Emma Waugh, MPH

Hoehn Public Health Consulting

Emma Waugh founded Hoehn Public Health Consulting with the mission of helping community partners understand, measure, and amplify their impact in the ways that are most meaningful to them. She is a non-Native ally and has experience working with Tribal clients on programs including youth suicide prevention, substance use, building public health data infrastructure and securing funding for new youth programming

Ella Ewart-Pierce, MPH, MA

US Dept. of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health

Ella Ewart-Pierce has worked in public health for about 15 years. In her current role, she provides evidence-based technical assistance to community, state, local, and tribal health organizations, especially in chronic disease prevention, maternal and child health, and improving access to care. In 2022, she founded a collaboration called the Communities Improving Maternal Health Alliance with federal, state, and local partners to address the negative impacts of social determinants of health (or non-medical drivers of health) on maternal health outcomes at the community-level.

Previously, she worked for the USDA Food and Nutrition Service on the WIC program and National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a Research Analyst. She completed her MPH in Global health with a certificate in management and finance at Johns Hopkins. She has also worked for the Peace Corps Headquarters office in Washington DC, a local health department, and a community-based organization.

She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru and an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer in Austin, Texas.

LaKaija Wood-Johnson, PhD, MPH, MPS

Principal Scientist, Sage Bionetworks

Dr. LaKaija Johnson is a population health scientist, educator, and strategist with over a decade of experience leading and evaluating the implementation of strategies to build capacity and strengthen infrastructure to advance systems change in academic, government, and non-profit settings.

Dr. Johnson currently serves as a Principal Scientist in Team Science at Sage Bionetworks, where she provides leadership on how to implement and evaluate best practices for collaboration building and team science on the Science Coordination & Community Engagement team.

Dr. Johnson’s career is built on a passion for health equity and social justice that she leverages to identify opportunities to take collective action by implementing innovative evidence-based strategies, programs, and policies to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive research and practice environments.

Leah S. Fischer, PhD

Health Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Leah Fischer is a Health Scientist in the Division of Infectious Disease Readiness and Innovation, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her 10+ years’ experience in public health spans emergency preparedness and response, program evaluation, policy research and analysis, project management, and technical writing. A motivator in keeping projects focused and on track, she is adept at looking through the lens of a particular audience to maximize the utility of work for clients. By maintaining a view of the big picture, Dr. Fischer connects technical, scientific information, and policy implications to inform public health decision making. Her academic background, encompassing a Doctorate in Public Health, Master of Business Administration and Master of International Relations, provides her with a unique multidisciplinary perspective on issues affecting public health.

Ursula Bauer

Deputy Commissioner for Public Health, New York State Dept of Health

In her professional role, Ursula Bauer is the deputy commissioner for public health at the New York State Department of Health, where she directs the Office of Public Health. OPH works to address chronic diseases, infectious diseases, injuries, environmental health, maternal, child and family health, and other areas of public health concern.

Prior to joining NYSDOH in August 2021, she served as senior advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General. There she worked to advance partnership strategies to increase investment in communities and led the development of Community Health and Economic Prosperity: Engaging Businesses as Stewards and Stakeholders—A Report of the Surgeon General. Prior to joining the Surgeon General’s Office in 2018, Ursula directed the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for eight-and-a-half years. At CDC, she established two Tribal Health programs, Good Health and Wellness in Indian Country, and Tribal Practices for Wellness.

Ursula held leadership positions in state health departments in Louisiana, Florida, and New York, and has a PhD in Epidemiology from Yale University, an MPH in Family Health from Columbia University, and a master’s degree in political science from Rutgers University.

Lauren Kidwell, MPH

Epidemiologist, Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services

Lauren has been an epidemiologist in the prevention division for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services for 2 years. She is a project manager for the youth access to tobacco and alcohol compliance checks; oversee data collection/analysis for lifespan alcohol, tobacco and marijuana use/misuse data; conduct presentations regarding substance use/abuse to stakeholders; coordinate alcohol, tobacco and marijuana prevention workgroup meetings.

Through the marijuana prevention and education workgroup Lauren co-chairs, she has been able to participate in an interim study to the Oklahoma House of Representatives which focused on the increasing number of unintentional marijuana ingestions by children under the age of 6 in Oklahoma.

Lauren is an active member of the American Public Health Association and was able to present her thesis at the 2023 APHA Annual Conference in Boston which centered around Medication Assisted Treatment Programs at behavioral health clinics in northeastern Oklahoma.

Lauren is also an active member of the Oklahoma Public Health Association where she currently serves as the Epidemiology/Lab Science Section Chair, Scholarship Committee Member and Annual Conference Planning Committee Member.

In Lauren’s community, she is a coach for First Tee of Tulsa – which teaches life skills through the game of golf to youths aged 7 – 18 and she teaches exercise classes at the YMCA of Tulsa.

Rasaki (Ayo) Aranmolate

Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Epidemiologist & Georgia Department of Public Health

Rasaki (Ayo) Aranmolate is the Lead on the data linkage project between Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP)and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) and analyzes data related to maternal and infant health from complex surveys, and hospitalization datasets, and uses the analytic findings to answer questions on the impact of control substances on infant health to create awareness among health experts. He creates both Monthly and Annual PDMP reports to understand the trends in opioids prescriptions.

In addition, he has taught courses on research methodology, epidemiology, clinical trials, and disease pathogenesis. Rasaki has mentored several undergraduate and graduate students on literature review, poster presentation and statistical analysis.

Kristen Mitchell

Senior Program Manager, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Alaska Native Epidemiology Center

Dr. Mitchell has over 20 years of experience in public health including program planning, development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. She joined the Alaska Native Epidemiology Center in 2015 and is currently serving as the Senior Program Manager of the Network Coordinating Center for the Tribal Epidemiology Centers Public Health Infrastructure Program.

James Cutler

Biostatistician, Southern Plains Tribal Health Board

James Cutler has been working as a biostatistician since 2020, when he earned his MS in biostatistics from the University of Oklahoma Hudson College of Public Health. He has experience in public health and biomedical research.

James has contributed to several peer-reviewed publications and presentations in medicine and statistical methods, and has experience in generalized linear models, survival analysis, Bayesian methods, and non-parametric methods.

Luis Ambrosio

Epidemiologist, Southern Plains Tribal Health Board

Luis Ambrosio recently graduated from the Hudson College of Public Health, where he received a master’s degree in public health. Currently, he works as an epidemiologist at the Southern Plains Tribal Health Board. In the past, he has been involved in programs and grants related to minority health, nutrition, sexual health, and COVID-19 response.

Muneeb Amin

Epidemiologist, Southern Plains Tribal Health Board

Muneeb Amin graduated with a master’s in public health from the University of Oklahoma Hudson College of Public Health in 2023. He focused on epidemiology in his graduate program and is currently an epidemiologist at the Southern Plains Tribal Health Board.

He was a student intern at the Oklahoma State Department of Health, where he analyzed trends on pediatric cancer survivors using SAS, as well as performing data linkages with the Oklahoma Central Cancer Registry and the Social Security Death Index.

Martino Boggs

Epidemiologist, Southern Plains Tribal Health Board

Martino is a biostatistician at the Southern Plains Tribal Health Board. I studied mathematics and computer science at the University of Oklahoma and earned his master’s degree in statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2023. Martino enjoys working with data and helping people make sense of it.

Jeff Wallace

OK2SHARE Coordinator, Regional Health Consultant, Oklahoma State Department of Health

Mr. Wallace has 40 years’ experience working with federal, state, and local data. He has worked extensively with Census, education, and health information. Mr. Wallace has worked for the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, the Oklahoma Office of Educational Quality and Accountability, and currently works in the Center for Health Statistics in the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

Mr. Wallace has a BS in Statistics from Oklahoma State University, is a Certified Public Manager, and holds a teaching certificate in Mathematics. His hobbies include riding motorcycles and bicycles.

Lancer Stephens, PhD

Associate Dean / Associate Professor, OU College of Public Health

Lancer Stephens is a member of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes of Oklahoma through his father and a descendant of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation through his mother. Dr. Stephens is an Associate Dean and Associate Professor at the Hudson College of Public Health, a Presidential Professor for Presbyterian Health Foundation, and Associate Core Director for the Oklahoma Shared Clinical and Translational Research Institute at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences.

Dr. Stephens works with multiple tribes and tribal organizations locally and nationwide to advance tribal health which he believes can be accomplished, in large part, by advancing and preparing tribal students for health careers.