Director:

Etienne (Tina) Phipps, PhD is Director of the Center and Director of Medical Ethics. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University. Her current work focuses on cultural and ethnic diversity, health disparities, and palliative care. She has been funded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Phipps serves on NIH research review panels including the Ethical Legal and Social Implications of the Human Genome Project. She participated in the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) End of Life Care video series, addressing cultural considerations and decision making at end of life. She is a co-convener to the Robert Wood Johnson Last Act’s Campaign Diversity Resource Committee which is working to promote a broader appreciation for how diversity shapes patient and provider behaviors. Dr Phipps directs the Ethics Program at Albert Einstein Healthcare Network and is the Vice-Chair of the Institutional Review Board at Albert Einstein Healthcare Network.

Program and Research Manager:

Janice Esprit is the Program and Research Manager. She supervises the administrative operations of the office. She coordinates grant-related and program financial reports, organizes and prepares research information for online completion, and centralizing research-related accounts for review and monitoring. In addition to her administrative-related duties, Janice is the link with other research officers within the network to streamline the research process. She assists investigators by overseeing the management of qualitative and quantitative database programs used in research.

Administrative Assistant:

Yolonda Mcleod provides administrative and secretarial support for the Center. She aides in the recording and maintenance of expenditures and fiscal reports as well as assists in preparing grant proposals, reports and contracts. In addition, she serves as a liaison between researchers and outside facilities. Yolonda has been with the Center since November 2001.

Research Staff:

Tina Harralson, PhD Senior Research Scientist, received her doctorate in Psychology from the University of Tennessee and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Behavioral Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. She has directed several NIMH-funded projects pertaining to the relationship between depression and medical co-morbidity in elder populations and has published on this topic. She has also published on the effect of hostility and anger suppression on cardiovascular reactivity.

Dr. Harralson has extensive experience developing, designing, analyzing, and evaluating quantitative health measures and methodology. She also serves on the Institutional Review Board at Albert Einstein Healthcare Network and is the Department of Medicine Quality Improvement Coordinator.

Her research interests include: 1) cultural and ethnic disparity in cardiovascular health, 2) physiological outcomes of psychosocial stressors, depression, and distress, and 3) socioeconomic, psychosocial, and cultural/ethnic barriers to health care.

 

Shana Stites, MA Research Analyst, is working towards a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at Chestnut Hill College. She has expertise in designing and analyzing large data sets to evaluate population-based trends and interventions. She has experience in the implementation and evaluation of public health programs, including those focusing on emergency preparedness. She is working with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to map and understand community characteristics and community level interactions. Current projects involving GIS include community asset mapping to identify barriers and support factors for implementing community level diabetes interventions. Ms. Stites is also using GIS to study the impact of naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) on the social well being of seniors.

Nora Madison, BA Research Associate, graduated with honors from Arcadia University with a degree in Sociology and has experience in social and behavioral research. She works with the Director developing grants, managing projects, and assisting with outcomes evaluations, as well as supporting the day-to-day operations of research. Nora also manages the Center’s web site. Her research interests include the benefits of physical activity- with an emphasis on using the workplace as a site for physical activity interventions, identifying community assets to improve health outcomes, and the use of web-based technology to improve health and healthcare delivery.

Mathew McLaughlin, BS Research Assistant, graduated with a degree in Psychology from Saint Joseph's University. He is completing his Master's Degree in Experimental Psychology, researching the relationship between adjustment problems and early literacy in pre-school children.  Mathew assists Dr. Harralson in coordinating her ongoing research projects.  He is involved in recruiting and communicating with participants, managing study data, and conducting literature reviews.  His research interested include the relationship between depression and cardiovascular disease, and the psychological and physiological benefits of exercise.  

Brian Lee, BS is a Research Assistant at the Center. In this capacity he contributes to the Center’s projects by assisting the research staff with database set up, data entry and analysis, and preparing grant proposals and manuscripts. His research interests include investigating multicultural perspectives on counseling, health, and socialization. Mr. Lee graduated with a degree in Psychology from the College of Charleston and is working towards a Master’s degree in Clinical-Counseling Psychology at La Salle University. He has experience in multicultural affairs working with college students analyzing the effectiveness of college transition programs for minority students and being a peer counselor and mentor.

 

Consultants:

Jessica M. Robbins, PhD joined the Center as a Research Scientist. She received her doctorate in Epidemiology and Public Health from Yale University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania Population Studies Center. Her research topics have included: socioeconomic status and type 2 diabetes among African-American and non-Hispanic white women and men; patterns of internal migration and local mortality statistics in the United States; and the association between neighborhood poverty and mortality rates in Philadelphia. She is also serving as co-investigator of a smoking cessation intervention study in the Philadelphia Health Care Centers. Her primary research interests include: (1) socioeconomic factors in women's health; (2) population-based interventions to prevent and ameliorate the epidemic of type 2 diabetes; and (3) using data on urban health problems to inform and promote healthy public policy.