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Our Staff
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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. |
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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.
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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.
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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. |
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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. |
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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