Jan M. Eberth, PhD
Director, Rural and Minority Health Research Center Research Interests: Spatial Epidemiology, Social Determinants of Health, Cancer Screening and Treatment, Access to Care, Health Care Quality
Center Faculty & Staff
Elizabeth Crouch, PhD
Deputy Director, Rural and Minority Health Research Center Research Interests: Health Policy, Health Economics, Access to Care in Rural and Underserved Populations
Janice C. Probst, PhD
Director Emerita, Rural and Minority Health Research Center Research Interests: Rural Health Care Delivery, Health Disparities, Potentially Preventable Hospitalization
Demetrius Abshire, PhD, RN
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Obesity Prevention and Treatment, Men’s Health, Rural Health Disparities, Social Determinants of Health
Swann Arp Adams, PhD, MS
Investigator/ Research Interests: Disparities in Cancer from Prevention/Screening to Diagnosis to Long-term Survivorship
Christina Andrews, PhD
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
Nathaniel Bell, PhD
Investigator/ Research Interests: Spatial Analysis, Health Services Research, Social Epidemiology, Injury Epidemiology, Nursing Science, Medicaid
Kevin J. Bennett, PhD
Investigator/ Research Interests: Care Delivery for Vulnerable Populations, Quality Improvement Research
Jennifer Browder, LMSW
Maternal and Child Health Projects Coordinator/ Research Interests: Maternal and Child Health, Community Health, and Mental Health
Monique J. Brown-Smith, PhD, MPH
Investigator/ Research Interests: HIV Intervention and Prevention; Childhood Trauma; Social, Behavioral and Mental Health; and Aging. She is interested in these as separate and intersecting areas of study
Cynthia Calef, MAML, MPH
Program Coordinator/ Research Interests: Cancer Screenings, Community Health, and Minority Health
Pam Gillam
Investigator/Director, Core for Applied Research and Evaluation, Office of Research
Janie Godbold
Program Manager/ Expertise: Pre- and Post-Award Management
Sayward Harrison, PhD
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Improving the health and wellbeing of youth who are impacted by acute and chronic health conditions
Pei-Yin Hung, PhD
Investigator/ Research Interests: Health Disparity, Health Care Quality, Maternal and Child Health, Access to Care, Consumer Choice
Andrew T. Kaczynski, PhD
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Physical Activity, Healthy Eating, Obesity Prevention
Jihong Liu, Sc.D.
Investigator/ Research Interests: Perinatal Epidemiology, Obesity and Physical Activity in Mothers and Children, Health Disparities, Reproductive Health, International Health
Alexander C. McLain, PhD
Investigator/ Research Interests: Problems that Arise in Biomedical Studies with Longitudinal Biomarkers
Melinda A. Merrell, PhD, MPH
Research Assistant Professor/ Research Interests: Rural Health Care Delivery, Rural Hospital Closures, Emergency Medicine, Community Health Development, Social Determinants of Health
Nabil Natafgi, PhD, MPH, CPH
Investigator/Research Interests: Quality of Care and Patient Safety, Performance Measurement and Reporting, Telehealth Effectiveness and Evaluation, Patient-Centered Outcomes
Bankole Olatosi, PhD
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Managing Teams and Conducting Quantitative Analyses, Building System Capacity, Working with Different Stakeholders in Healthcare
Shaun Owens, PhD, MPH
Investigator/ Research Interests: Health and Cancer Communications with Diverse Populations, Technology for Health Promotion and Informed Decision Making in Aging Adults, Smart and Connected Health
Stella Self, PhD, MS
Investigator/ Research Interests: Bayesian Spatio-Temporal Modeling, Spatial Clustering Analysis, Disease Forecasting, Random Effects Models, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods
Myriam E. Torres, PhD, MSPH
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Hispanic/Latino Health, International Health, HIV/AIDS
Ebony A. Toussaint, PhD, MPH
Post Doctoral Fellow/Research Interests: Health Policy, Health Services Research, Access to Healthcare, Healthcare Quality, Patient-Reported Outcomes, Nursing Science, and Health Equity in Rural Gullah Geechee Communities
Lauren Workman, PhD, MPH
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
Gabriel Benavidez
Research Interests: Healthcare Quality/Access/Utilization, Cancer Screening/Health Outcomes, Chronic Disease Prevention, Causal Inference Methods
Cathryn Murphy
Research Interests: Health Equity in Rural Communities, Disparities in Cancer for Susceptible Groups Across the Continuum, and Systemic Health and Cognitive Barriers to Refugees and Immigrants
Oyeleye Oyesode
Research Interests: Cancer prevention, Eliminating Health disparities among minorities, Health outcomes, and Healthcare Utilization
Radhika Ranganathan
Research Interests: Health Related Quality of Life & Survival Analysis of Patients with Chronic Illnesses especially in those with Cancer and Cardiac Conditions; Health Disparities Research; Application of Quality Management Tools in Patient Centered Research
Kewei (Sylvia) Shi
Research Interests: Health Outcome; Health Economics; Cancer Prevention, Diagnose and Treatment; Geriatrics
Allie Silverman
Research Interests: Public Health Social Work, Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Prevention, Behavioral Health Services Research, Health Care Policy
Nick Yell
Research Interests: Time Series Analysis, Survival Analysis, Quality of Life and Health, Study/Experimental Design
Anja Zgodic, ScM
Research Interests: Longitudinal Data Analysis, Statistical Methods for Joint Modeling, Bayesian Statistics, Machine Learning