Staff
Christina Welter, DrPH, MPH
Director
312.355.5303
[email protected]
Dr. Welter was previously the Deputy Director of the Prevention Services Unit at the Cook County Department of Public Health, a large local health department located in suburban Cook County just outside the City of Chicago that serves 2.4 million residents within 125 municipalities. Dr. Welter’s expertise is to facilitate systems-oriented change by partnering with others to design, execute, and evaluate strategic and asset-based improvement initiatives. Under her leadership at CCDPH, she catalyzed the establishment of several ongoing and award-winning countywide leadership collaboratives and secured over 25 million dollars in funding to implement policy, systems and environmental changes initiatives.
Dr. Welter was also a part of a research team that received the 2013 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research Award for Translating Research to Policy. Dr. Welter is currently a member of the Illinois Governor’s State Health Improvement Plan Implementation Coordination Council. She is a Public Health Accreditation Board Site Team Chair and helped to evaluate the first round of health departments seeking voluntary accreditation. In addition, Dr. Welter is Principal Investigator of the HRSA-funded Region V Public Health Training Collaborative (PHTC).
She previously served as a member of the Public Health Accreditation Board’s Standards and Measures Workgroup who developed the first set of accreditation standards for state and local public health departments. She also worked on a consultant team to develop the Operational Definition of a Local Health Department Prototype Metrics and served on NACCHO’s Project Public Health Ready Workgroup, a project dedicated to developing the first national standards in public health preparedness.
Michael Fagen, PhD, MPH
Director Emeritus
Dr. Michael Fagen has close to 20 years of public health experience that emphasizes assessment, evaluation, and applied research. Currently, Michael directs the multiple case study, competency assessment, and training evaluation components of the Suburban Cook County Communities Putting Prevention to Work obesity prevention initiative. Michael is also a member of the Illinois Community Transformation Grant evaluation team, where he focuses on evaluating chronic disease prevention initiatives.
Michael has a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University, an M.P.H. in Applied Health Sciences from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and a Ph.D. in Community Health Sciences from the UIC SPH.
Louis Rowitz, PhD
Director Emeritus
[email protected]
Professor Louis Rowitz has built a unique career in public health academia via public health practice issues and initiatives. Serving as the School’s Deputy Director of its Center for Public Health Practice since it began, he was also the first director of a regional leadership institute funded by the Centers for Disease Control. Since 1992, that Institute (originally, the Illinois Public Health Leadership Institute) has encompassed as many as seven states and is now called the MidAmerica Regional Public Health Leadership Institute (MARPHLI), with teams from the partnering state of Indiana and the participating states of Wisconsin and Michigan, in addition to Illinois. In 2001, Dr. Rowitz became the Director of the MidAmerica Public Health Training Center with its mission to improve public health infrastructure through training of the public health workforce. Dr. Rowitz has published two texts on leadership in public health based upon his experience in developing the institutes. The first is Public Health Leadership: Putting Principles Into Practice (Aspen, 2008, 2nd edition) which is now the premier text in leadership courses and institutes across the country. In 2005, he published Public Health in the 21st Century: The Prepared Leader. The Center also publishes the Leadership in Public Health journal, and Public Health Practice in Illinois, and the Illinois Board of Health Manual, all of which are edited by Dr. Rowitz.
Bernard Turnock, MD, MPH
312.996.3551
[email protected]
Dr. Bernard Turnock is a Professor and Chair of the Division of Community Health Sciences at the UIC School of Public Health. As a former Director of the Illinois State Department of Health, he brings a strong practice orientation to MARPHLI. Dr. Turnock authored the book, “Public Health: What It Is and How It Works,” now in its fifth edition, which defines public health concepts for new students and experienced practitioners. He is also the first Professor at the School to offer his course, CHSC 400, “Public Health Concepts and Practice,” entirely on-line. Dr. Turnock is also the Principle Investigator for the Illinois Preparedness and Emergency Response Learning Center, also at the MidAmerica Center for Public Health Practice.
Beth-Anne Jacob, PhD, LCSW
Evaluation Director
(312) 413-1088
[email protected]
Dr. Beth-Anne Jacob has 23 years of experience in health-related evaluation, research, and care, specializing in qualitative methods for demonstrating outcomes in medical education. Dr. Jacob’s content areas of interest include HIV/AIDS prevention and care, drug and alcohol use and treatment, and trauma exposure. She has a strong record of building effective evaluation partnerships with CBOs, state and local health departments, and national entities such as the AIDS Education and Training Center’s National Evaluation Center (NEC). Dr. Jacob provides oversight and guidance on conceptualization, design, implementation, analysis, and presentation of findings for the Center’s evaluation projects.
Beth-Anne has a B.A. in Gender Studies from Vassar College, an M.S.W. from Howard University, and a Ph.D. in Social Service Administration with a concentration in Practice-Based Research from the University of Chicago. She is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the State of Illinois.
Devangna “Guddi” Kapadia, MS, MPH
Assistant Director
312.355.1144
[email protected]
Guddi Kapadia is the Manager of the Communities Putting Prevention to Work Project through Cook County Department of Public Health at the MidAmerica Center for Public Health Practice. Her responsibilities include oversight of the CPPW project including day-to-day activities of all components of the project, coordination of staff, meetings, and other details. Guddi also worked with the Illinois Public Health Preparedness Center (IPHPC) Preparedness where she was responsible for the development and delivery of online and face-to-face trainings related to emergency response and preparedness. She received her Master of Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health. She also has a Master of Science from Roosevelt University in Biotechnology and received her undergraduate degree from Washington University, St. Louis, MO in Biology and Religious Studies.
Sophie Naji
Program Manager
312.355.3825
[email protected]
Sophie Naji has been working in Public Health Workforce development since 2001. She is the main point of contact for training opportunities as the manager of the HRSA funded MidAmerica Public Health Training Center at the UIC School of Public Health. Sophie works as the liaison to public health professionals in Illinois and Indiana to assist in determining their training priorities. On the national level, she assists key administration partners at the Health Resources and Services Administration and Association of Schools of Public Health to maintain and hopefully increase the level of funding dedicated to training the public health workforce.
Manjusha “Rani” Saxena, MPH
Program Manager
312.336.7919
[email protected]
Rani Saxena has been a member of the professional staff at the MidAmerica Center for Public Health Practice (MCPHP) since August 2001. She started her career at MCPHP as a Research Assistant in August 2001 working on projects associated with the Illinois Institute of Maternal and Child Health Leadership and Maternal and Child Health Data Use Academy. In June 2003, she became a Project Manager for the Illinois Advanced Executive Public Health Leadership Institute, Maternal and Child Health Emerging Leaders Institute and Maternal and Child Health Management Academy. Currently she manages various projects for the MidAmerica Public Health Training Center (MAPHTC) and Communities Putting to Prevention to Work (CPPW) initiative. She also handles all aspects of conference planning and coordination for trainings sponsored by the center. Ms. Saxena holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Purdue University; A Master’s in Public Health from University of Illinois at Chicago.
Victoria Wiebel, MPH
Assistant Director
312.996.6531
[email protected]
Victoria Wiebel, MPH, is the Assistant Director of the Illinois Preparedness and Emergency Response Learning Center at the MidAmerica Center for Public Health Practice. Previously she was with Illinois Public Health Preparedness Center since its inception in 2000. Victoria has also assisted the Public Health Practitioner Certification Board, Inc., to coordinate and manage their innovative competency-based certification program for public health administrators and emergency response coordinators. She has 30 years of experience in health-related program development, marketing, and management, in both the public and private sectors.
Michael Yen, MS
IT Manager / Program Coordinator
312.996.2743
[email protected]
Michael Yen has been involved in the information technology field for over ten years and has been engineering IT solutions within the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) since 2004. As the IT manager for the MidAmerica Center for Public Health Practice, Michael oversees the development and deployment of online trainings as well as technical and multimedia projects for the Center. He holds a BS in Computer Engineering and an MS in Management Information Systems from UIC.
