Administrative Core

Lisa A. Cooper, MD, MPH
MACCHE Co-Principal Investigator, Core Leader
Dr. Cooper is a board-certified general internist, epidemiologist, and health services researcher. She is the founder of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity and serves as its Executive Director. Along with Dr. Crews, she will use her expertise to ensure teamwork, adherence to timelines, and accountability for interim milestones with the Project PIs and Core Leads as Co-Chair of the Executive Committee. Dr. Cooper also serves as the liaison between MACCHE and the NIMHD Chronic Disease Disparities Coordinating Center and provides leadership for the Intervention Workgroup.

Deidra C. Crews, MD, ScM
MACCHE Co-Principal Investigator, Core Leader
Dr. Crews is a board-certified nephrologist, epidemiologist and health services researcher. Her research program aims to advance equity in kidney disease and hypertension outcomes by focusing on social drivers of health inequities through epidemiologic studies and community-engaged interventions. Along with Dr. Cooper, she will use her experience in building collaborative research teams and conducting community-engaged interventions, to guide all three research projects and cores through interactions with the Project PIs and Core Leads as Co-Chair of the Executive Committee. Dr. Crews oversees DSMB reporting and provides leadership for the Data Workgroups.

Katherine “Katie” Dietz, MPH
Program Administrator, Executive Committee Manager
Acts as main project manager for the MACCHE grant, and she will ensure the Administrative Core has complete oversight of the other cores, and the research projects. She will serve as the program manager for the Center Data Workgroup. Ms. Dietz will work closely with the research project and core managers and/or coordinators to provide guidance in the set-up and ongoing management of the projects including the IRB process. She will manage the preparation of periodic progress reports required under this funding mechanism and the preparation of materials for the semi-annual DSMB meetings. She will also work closely with the Center PIs to maintain the overall Center’s timeline and ensure the Center meets its milestones.

Gee Eun “Jia” Lee, MS
Senior Administrative Coordinator
Keeps correspondence, monitors, and approves all expenditures, reviews finance reports of the Center on a monthly basis with the Executive Committee, provides consultation in matters of fiscal administration and regulatory adherence, and coordinates the reporting of expenditures to the funding agency.

Nancy Molello, MSB
Program Director, Operations and Strategic Partnerships, JHCHE
Provides administrative support for the Administrative Core including overseeing human resources, finances, and ensuring subcontracts are administrated. Provides operational support for the Executive Committee.

Abby Rauso, BA
Research Assistant
Assists Research Program Managers with organizing administrative materials, collating and developing resources and trainings, and supporting website content development.

Lauren Rohrs Salah, MA
Communications Coordinator
Organizes and maintains the Center website, library, and databases. Maintains current news, faculty pages, publication lists, resource lists, calendars, and schedules; and produces electronic analyses, infographics, and reports. Creates webpages with information about each study for recruitment, and training for study participants, etc.

Alison Trainor, MS, CHES
Core Manager, Intervention Workgroup Manager, Data Workgroup Manager, Project Managers Working Group MACCHE Representative
Manages meeting invites, agendas, and assignment note taking for the Intervention and Data Workgroup meetings. Meets monthly with program managers and coordinators from the MACCHE cores and projects. Provides administrative support for cores and projects, including facilitating communication on mutual needs, connecting personnel to other personnel with helpful expertise, etc.

Chidinma Ibe, PhD
Provides expertise to projects related to patient/client and community engagement, identifying CAB members with appropriate perspectives and providing guidance on stakeholder engagement approaches. Gives guidance related to training curricula for health coaches, home visitors, and CHWs and adaptation of interventions to social contextual factors, and fidelity.

Carmen Alvarez, PhD, MSN, RN
Leader of Intervention Workgroup
Provides expertise related to cultural, linguistic, and contextual adaptation of their interventions and training of interventionists.

Jill Marsteller, PhD, MPP
Leader of Intervention Workgroup
Provides expertise to projects related to measurement and analysis of organizational context and implementation processes and their influences on key outcomes, as well as to adapting interventions in response to health system and other organizational stakeholder input.

Jeanne Charleston, BSN, RN
Senior Research Associate at JHSPH
Provides guidance across the research projects on their recruitment efforts and assists with blood pressure measurement training.

Kathryn “Kit” Carson, ScM
Data Workgroup Leader
Oversees development of primary data collection instruments, including harmonization of data elements across the three projects, oversee database development and data management, and write the specifications for EHR data extracts. Leads the data analysis team.

John Jackson, ScD
Common Data Elements & Data Harmonization MACCHE Representative
Helps oversee the application of causal inference methods that address bias due to confounding and selection-bias, as well as the application of methods to measure disparity in descriptive and intervention studies. He will also provide guidance on the re-coding and analysis of Medicaid claims data.

Nae-Yuh Wang, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine and of Biostatistics at JHSPH
Works closely with the Center leadership and project PIs to provide expertise on the study design, protocol development, and data analyses of Center-related projects.

Jessica Yeh, PhD
Data Workgroup Leader and Common Data Elements & Data Harmonization MACCHE
Contributes to study designs, intervention development, participant recruitment and retention with particular attention to recruiting minorities, assessments related to social determinants of health, and design and conduct of statistical analysis.

Shang-En Chung, ScM
Senior Biostatistician
Responsible for creating electronic data capture, recruitment and participant tracking databases, REDCap reports as well as performing exploratory and confirmatory data analyses, including statistical tests and modeling.

Ariella Stein
Data Manager
Works closely with Kathryn Carson on preparing reports for DSMB meetings and other data reports related to recruitment, outcomes assessments, and intervention delivery, as required for quality control and assurance.