Carolyn Berry CHPSR Deputy Director John Billings CHPSR Director Jan Blustein Colleen Gillespie	Sue A. Kaplan CHPSR Associate Director Anthony R. Kovner Beth C. Weitzman

	Stephanie Albert Champa Chonzom Jessica Holmes	Andrea Mayer Tod Mijanovich Diana Silver

CHPSR Faculty & Staff Biographies

Stephanie Albert is an Assistant Research Scientist at the Center for Health and Public Service Research. Currently she is part of the team evaluating the New York City Department of Health’s Childhood Asthma Initiative. Prior to joining CHPSR, she spent nearly three years at Americans for Gun Safety as the Senior Advisor for State Affairs researching and analyzing state laws as they relate to firearms in addition to assisting state-based organizations advocate for legislative solutions to gun violence. She also worked for more than two years as a Legislative Aide for Senator Tom Hayden in the California State Legislature. Stephanie has a BA in Sociology from University of California at Santa Barbara and an M.P.A. from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Carolyn Anne Berry, PhD is the Deputy Director of the Center for Health and Public Service Research (CHPSR) and Associate Research Professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. Prior to this position she was Assistant Research Professor at the Institute for Health Services Research and Policy Studies (IHSRPS) at Northwestern University and Associate Director of Outcomes Research at Children's Memorial Hospital. She holds a PhD in Community Psychology from New York University. Her research focuses on the health and health care of low-income children. Currently she is the Principal Investigator for the evaluation of the Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD) initiative, a project funded by The Commonwealth Fund that seeks to expand child development services to low-income children through Medicaid. Prior to this initiative and its evaluation Dr. Berry assisted the Commonwealth Fund in exploring options for providing enhanced child development services through Medicaid managed care organizations. Dr. Berry is involved with the Evaluation of the New York City Childhood Asthma Initiative, funded by the NYC Department of Health. She is the Principle Investigator of a five year grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) entitled Social Factors and the Environment in Pediatric Asthma. This project explores the biological, environmental and social determinants of the health disparities related to race noted in childhood asthma.

John Billings is an Associate Professor at the Wagner School and the Director of the Center for Health and Public Service Research. His recent work has involved analysis of patterns of hospital admission rates and emergency department utilization as tools to evaluate barriers to outpatient care and to assess the performance of ambulatory care delivery systems. Professor Billings is currently the Principal Investigator of a project to assess models for delivering primary care to low income populations and Co-Principal Investigator of an effort to evaluate the impact of Medicaid managed care in New York City. Previously, he headed the Ambulatory Care Access Project, a four-year effort to evaluate access barriers in six major urban areas. Professor Billings' other work has focused on care for the uninsured, issues related to quality of care and the physician decision-making process. He is a founder and member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making. A graduate of the law school of the University of California at Berkeley, Professor Billings has served as a Visiting Professor at Duke University and as the Executive Director of the John A. Hartford Foundation.

Jan Blustein is an Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Wagner School. Her research has focused on the dynamics underlying the use of medical services in vulnerable and elderly populations. Before coming to the Wagner School in 1996, she was a member of the faculty at Columbia University. Currently, she is Principal Investigator on "Managed Care and Medicare", a study of health care among older Americans supported by the Commonwealth Fund. Dr. Blustein is a graduate of Yale Medical School and the Wagner School. Her work has been published in JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, Medical Care and American Journal of Public Health.

Champa Chonzom is the Financial Administrator of grants at CHPSR. Prior to that, she was the Office Manager of Executive Development Programs at the Stern School of Business. Champa has a B. Ed from Bangalore University, India and a Masters in Public Administration from Wagner.

Colleen Gillespie, Ph.D., is an Assistant Research Professor and Research Scientist at the Center for Health and Public Service Research. Dr. Gillespie is currently the principal investigator of several studies related to the experiences of individuals with severe mental illness within the New York City criminal justice system. The goals of this research are to suggest ways in which the needs of individuals with severe mental illness can be better met within the criminal justice system and to help illuminate the points in the decision-making process where criminal justice involvement for these individuals can be minimized. She is also working with Professor Michael Yedidia on a performance-based evaluation of a three school program to improve medical students' communication skills that is funded by the Josiah R. Macy Foundation. In addition, Dr. Gillespie is working with the interdisciplinary Consortium on Substance Abuse Service project aimed at developing innovative methods for educating frontline substance abuse treatment counselors and staff. She teaches the Research Methods course(pll.2901) at Wagner as well. Dr. Gillespie received her Ph.D. in community psychology from New York University's Graduate School of Arts and Science and her B.A. in psychology and history from Rice University. Her prior research has focused on HIV prevention among inner-city women, particularly the role of the social context in supporting women's prevention efforts. Dr. Gillespie also conducts program evaluation, technical assistance, and program development activities for community-based agencies in the areas of HIV prevention, AIDS support, community mental health, and cancer prevention.

Jessica Holmes is the Administrative Aide at CHPSR. Prior to arriving at CHPSR, she worked in the Graduate Processing Center for the Masters of Social Work School at New York University for five years. She is currently completing her BS is Digital Communications and Media with a concentration in Computer Animation and Visual Effects.

Sue Kaplan is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Associate Director of the Center for Health and Public Service Research. At the Center, she directs a number of research projects and policy analyses concerning access to care for vulnerable populations in urban areas, Medicaid managed care, and the structure and performance of safety net providers. Current projects include a CDC-funded initiative to eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in health, focusing on diabetes and heart disease in the South Bronx; development of an evaluation strategy for the Department of Heath and Human Services' Community Access Program, a national effort to support and enhance safety net services; and the evaluation of the New York City five-year asthma initiative. She also serves as ombudsman for Communities in Charge, a national initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help communities redesign the structure and financing of care for the uninsured. Ms. Kaplan serves on several Boards, and is currently the Chair of the Board of the Bank Street College of Education. Before coming to NYU, Ms. Kaplan was Vice President for Planning and Director of Special Projects and Policy at the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation, the country's largest public hospital system. She received her J.D. from Harvard University and her B.A. from Wesleyan University.

Anthony Kovner is Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Wagner School. He received bachelor's and master's degrees from Cornell University, and his doctorate in public administration from the University of Pittsburgh. An award-winning author, Dr. Kovner has been at NYU since 1979. Prior to that he was on the Wharton School faculty. He has also served as CEO of a community hospital, senior health care consultant for the United Autoworkers Union in Detroit, and as a manager of a group practice, a nursing home and a large ambulatory care services program. He is a board member of the Lutheran Medical Center and Vice-Chair of the board of Health Plus Prepaid Health Services Plan. Dr. Kovner has consulted extensively in the health care industry in areas such as board development, management development, implementation of community benefit programs and strategic planning. Currently, he is working on a variety of research topics, including studies of how to assess Medicaid managed care, how hospitals can be governed more effectively, and how to implement management development programs for health care organizations. Dr. Kovner has published extensively in many journals and has written a number of books, including Really Managing (Health Administration Press, 1988), A Career Guide for the Health Services Manager (co-authored with Alan Channing, Health Administration Press, 3rd edition, 1999), Health Care Delivery in the United States (Springer, 6th edition, 1999), The Role of the Physician Executive (co-authored with David Kindig, Health Administration Press, 1992), Health Services Management (Co-edited with Duncan Neuhauser, Health Administration Press, 6th edition, 1997) and Health Services Management: A Book of Cases (co-edited with Duncan Neuhauser, Health Administration Press, 5th edition, 1997).

Andrea Mayer is an Assistant Research Scientist at the Center for Health and Public Service Research. Currently she is part of the team evaluating the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Expecting Success program, an initiative that addresses disparities in cardiac care. Prior to joining CHPSR, Andrea was on staff at the Center for Comprehensive Care at St. Luke’s Roosevelt hospital in New York City where she was involved in a variety of research projects. She also worked at the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, an organization committed to strengthening medical research around the world. Andrea has a BA in Political Science from the State University of New York at Albany and an M.P.A. from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Tod Mijanovich is a Research Scientist at CHPSR working primarily on the Primary Care Assessment and Improvement Project, the Urban Health Initiative and the Safety Net Assessment Project. Before coming to NYU, he was a Senior Research Associate at the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, where he served as research manager of the Self-Sufficiency Project, a long-term demonstration project testing the effectiveness of a temporary earnings subsidy in helping welfare recipients to achieve economic self-sufficiency. Mr. Mijanovich has worked at the United Hospital Fund and the Century Foundation and has held several positions in the New York City government, including Director of Program Design and Analysis for Community Care and Senior Services, the Human Resources Administration. Mr. Mijanovich is currently a doctoral student at the Wagner School.

Diana Silver is a Research Scientist with the Center for Health and Public Service Research and serves as the Project Director of the national evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Urban Health Initiative, overseeing the management, data collection and analysis activities. Before coming to NYU, Ms. Silver served as Deputy Director of the Hunter College Center on AIDS, Drugs and Community Health, where she was responsible for developing and administering programs serving low income neighborhoods in New York City. She also developed initiatives at the Rikers Island Detention Facility and worked with unions, and health and social service organizations, and public high schools. Ms. Silver taught for several years in the School of Health Science at Hunter College. She has worked in various capacities for health care organizations in New York City, and served as a consultant to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the New York City Department of Health as well as other Social Service and criminal justice agencies. She has a Masters Degree in public health from Hunter College and is completing her dissertation at the Wagner School. She serves on the Advisory Board of the AIDS and Adolescent Network of New York.

Beth C. Weitzman, Professor of Health and Public Policy, joined the faculty of New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in 1987. She teaches classes in statistics and community health and medical care and is Director of Doctoral Studies. Her research focuses on urban policies affecting poor families and she has evaluated a range of program aimed at meeting the health, social service, housing, and educational needs of these families and their children. Since 1995, Dr. Weitzman has been directing the national evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Urban Health Initiative, aimed at improving health and safety for children and youth in five of America’s most distressed cities. Previous research includes a NIDA-funded study examining the relationship of school absenteeism to survey-based estimates of adolescent risk behavior and a longitudinal study of homeless families funded by NIMH. In recent years, Dr. Weitzman’s work has been published in the Journal of Urban Health, the Journal of Adolescent Health, the American Journal of Evaluation, the Journal of Epidemiology  and Community Health, and the American Journal of Public Health. She holds a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.P.A. and Ph.D. from NYU.