Marco Andrade, PhD

Research Associate

Marco Andrade currently serves as the lead evaluator for the Partnership for a Tobacco-Free Maine (PTM) at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  His responsibilities include gathering and utilizing stakeholder input in developing a comprehensive evaluation plan for one of the nation’s leading comprehensive tobacco control programs.  He works closely with PTM staff to develop logic models; goals, objectives, and indicators; a data collection and management system; and reporting and utilization procedures.  Previously, Marco served as a project officer for the Division of Behavioral Health at the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals.  One of his major projects was to facilitate the development of a State plan for an integrated co-occurring disorders system of care with guidance and review by the Co-occurring Center for Excellence at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.  He also spent over ten years as a member of the Community Research and Services Team (CRST) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rhode Island where he received his B.A. and M.A. in Clinical Psychology with a specific focus in the discipline of Community Psychology and community-based health promotion.  In his capacity as a member of the CRST, as well as in his own independent consulting practice, he conducted various evaluation research projects that included both program-level and state-level evaluation.  He also provided technical assistance and training, program development and grant writing assistance to community-based organizations.

Amy Black, PhD

Research Associate

Amy is a Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist for the center. She earned her BA, Masters of Arts in psychology and received her doctorate in Behavioral Science from the University of Rhode Island.  Before moving to Maine, Amy worked for the Community Research and Services Team in Rhode Island where she evaluated a three-year comprehensive tobacco control program designed to prevent tobacco use among disparate youth populations. Her research experience ranges from working as an evaluation consultant on various community-based initiatives to examining the effects of racial and sexual identities on women’s body image. Before pursuing her doctorate, Amy worked as a community organizer for a non-profit coalition focusing on universal health care and civil rights.

Melissa Chadwick

Web Master/Office Coordinator

Melissa earned her Bachelors degree in Media Arts and Animation from The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. She has previously worked as an Administrative Assistant with the USM Muskie School with the Mainely Nutrition Network. She handles the maintenance of the website and provides administrative support to the staff and consultants of MCPH.

Kim Dube

Director of Finance & Administration
Kim earned Bachelor degrees in Accounting and Business Administration from Husson College. She handles all finances, human resources, and IT for MCPH. Her previous experience ranges from managing a satellite office for a manufacturing company to working with employee benefits in the insurance industry. She also holds a license in Life and Health Insurance.

Kelly Grenier

Planning & Research Assistant
Kelly coordinates the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation / Public Health Informatics Institute funded Common Ground Project for Maine. This project is focused on the use of business process analysis as a methodology for a collaborative approach to developing functional requirements for new data systems, as well as inter-agency communication and understanding of our “common ground”. Kelly convenes stakeholders, captures and articulates the elements of the Common Ground process and maintains the interactive connection between the national collaborative of Common Ground grantee participants, Maine’s core Common Ground team and the local project, currently focused at Portland’s public health on early detection and situational awareness. She is also coordinator for the Maine HealthInfoNet Public Health Data Work Group.

Maurice "Bud" Martin, PhD, MEd, CHES

Senior Research Associate / Evaluation Team Lead

Dr. Martin earned a PhD in Public Health (2000), as well as an M.Ed in Educational Leadership and Policy (1997) from the University of South Carolina, and a BS degree in Community Health from the University of Maine at Farmington.

He is the new Senior Research Associate, Evaluation Team Lead at the Maine Center for Public Health (Sept 2007).  At this post he is responsible for the Healthy Maine Partnership program evaluation and other evaluation activities at MCPH. He also is an Assistant Professor at UMF teaching courses in Exercise Nutrition, Physiology, Men’s health, and a variety of community health education/promotion classes.  His research interest include; physical activity and youth, tobacco and substance abuse, and men’s health. He has published a variety of scholarly works with topics ranging from youth tobacco use, curriculum development, to community collaboration and bioethics.

He most recently served as a senior fellow with the division of Diabetes Translation (DDT) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta Georgia as the divisions Senior Evaluation Research Scientist.  Prior to the DDT appointment he served in the same capacity with Division of Unintentional Injury at CDC. He has been “on the ground” as data collection associate for the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) and National Youth Tobacco Survey (NTS).  He was site coordinator for the Preventing Youth Tobacco Use through Media Study (PRYSM), and worked with the American Legacy Tobacco Use Reduction Study (ALTURS).  Dr. Martin served as Associate Director of the Office of School Health Education at the University of South Carolina. 

Dr. Martin holds a membership with the Society for Public Health Education, American Public Health Association, American School Health Association, American Alliance for Health Physical Education Recreation and Dance, and ME Alliance for Health Physical Education Recreation and Dance, and the Maine Public Health Association, to name a few.

Karen O’Rourke, MPH

Vice President, Operations

Karen O’Rourke earned her BA from the University of California Berkeley and a Masters of Public Health from San Jose State University. The first seven years of her public health career were spent with the American Cancer Society, both in California and Massachusetts, coordinating statewide mammography screening and skin cancer screening programs and promoting tobacco control and other policies at the state and local level. Karen has worked in the Bureau of Health in the ASSIST tobacco control program before taking a position at the Portland Public Health Division managing their health promotion programs. Her experience there included working in collaboration with others to develop new coalitions for breast cancer activities and cardiovascular health programs, coordinating fluoridation referendum campaigns, creating new school-based sealant programs, developing a volunteer dental clinic, working with the City Council to pass Maine’s first smoke-free restaurant ordinance, among other activities.  Since joining the Center in 1999, Karen’s primary activities have been to develop the Maine-Harvard Prevention Research Center which focuses on obesity prevention, support efforts to provide public health emergency preparedness training, and implement the National Public Health Performance Standards program at the state and local levels.

Joan Orr, CHES

Project Director

Joan is the Project Director for the Maine Youth Overweight Collaborative.  Previously she was Program Director at the Healthy Community Coalition (HCC) in Franklin County responsible for several key tobacco, physical activity, and nutrition programs.  She started her health education career as Coordinator of the Maine Breast & Cervical Health Program and Peace in Our Families domestic violence initiative for HCC. 

Joan is a Certified Health Education Specialist with a bachelor’s degree in Community Health and a minor in Nutrition from the University of Maine in Farmington.  Before returning to school, Joan worked in a senior management position in a multi-million dollar apparel firm.

Michele Polacsek, MHS, PhD

Senior Research Scientist

Maine-Harvard Prevention Research Center

Michele earned her Bachelor’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Arts and Sciences, her master’s degree in international public health and her doctorate in social and behavioral sciences from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Michele is currently the scientific director of the Maine Harvard Prevention Research Center and works on research, policy development, evaluation, and technical assistance related to youth overweight, physical activity and nutrition initiatives in Maine. Michele has worked in and around diverse public health initiatives ranging from HIV prevention and transmission, public health/community health curriculum development, evaluation of Healthier Communities and other initiatives involving public health capacity building.

Robert H. Ross, PhD

Scientific Director

Maine Harvard Prevention Research Center

Bob joined the Center in August as the new Scientific Director for the Maine-Harvard Prevention Research Center. He is a sociologist and health services researcher and received his PhD from Yale University. Since 1991 he has worked in the areas of health promotion and disease, accident, injury prevention in work, school, and community settings, domestic and global; clinical and translational research project and program development; and health professions and policy research.

Previously he was Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Laboratory and Radiation Sciences at the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Vermont, where he conducted the CDC-sponsored “Worksites overweight and obesity control/prevention trial” in partnership with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont.

Formerly, he was Special Assistant for Development for Health and Human Development Programs at the Education Development Center in Newton MA where he developed domestic and global health promotion and disease prevention project and program grants; Director of the Office of Patient Oriented Research at UVM/Fletcher Allen Health Care where he mentored clinical investigators, leveraged intramural research awards into investigator-initiated extramural NIH and other research grants, and conducted the NIOSH-sponsored “Outcomes of Employee Health Status Assessment” in conjunction with Fletcher Allen Health Care; Research Associate at the Health Institute at the New England Medical Center in Boston MA where he worked with Drs. Sol Levine and Al Tarlov managing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research program; and Research Associate for the Dean’s Office at the Harvard School of Public Health. At Harvard he researched and wrote Innovators in Physician Education: The Process and Pattern of Reform in North American Medical Schools (New York, Springer 1996) with Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD.