Kali S. Thomas is a Professor of Nursing and Public Health and the Associate Director of Health Services Research in the Center for Equity in Aging at Johns Hopkins University. As a gerontologist, Dr. Thomas’ research focuses on identifying ways to improve the quality of life of older adults needing long-term services and supports (LTSS) through applied health services research. With funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institute on Aging, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and multiple foundations, she has led research projects examining the organization, delivery, and financing of LTSS to meet older adults’ medical and non-medical needs. Her research spans the LTSS continuum, ranging from in-home services to long-term care provided in institutional settings.

Kimberly Bernard is the Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator for Deliver-EE. Her role is to manage the integration of research activities across the project life cycle. She holds a Ph.D. from the Heller School of Social Policy & Management at Brandeis University. Dr. Bernard has over 20 years of experience managing evaluation projects in applied settings, including education, public health, child support, and child welfare. Prior to joining Brown University, she was the Principal Consultant at the Oak Hill Consulting Group and the Director of Research and Planning at the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice. She has served as the Principal Investigator of several federal evaluation projects funded through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, National Science Foundation, and the Office for Victims of Crime. Dr. Bernard embraces TOP facilitation techniques and is experienced in bringing large and diverse groups of stakeholders together for the purpose of evaluation planning and promoting the use of data in program and policy settings.

Em Balkan, MSW, is a doctoral student in Health Services Research at Brown University. Within the project, Em works with the qualitative and stakeholder engagement teams, and their role includes conducting qualitative interviews and analyzing stakeholder engagement feedback. Outside of this project, Em is interested in studying access and quality of care for those who are transgender and receive Medicare, particularly the experience of transgender folx with Medicare Advantage. Before joining Brown, Em was the Senior Policy Analyst for the Committee on Health and Committee on Hospitals for New York City Council, and prior to that worked within policy and client services departments at the Medicare Rights Center. Overall, Em has been in the health policy and advocacy space for ten years.

Melissa A. Clark is a Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health.  Her research interests are in the fields of health services utilization and underserved populations. She has extensive experience in both quantitative and qualitative data methods and frequently uses mixed methods approaches to address health-related issues facing vulnerable populations.  As Director of the School of Public Health Survey Research Center, she has been responsible for leading data collection activities for a number of large-scale, multidisciplinary projects. She has published more than 280 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

Laura A. Dionne is a Data Manager at the Brown University School of Public Health. She has more than 20 years of research experience.  Laura currently works on multiple projects at Brown University’s Center for Health Promotion and Health Equity, and Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research.  Laura received a BA in Psychology at the Ohio State University and a ScM in Behavioral and Social Health Sciences at Brown University.

Adrienne’s passion and experience lies in working to decrease health disparities in marginalized and underserved communities. Adrienne began her career in 2005 at non-profit Shanti in San Francisco providing psychosocial support to people living with HIV, training and supporting volunteers, and later managing the HIV Services program.  Adrienne also has experience working in hospice and providing administrative support to various social service programs. Adrienne will be graduating from University of Michigan in 2024 with a MSW focused on interpersonal practice in integrated health, mental health, and substance abuse.

Emily Gadbois, Ph.D., is a health services researcher, gerontologist, and Assistant Professor in the department of Health Services, Policy, and Practice in the Brown University School of Public Health. The primary goal of her research is to examine how interorganizational policies and practices impact outcomes and experiences for older adults. Dr. Gadbois is primarily a qualitative researcher, leading numerous research projects exploring healthcare for older adults. She also teaches a graduate seminar in qualitative research methods in health services research.

Roee Gutman, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics at Brown University. His areas of expertise are causal inference, file linkage, missing data, Bayesian analysis and their application to data sources in health services research. He brings vast experience in designing and analyzing randomized trials and secondary datasets from various sources (e.g., Medicare claims data, VA health data). He has been involved in many comparative effectiveness studies where he contributed in terms of the statistical theory and its implementation. Examples of such studies include a pragmatic trial to study the effect of video education in nursing homes on re-hospitalization rate (PROVEN), and a trial to investigate the effects of music & memory for patients with AD/ADRD. Dr. Gutman has also participated in analyzing the effects of amyloid scanning in the IDEAS Study, and in an extension study that examines caregivers’ reactions and experience to these scans (CARE IDEAS).

Jill Harrison, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) IMPACT Collaboratory and Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Health Services, Policy and Practice at Brown University School of Public Health. Prior to joining the NIA IMPACT Collaboratory, Dr. Harrison was the Director of Research for an international non-profit advocacy organization, founded by a patient, focused on implementing person-centered care initiatives in healthcare organizations around the world. In addition to her role at the IMPACT Collaboratory, Dr. Harrison is a member of the Advisory Panel for Patient Engagement at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). She was recently the principal investigator of a PCORI Engagement Award about how patient-family advisory councils engage in research. Her research interests include: pragmatic trials in real-world settings, engaging residents of long-term care communities as evaluators of care quality, developing culturally congruent person-centered care approaches in healthcare systems, stakeholder engagement and organizational cultural change. She completed her post-doctorate at Brown University in health services research.

Lisa A. Juckett, Ph.D., OTR/L, is an Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy at The Ohio State University and serves on the Implementation Team for Deliver-EE. Her research centers on bridging the gap between empirical discoveries and the use of these discoveries in real-world settings. Heavily informed by the field of implementation science, her research examines the factors and strategies that influence evidence-based practice adoption, primarily in organizations that serve the older adult population. Specifically, Dr. Juckett develops and tests “implementation strategies” tailored for (a) geriatric rehabilitation and (b) home-delivered meal contexts. Active involvement of community and clinical partners is a hallmark characteristic of Dr. Juckett’s work, resulting in research collaborations with local social service agencies and healthcare systems as well as national-level professional organizations. Her current projects are funded through the NIA IMPACT Collaboratory, the Administration for Community Living, and the American Occupational Therapy Foundation.

Julie L. Locher, Ph.D. Professor Emerita Medicine, Julie Locher is Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; she is also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health at Indiana University at Bloomington. Dr. Locher is a medical sociologist and health services researcher who has devoted her career to studying nutrition and aging issues with a focus on older adults residing in the community who are at nutritional risk and those who have been recently hospitalized. Her work as Principal Investigator in this area has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, and the Lucille Beeson Trust Fund; and she has more than 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts published. She has worked with AARP Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control to establish research priorities focused on nutrition-related long-term care services for community-dwelling older adults.

Julie Lima is an assistant professor of the practice and Director for Research Compliance and Integrity in the Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research within the Brown University School of Public Health. She is the Center’s expert on data compliance and human subjects research regulatory matters and is a member of Brown University’s Human Research Advisory Group (BhRAG). As a health services researcher, Dr. Lima has hands-on experience working with both survey and administrative data and has collaborated with national leaders in the areas of unmet need for care for people living with functional limitations in the community; quality of care at the end of life; culture change practices in the nursing homes; and post-acute care among Medicare beneficiaries. She received her MPH from Boston University and Ph.D. from Brown University.

Deirdre McGinley-Gieser is the Chief Strategy and Impact Officer for Meals on Wheels America. Deirdre is responsible for the organization’s strategic and operational planning and for the programmatic work that underpins our core service areas. Prior to joining the Association, Deirdre served in multiple roles with the American Institute for Cancer Research. Most recently she served as Executive Vice President and, prior to that was Senior Vice President for Programs and Strategic Planning with a focus on improving the health and quality of life for anyone impacted by cancer.

Katherine Ornstein is Director of the Center for Equity in Aging and Professor in the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins with joint appointments in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in epidemiology from Columbia University where she was a predoctoral fellow in psychiatric epidemiology. Her work is focused on improving health and healthcare for older adults with serious illness and their caregivers with a focus on advancing equity. She is a recognized expert in home-based care delivery, family and paid caregiving, dementia care and health care delivery at the end-of-life. She is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and past recipient of the Dan Gilden creative investigator award from the American Academy of Home Care Medicine. Prior to joining the faculty at Hopkins in 2022, she served as Research Director for the Institute for Care Innovations at Home at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Dr. Risica, a registered dietitian, earned a Bachelor’s Degree in medical dietetics at The Ohio State University and a Master of Public Health and Doctor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.  With over 25 years of experience in public health, Dr. Risica currently serves as an Associate Professor of Behavioral & Social Sciences and Epidemiology with the Brown University Center for Health Promotion and Health Equity Research (CHPHE), where she has (and currently) led (leads) numerous community-based intervention studies and participated as an investigator in many others. In that research Dr. Risica has contributed substantially to many community-based projects that focus on a variety of populations and topics including nutrition, healthy eating and obesity, but also smoking cessation and smoke avoidance, early detection of melanoma, and use/disposal of opioid medications after surgery.  Dr. Risica also has served as an Epidemiologist and Evaluator for several programs at the Rhode Island Department of Health, including her current work with the Women’s Cancer Screening Program and Colorectal Screening Program.

Laura Samuel is committed to addressing socioeconomic disparities. Her current research examines the pathways that link low income and financial strain to physiologic aging. This includes research investigating the health impact of policies and programs related to economic well-being for low-income households. Her research interests stem from her clinical experience as a family nurse practitioner.

Tamara A. Sequeira is the Project Manager at the Brown University School of Public Health Survey Research Center.  She has more than 20 years of research management experience. She is a graduate of Clark University with a degree in Biology, and a graduate of Rhode Island College with degrees of Bachelor of Science, Nursing (BSN) and Master of Science, Nursing (MSN) focused in Population/Public Health from Rhode Island College.

Eric Slade is a health economist with expertise in public insurance programs, serious mental illness, dementia, preventive interventions, cost-benefit analysis, and advanced econometric methods for causal inference and policy analysis. His research uses surveys and large administrative datasets to assess how health care financing systems and policies influence service use, costs, quality and health outcomes. Slade has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the U.S. Department of Education, and has served as an advisor on state and federal Medicaid policy for the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, the State of Maryland Behavioral Health Administration, and the President’s New Freedom Commission. Slade also served as an invited member of the NIH Mental Health Services in Non-Specialty Settings internal review group and the VA Healthcare Organization and Delivery review panel. At the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Slade directs the Nursing Workforce Group, which conducts research on workforce outcomes among advanced practice nurse providers. Slade currently serves as associate editor of the journal Administration and Policy in Mental Health & Mental Health Services Research.

Lucy joined Meals on Wheels America in January 2016 as Chief Strategy and Impact Officer. She is responsible for strategy and planning, research, and efforts to improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Prior to joining the Association, Lucy served in multiple roles at AARP. Most recently she served as SVP for Organizational and Management Effectiveness and, prior to that, as SVP for Enterprise Strategy. She also has many years of experience in aging, health and long-term care at AARP, as well as other health and aging non-profit Associations. Lucy received a B.A. in Sociology from George Mason University and an MA in Health Care Administration, Policy and Planning from George Washington University.

Bernadette Wright, Ph.D., joined Meals on Wheels America in May 2020 as Research and Data Analytics Director. She leads research to inform the organization’s strategies, understand Members and demonstrate the impact of Meals on Wheels services. Dedicated to helping organizations use research to make a bigger difference, she has delivered dozens of presentations on research and evaluation techniques at local, national and international events. She is author of dozens of publications, including a textbook with SAGE Publications, Practical Mapping for Applied Research and Program Evaluation. She earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy/Program Evaluation from the University of Maryland.