

I co-direct NYU Langone’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute's (CTSI) Recruitment and Retention Core (RRC). In this role, I provide consultations to study teams on ways to enhance recruitment and retention across various clinical trials. My efforts with the CTSI RRC build upon my dissertation research, which focused on minority enrollment in clinical trials. A notable finding from my dissertation research was that minorities are willing to participate in clinical trials and to join a university-based registry when eligible and explicitly invited.

I am an active member of the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM), Academy of Communication in Healthcare (ACH), and the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM). For SMDM, I serve as the deputy editor for the Society's newsletter. I also serve as an associate editor for two journals: Patient Education and Counseling and Clinical Trials.

Ivy Leung has over nine years of experience in community-based research in cancer health disparities and health equity at the Center for Health Equity Transformation (CHET). She has presented on health disparities and patient navigation efforts at academic institutions and national conferences. Ivy is committed to improving access to healthcare for underserved communities, particularly for immigrants facing language barriers. She is also a strong advocate for food justice and intimate partner violence (IPV).

Jack Maness has been in libraries for over 20 years. In his current role as Associate Dean at the University of Denver Libraries, he leads library efforts related to technology, collections, and policy. Prior to joining the University of Denver in 2017, he was at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Denver Public Library. In addition to work related to Collections as Data, previous projects include funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources to digitize historical glacier images with the National Snow & Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO. He is the author of over two dozen research articles and book chapters and lives in his hometown of Denver, CO with his wife and son.

Greg Marcus is Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Associate Chief of Cardiology for Research at UCSF Health, and the inaugural Endowed Professor of Atrial Fibrillation Research. In addition to engaging in an active clinical practice dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmias, including caring for patients in the clinic and hospital, performing catheter ablation procedures and implantations of pacemakers and defibrillators, and training cardiology electrophysiology fellows, Dr. Marcus has an active research program.

His research is dedicated to understanding the fundamental causes of abnormal heart rhythms, identifying optimal therapeutic approaches for those arrhythmias, understanding the overall health effects of common exposures such as caffeine, alcohol, tobacco smoke, and cannabis, and using technology and wearable sensors to enhance health and the efficiency of patient-oriented research. He is one of the founders and continues to serve as one of the Principal Investigators of the world-wide, internet-based, Health eHeart Study as well as the NIH-funded national infrastructure to facilitate mobile health, called Eureka. He also runs several ongoing single-center and multi-center randomized, prospective trials, and oversees a team of investigators including post-doctoral fellows, clinical research coordinators, statisticians, and data analysts.

A graduate of UC, San Diego as a Philosophy major, he went to medical school at George Washington University. He then went on to complete his internship, residency, and served as Chief Medical Resident at Stanford. Subsequently, he completed his general cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology fellowships at UCSF. As part of an NIH-funded career development award, he then completed a Masters in Advanced Studies in Clinical Research at UCSF.

Twitter:@gregorymmarcus

Martha E. Meacham, MA, MLIS, is the Project Director of the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) (https://nnlm.gov/ ), which is part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Previously, Martha was the Associate Director of the NNLM New England Region (NNLM NER) within the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She has also managed two VA Medical Center libraries, worked with Association of American Medical Colleges, and was involved with patient education at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Martha has a B.S. in psychology and was a mental health counselor before going on to earn a Master of Library and Information Science and a Master of Arts in History from Simmons College.

C. Daniel Mullins is a Professor and Chair of the Pharmaceutical Health Services Research Department at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. He received his BS in Economics from M.I.T. and his PhD in Economics from Duke University. His research and teaching focus on comparative effectiveness research (CER), patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR), and pharmacoeconomics. He is Founder and Executive Director of the University of Maryland PATient-centered Involvement in Evaluating effectiveNess of TreatmentS (PATIENTS) Program. He is the Lead for the Community & Collaboration (C&C) Core of the University of Maryland Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) and co-Lead of the C&C Core for Johns Hopkins’ CTSA. Professor Mullins is one of two Editors-in-Chief for Value in Health and is author of over 300 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.

Maggie has an extensive background in community health within the realms of domestic violence, AIDS/HIV, diabetes education, cardiovascular disease and most currently cancer. She obtained her Master’s in Public Health from DePaul University and before joining the Simon Lab she was a Project Coordinator at the Ruth M. Rothstein Core Center. She has dedicated the last 25 years of her career working on making a tiny difference in the health of individuals living in underserved and underrepresented communities.

Caroline Nickerson is a fellow at SciStarter where she assists with the Citizen Science Month Program, SciStarter’s Corporate Volunteer Programs and other programmatic and outreach efforts, including working with SciStarter’s Syndicated Blog Network, which encompasses the Science Connected, Discover Magazine and SciStarter platforms. She has helped educators, library staff, community leaders and volunteers from all walks of life do real science. Caroline is a Master of Public Policy graduate from American University, where she was a Reilly Environmental Policy Scholar, and is a current PhD student at the University of Florida. She also works with the UF-VA Bioethics Unit, the Christensen Project, Florida Community Innovation and the Commission on Local Debates. She was the 2019 Cherry Blossom Princess representing the state of Florida and the grand prize scholarship winner at Miss Earth USA 2021 as Miss Louisiana Earth.

DeJuan Patterson is an advocate and social impact consultant with the Bridge Advisory Group. He received his Bachelor's in Psychology and his Master of Public Administration in Public Policy from Bowie State University. Mr. Patterson leverages his unique background as a grassroots leader in community and government affairs; to be a bridge between the community, government, non-profit organizations, and private companies.

DeJuan has provided necessary education and technical assistance on patient-centered engagement to community members and practitioners to create a mutually beneficial relationship that will result in better health outcomes.

As a result, Dejuan has been granted several opportunities from Baltimore City Hall to Capitol Hill to consult with various stakeholders on developing progressive solutions for health equity and community mobility.

Kim Pham is the Research Technology Officer at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin since April 2021. Previously, she was the Head of Library Technology Services at the University of Denver. Her research areas include organizational cultures and open source software development, the design of scalable digital repositories for archival access, preservation, and reuse, and sustainable tools and methods in digital humanities research. Kim’s latest research involves the use of machine learning to develop workflows to transcribe historical medical records.

Terrinieka W. Powell, PhD, is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Inclusion, Diversity, Anti-Racism and Equity in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH). After earning her BA in Psychology from Williams College, she earned her MA and PhD from DePaul University in Community Psychology. She spent two years as a Kellogg Health Scholars Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan School of Public Health before joining the faculty BSPH. She has expertise in adolescent health, qualitative methods, intervention development and implementation science. Her research activities, publications and funding history all demonstrate her commitment to improving the lives of vulnerable young people.

Dr. Powell leads the B Lab, a Baltimore-based research team helping to create a world where all youth are safe, healthy, hopeful and connected. Partnerships with churches, schools, libraries, families, and community-based organizations are a cornerstone of her research. She has collaborated with institutions across several states to prevent substance use and sexual risk-taking among young people. With partners, she creates interventions that are sustainable and take into account the social context of the environments. Most recently, she led the development of the Better Together (BT) intervention, an age-appropriate, culturally relevant 8-session library-based intervention designed to prevent early substance use among Black youth affected by parental drug use. Her goal is to ensure that youth, especially those affected by trauma, have multiple pathways to achieve optimal health.

Director, Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) - Center for Health Equity Transformation
George H. Gardner, MD, Professor of Clinical Gynecology
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology (General Obstetrics and Gynecology), Preventive Medicine, and Medical Social Sciences

eliminating health disparities among low income, medically underserved women across the lifespan. Integrating health services research with social epidemiologic models, Dr. Simon's research focuses on interventions (such as patient navigation and community health outreach workers) that aim to reduce and eliminate such disparities. Within this context, Dr. Simon prefers to leverage culture and community to achieve these goals and thereby integrates community based participatory research framework into her work. She also has a strong portfolio of workforce development programs including the world's first healthcare pipeline development free massive open online course, "Career 911: Your Future Job in Medicine and Healthcare" on the Coursera platform. She is the founding director of the Center for Health Equity Transformation and the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative. Finally, she serves as a member of the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and the National Academy of Medicine's Roundtable for the Promotion of Health Equity.

Stacey B. Stephens LCSW-C is the Director of the B’more for Healthy Babies Upton/Druid Heights and Early Learning Programming at Promise Heights at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Ms. Stephens is a visionary leader with 27 years of experience in assisting women and children access equitable health and mental health service throughout the Baltimore and the D.C. Metropolitan. Mrs. Stephens is a Clinical Instructor at the University Of Maryland School Of Social Work and an Adjunct Professor at Morgan State University School of Social Work, where she teaches and inspires future healthcare professionals. She was a governor appointed member of the Maryland taskforce to study perinatal mental health. She is also a Certified Diversity Practitioner which enables her to help individuals, groups, organizations and communities effectively manage cultural differences, influence system change and create equity in healthcare and educational sectors. With meaningful partnerships with residents and community partners, she has led the B’more for Healthy Babies team who has accomplished a 75% reduction in the infant mortality rate over the past ten years which has resulted in the elimination of the disparity between Black and White infants in this community. Ms. Stephens incorporates self-care practices into her daily routine and she encourages her staff and community members to do the same.

Her areas of research interest are: achieving optimal health and mental well-being for women, children and families, process unresolved trauma in the subcortical level area the brain, deepening authentic community engagement, environmental justice and food sovereignty and changing the deficit narrative of expectant and parenting families of color.

Melvin Thompson is the Executive Director of the Endeleo Institute. After spending nearly two decades in the civic, private, and nonprofit world, he truly knows how to connect the dots in forging powerful relationships across multiple sectors for the betterment of Far South Side communities. The consummate relationship-builder, he spearheaded a community-driven, $10M restoration of the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library and was instrumental in recasting it as the City of Chicago’s first Dementia-friendly Library.

Melvin also has a growing body of community-academic experience, with emphasis on Community-Based Participatory Research. His community-engaged research work extends across a broad spectrum, including partnerships that highlight pharmacy desert eradication, heart disease prevention, mental health, and prostate cancer education among African-American men. In addition, he has experience as a seasoned Steering Committee member working with the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities (ARCC) on research development grants. This includes collaborative work with Darby Morhardt at Northwestern’s Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center (CNADC) and the REACH to Faith 2.0 Project.

Melvin has landed coverage in print and broadcast outlets both locally and internationally, including US News and World Report, NPR (WBEZ in Chicago) WGN Television, and the Chicago Tribune. In addition to his extensive community development experience, he is an accomplished writer and sought-after speaker.

Melvin holds an MBA from Roosevelt University and a BS in journalism from Northwestern University. He is also an Ordained Deacon at Trinity United Church of Christ.

Dorice Vieira is the NYU Health Sciences Library liaison to Graduate Medical Education and the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology. She also coordinates clinical outreach for those interested in incorporating evidence-based practice during clinical rounds and conferences. Her support includes evidence-based practice instruction, collaboration in systematic, narrative and other review-type research, and using such tools as EndNote, Google applications, etc. for “knowledge informatics” support. Dorice is also a faculty member of two NIH-funded training grants in the Department of Population Health: The Program to Increase Diversity Among Individuals Engaged in Health-Related Research (PRIDE) in the Behavioral Medicine & Sleep Disorders Research and the NYU/University of Ghana Cardiovascular Research Training Institute (CaRT) funded by NIH/Fogarty International Center. She is an associated faculty member in the College of Global Public Health and teaches the Global Public Health Informatics course.

She received her MLS from the University of Pittsburgh, MA in English Literature from Brooklyn College, and MPH, with an emphasis in Global Public Health--Health Promotion & Disease Prevention from New York University. Finally, Dorice is a fellow of the New Academy of Medicine whose members are distinguished professionals in the medical and health professions embodying the highest levels of achievement and leadership in urban health.

Eileen is originally from Chicago and has worked in many settings, including home health care, business, and libraries of all types. Eileen currently applies her passion and background in Research, Education, and Library Science to support clinical, scholarly, and research needs at Feinberg School of Medicine as well as community partners throughout Chicagoland.