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Collaborator Spotlight: Arizona Investigators on the #4Corners 4Health Project

Collaborator Spotlight: Arizona Investigators on the #4Corners 4Health Project

Thirteen scientists from universities and NCI Comprehensive Cancer Centers in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah are collaborating with Dr. David Buller, Klein Buendel’s Director of Research, on the #4Corners4Health study (CA268037). This Collaborator Spotlight features the Investigators from the State of Arizona.

The 4Corners study aims to aid rural emerging adults (ages 18-26 years) in making informed decisions that reduce cancer risk factors and prevent cancer later in life and to help emerging adults evaluate and resist misinformation and marketing that promote cancer risk behaviors. This will be accomplished using a social media campaign designed with community advisors for diverse young adults living in rural counties in the Four Corners states (AZ, CO, NM, and UT). Social media may reach emerging adults more than interventions through other community channels (for example, clinics, schools, and workplaces) and for lower cost in the geographically dispersed, underserved rural communities in the Mountain West.

Dr. Judith Gordon, Co-Investigator, University of Arizona

Judith S. Gordon, Ph.D., is a professor and Associate Dean for Research in the University of Arizona College of Nursing. She is also a professor in the University of Arizona Department of Family and Community Medicine. Dr. Gordon’s areas of expertise include public health tobacco cessation and vaping interventions delivered in dental and medical settings, self-help tobacco and vaping cessation programs, educational tobacco and vaping cessation programs for healthcare practitioners, computer-based tobacco and vaping prevention programs, multi-behavioral interventions to address weight, physical activity, and tobacco, the use of mobile apps for lifestyle change and medication adherence, and the use of guided imagery for tobacco cessation, lifestyle change, exercise motivation, and stress reduction. Dr. Gordon has been a Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on more than 40 projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She has authored and co-authored numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and has presented widely at national and international scientific conferences. She has served on several proposal review committees, editorial boards, and professional societies.

Dr. Meghan Skiba, Co-Investigator, University of Arizona

Dr. Meghan Skiba, PhD, MS, MPH, RDN, is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing Biobehavioral Health Science Division at the University of Arizona. She received her doctorate in Health Behavior Health Promotion from the Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. She has additional formal graduate training in epidemiology and nutritional sciences, and completed post-doctoral training at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Skiba has extensive training in nutritional sciences, health promotion, behavior measurement, and epidemiology. The focus of her research is to connect cancer survivors and their caregivers to the tools and skills to live their healthiest life. She focuses on healthy aging, women’s health, rural populations, and dyadic health. She takes an integrative approach to research to understand the synergistic effects of nutrition, exercise, energetics, and bioactives and their roles in managing accelerated biological aging in cancer survivorship. She strives to build an innovative research program that incorporates analysis of large datasets, community-based participatory research methods, and sequential interventions to better understand and mitigate and the biological aging cascade in cancer.

Collaborator Spotlight: Utah Investigators on the #4Corners 4Health Project

Collaborator Spotlight: Utah Investigators on the #4Corners 4Health Project

Thirteen scientists from universities and NCI Comprehensive Cancer Centers in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah are collaborating with Dr. David Buller, Klein Buendel’s Director of Research, on the #4Corners4Health study (CA268037). This Collaborator Spotlight features the Investigators from the State of Utah.

The 4Corners study aims to aid rural emerging adults (ages 18-26 years) in making informed decisions that reduce cancer risk factors and prevent cancer later in life and help emerging adults evaluate and resist misinformation and marketing that promote cancer risk behaviors. This will be accomplished using a social media campaign designed with community advisors for diverse young adults living in rural counties in the Four Corners states (AZ, CO, NM, and UT). Social media may reach emerging adults more than interventions through other community channels (for example, clinics, schools, and workplaces) and for lower cost in the geographically dispersed, underserved rural communities in the Mountain West.

Dr. Deanna Kepka, Co-Investigator, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah

Deanna Kepka, PhD, MPH, is a Huntsman Cancer Institute research investigator and a tenured Associate Professor in the College of Nursing. Dr. Kepka is dedicated to improving the quality of primary health care services for cancer prevention and control among underserved populations locally and globally. She has specific expertise in HPV vaccination, HPV-related cancer prevention, and health equity research. She is the founder and director of the Mountain West HPV Vaccination Coalition and the Director of Global and International Health in the College of Nursing.

As a Pre-Doctoral Biobehavioral Cancer Prevention and Control Fellow at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Dr. Kepka developed a rural-focused community-based HPV vaccination intervention that included fotonovela educational pamphlets and a radionovela. These educational tools improved knowledge and sparked interest in the HPV vaccine among rural Latino parents. She also received training in epidemiological and behavioral research methods as a National Cancer Institute Cancer Prevention Post-Doctoral Fellow. As a Fellow, she received the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Merit Award. In the years since, Dr. Kepka’s work has been recognized with 20 awards for excellence at the international, national, local levels.

Dr. Echo Warner, Co-Investigator, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah

Echo Warner, Ph.D., MPH, is an Associate Member of the Huntsman Cancer Institute and an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing. Her research targets improving cancer health outcomes and reducing cancer health disparities among adolescent and young adult cancer patients, survivors, and care partners. Dr. Warner has experience with diverse patient populations and an extensive range of methods and analytical approaches, especially in mixed-methods study designs and data integration. Her research establishes methods to study social media and online health (mis)information to improve cancer information seeking online.

Dr. David Wetter, Co-Investigator, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah

David Wetter, Ph.D., M.S., is the distinguished Jon M. and Karen Huntsman Presidential Professor, Director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Population Equity (HOPE), Senior Director for Cancer Health Equity Science, and Associate Director for Practice Engagement and Translation at the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute at the University of Utah and Huntsman Cancer Institute. His research focuses on promoting health equity in cancer and chronic disease through translational research. Specific research topics include (a) theoretical models of health risk behaviors; (b) the development and evaluation of theoretically-based interventions; and, (c) translational research to implement and disseminate those interventions in real world settings. His work addresses populations that have been historically marginalized, with a major focus on low socioeconomic status, rural/frontier, and diverse groups. Dr. Wetter has conducted an extensive portfolio of grants funded by the National Institutes of Health over 25 years. He has published nearly 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts. His research program has received awards from the Society of Behavioral Medicine, American Society for Preventive Oncology, Society for Health Psychology, and AstraZeneca/Scientific American.

Collaborator Spotlight: New Mexico Investigators on the #4Corners4Health Project

Collaborator Spotlight: New Mexico Investigators on the #4Corners4Health Project

More than a dozen scientists from universities and NCI Comprehensive Cancer Centers in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah are collaborating with Dr. David Buller, Klein Buendel’s Director of Research, on the #4Corners4Health study (CA268037). This Collaborator Spotlight features the Investigators from the State of New Mexico.

The 4Corners study aims to aid rural emerging adults (ages 18-26 years) in making informed decisions that reduce cancer risk factors and prevent cancer later in life and help emerging adults evaluate and resist misinformation and marketing that promote cancer risk behaviors. This will be accomplished using a social media campaign designed with community advisors for diverse young adults living in rural counties in the Four Corners states (AZ, CO, NM, and UT). Social media may reach emerging adults more than interventions through other community channels (for example, clinics, schools, and workplaces) and for lower cost in the geographically dispersed, underserved rural communities in the Mountain West.

Dr. Andrew Sussman, Multiple Principal Investigator, University of New Mexico

Andrew Sussman, PhD, MCRP, is a medical anthropologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Community Medicine and the  Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement at the University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center (Cancer Control and Population Sciences). At the Cancer Center, he served as the Founding Director of the Behavioral Measurement and Population Science Shared Resource.

Dr. Sussman has expertise in qualitative and mixed method research, formative assessment, and process evaluation. His research focuses on cancer care delivery research, patient-provider communication, clinical decision making, health service delivery, community-based participatory research, and health disparities in primary care and community settings. He has received funding to conduct research on cancer prevention, obesity and diabetes, substance use, and complementary and alternative medicine, among other topics.

In addition to research, he teaches and mentors students, and serves on several university committees, including evaluating the Physician Assistant Program in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Advancing Institutional Mentoring Excellence Program through the Office for Diversity.

Dr. Cindy Blair, Co-Investigator, University of New Mexico

Cindy Blair, MPH, PhD, is an epidemiologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of New Mexico. She also has an appointment at the Comprehensive Cancer Center in Cancer Control and Population Sciences.

Dr. Blair’s research focuses on developing lifestyle behavior change interventions to improve the physical health and quality of life of cancer survivors. Her primary research interests include physical activity and the interface between aging and cancer, including interventions that utilize a whole-of-day approach to physical activity. This approach focuses on increasing light-intensity activity throughout the day, while reducing and disrupting sedentary activity. Her research includes the development of home- and technology-based interventions to reach the underserved and understudied survivor populations, especially older individuals from racial-ethnic minorities and rural dwellers, who may be unable to travel to clinical research centers to participate in research studies.

She has received a Career Development Award (K07) from the National Cancer Institute (2018-2023) and completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (R25) with the National Cancer Institute Cancer Prevention and Control Training Program (2011-2013).

Collaborator Spotlight: Colorado Investigators on the #4Corners4Health Project

Collaborator Spotlight: Colorado Investigators on the #4Corners4Health Project

Thirteen scientists from universities and NCI Comprehensive Cancer Centers in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah are collaborating with Dr. David Buller, Klein Buendel’s Director of Research, on the #4Corners4Health study (CA268037). The 4Corners study aims to aid rural emerging adults (ages 18-26 years) in making informed decisions that reduce cancer risk factors and prevent cancer later in life and help emerging adults evaluate and resist misinformation and marketing that promote cancer risk behaviors. This will be accomplished using a social media campaign designed with community advisors for diverse young adults living in rural counties in the Four Corners states (AZ, CO, NM, and UT). Social media may reach emerging adults more than interventions through other community channels (for example, clinics, schools, and workplaces) and for lower cost in the geographically-dispersed, underserved rural communities in the Mountain West.

This Collaborator Spotlight features the Co-Investigators from Colorado, outside of Klein Buendel. Dr. Barbara Walkosz and Dr. W. Gill Woodall from Klein Buendel are also Co-Investigators on this project.

Dr. Doug Taren, Co-Investigator, University of Colorado

Dr. Douglas Taren, PhD, MS, has degrees in Math, Chemistry, and Nutritional Sciences from the University of Arizona, and a doctorate in International Nutrition from Cornell University (International Nutrition). He is currently a Professor of Pediatrics (Nutrition Section) at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus. He is also a Professor Emeritus in the Health Promotion Sciences Department at the School of Public Health at the University of Arizona.

Dr. Taren’s research focuses primarily on maternal and child nutrition with a special emphasis on decreasing health disparities within low income populations and countries. He is specifically interested in domestic and global food security issues, local food systems, clinical and public health approaches to child weight management, the evaluation of humanitarian food aid programs, and dietary interventions. Some of his recent projects have included evaluating the impact of solar market gardens for small landowners that use solar-powered drip irrigation on health outcomes, the interaction between food safety and nutrition and how food systems impact the development of risk factors for type 2 diabetes in children.

As an international scholar, his studies and teaching experiences in maternal and child health have been conducted in several Latin American, Asian and African countries with funding from numerous organizations including USAID, FAO, NIH, CDC, and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.  These projects have focused on food security programs with organizations such as Save the Children, Counterparts International, TANGO International and the World Food Program.  He has worked on improving programs that prevent and treat vitamin A deficiency in Nepali pregnant women and young children, and effectiveness studies on decreasing mother-to-child HIV transmission in Kenya. He has also worked on improving dietary assessment methods and community-based programs to decrease childhood obesity. Dr. Taren has served as a resource person to the World Health Organization Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group Monitoring and Evaluation Subgroup on Guidelines for the Assessment of Vitamin A and Iron Status in Populations. 

Dr. Evelinn Borrayo, Co-Investigator, University of Colorado

Dr. Evelinn Borrayo, PhD, MA, is a Professor, the Associate Director of Research at the Latino Research and Policy Center in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health, and the Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement in the Cancer Center at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus. She was trained in clinical health psychology and has served as an appointed and voting member of the Colorado Board of Health.

Dr. Borrayo’s research interests include cancer prevention, equity and social justice, health disparities, health outcomes, and Latina/Latino health. Her research focuses on health disparities in the prevention, control, and treatment of cancer among medically underserved Latinos. Her research projects have focused on the psychological, cultural, and social factors involved in cancer prevention and control and in the treatment of lung and head-and-neck cancers among Latinas and Latinos affected by these cancers. She conducts research in both community-based and medical settings.

Dr. Kim Henry, Co-Investigator, Colorado State University

Kimberly Henry, PhD, is a Professor of Applied Social and Health Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Colorado State University. She received her doctorate in biobehavioral health from Penn State University.  Dr. Henry’s areas of research expertise include school disengagement, adolescent and young adult development, drug use, delinquency, and longitudinal methodology. Her focus is on the psychological and social factors that produce or mitigate the health-risking behaviors of adolescents and young adults. Her goal is to develop and test theoretical models in order to understand the complex interactions of risk, promotive, and protective factors that influence risky behaviors and to create and test methods for prevention.

Collaborator Spotlight:
Ms. Tessa jolls

Collaborator Spotlight:
Ms. Tessa jolls

Tessa Jolls, Center for Media Literacy

Klein Buendel collaborator, Ms. Tessa Jolls, has been the President and CEO of the Center for Media Literacy (CML) in California since 1999. Currently, she is working with Dr. Barbara Walkosz, Senior Scientist at Klein Buendel, to lead a new research project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CE003635). The aim of the project is to update and translate Beyond Blame: Challenging Violence in the Media, an evidence-based media-literacy violence prevention curriculum for middle school students, formerly delivered in person, into an interactive technology-based platform.

Created by CML, Beyond Blame, is a theory-based curriculum that underwent a rigorous long-term evaluation, in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Violence prevention programs, including school-based education programs, are recommended to address youth violence. 

CML is an educational organization that provides leadership, public education, professional development and evidence-based educational resources nationally and internationally. CML is dedicated to promoting and supporting media literacy education as a framework for accessing, analyzing, evaluating, creating and participating with media content. CML helps citizens, especially the young, develop critical thinking and media production skills needed to live fully in the 21st century media culture.

Ms. Jolls’ primary focus at CML is demonstrating how media literacy works through school and community-based implementation programs. She actively contributes to the development of the media literacy field internationally through her speaking, writing and consulting, with curriculum development and research projects, and through publishing and disseminating new curricular and training materials.

Recent Honors and Awards

  • Received the Fulbright NATO Security Studies Award in Brussels in 2021.
  • Co-taught the first media literacy undergraduate course at the University of Latvia Faculty of Social Sciences in 2019.  
  • Served as a 2019 Fulbright Specialist for a two-week assignment in Bulgaria, where she conducted workshop trainings.
  • Invited to attend the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Education, WICT Senior Executive Summit in March 2018.  
  • Served on the International Steering Committee for UNESCO’s Global MIL Alliance, and as co-chair of the Digital and Media Literacy Working Group, organized through the Children and Screens Initiative; resulted in a Pediatrics paper recommending research and policy priorities for the field.  
  • Organized  the Commit 2 MediaLit! Campaign to recognize Media Literacy Week in 2016.  
  • Received the Global Media and Information Literacy Award, in recognition of her work in Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue, from the UNESCO-initiated GAPMIL, in cooperation with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) in 2015.
  • Honored with the International Media Literacy Award by Gateway Media Literacy Partners in 2014.
  • Recognized with the Jesse McCanse Award for Individual Contribution to Media Literacy by the National Telemedia Council in 2013.  
Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Douglas Seals and Dr. Daniel Craighead

Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Douglas Seals and Dr. Daniel Craighead

Two accomplished integrative physiology scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder are launching a new research project in collaboration with Dr. Kayla Nuss and the Creative Team from Klein Buendel. The project will design and assess the feasibility of the using a smartphone app to help deliver a high-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) program for improving blood pressure and reducing cardiovascular disease risk in midlife and older adults.

Douglas Seals, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor of Integrative Physiology (Boulder Campus) and Medicine (Anschutz Medical Campus) at the University of Colorado. He is also the Director of the Integrative Physiology of Aging Laboratory. He earned his doctoral degree in Applied Exercise Physiology from the University of Wisconsin in 1981. In his 35+ years of academics and research, Dr. Seals has become an expert on lifestyle and/or pharmacological interventions to improve cardiovascular function. His areas of research interest include cardiovascular aging, such as changes in systolic blood pressure, large artery stiffness, and vascular endothelial function; biological and lifestyle factors that influence cardiovascular aging; the integrative (molecular to systemic) mechanisms that mediate cardiovascular aging and its modulation by biological and lifestyle factors; and interventions to improve adverse physiological changes with aging, including cardiovascular dysfunction, reductions in motor performance, and impairments in cognitive function. His research has been continuously funded by research grants from the National Institutes of Health, particularly the National Institute on Aging, since 1986. Dr. Seals founded an NIH Clinical Translational Research Center at the University of Colorado Boulder in 1999 as a core facility for conducting biomedical research on human subjects. It was in this lab that Dr. Seals and Dr. Daniel Craighead (see below) established the efficacy of IMST for lowering blood pressure in a traditional clinical research setting. In 2004, Dr. Seals received a 10-year MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging to support his research on cardiovascular aging. In 2008, he was named a Professor of Distinction in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. In 2013, he was named an Edward F. Adolph Distinguished Lecturer by the American Physiological Society for his work in the physiology of aging.

Daniel Craighead, PhD, is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder. He earned his doctoral degree in Kinesiology from Penn State University in 2017, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Integrative Physiology of Aging Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2020. Dr. Craighead is a specialist in the study of IMST for lowering blood pressure. Dr. Craighead conducted the initial R21-supported clinical trial on IMST, upon which the new research project with Klein Buendel is based. The Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I study is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and will design and assess the feasibility of a smartphone app for delivering an IMST program and improving blood pressure in midlife and older adults. The program will provide instruction and promote adherence to the IMST intervention. Ultimately, the app will provide for widespread dissemination and adoption of an innovative tool to easily lower blood pressure and reduce cardiovascular disease risk. Dr. Craighead also has been the Principal Investigator on a study assessing the efficacy of nicotinamide riboside, a dietary supplement, for lowering blood pressure and improving vascular function in older adults, among other research projects.

Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Robert Saltz

Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Robert Saltz

Dr. Robert Saltz

Robert Saltz, Ph.D. is a Senior Research Scientist at the Prevention Research Center within the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) in Berkeley, California. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts. His research explores ways in which drinking context may influence the risk of subsequent injury or death. He has extensive experience researching “responsible beverage service” programs aimed at having bar and restaurant personnel intervene with patrons to reduce the risk of intoxication or driving while impaired.

Dr. Saltz collaborated with Dr. W. Gill Woodall and Dr. David Buller from Klein Buendel on the development, evaluation, and commercialization of the WayToServe® responsible beverage service training program in English (AA014982; W. Gill Woodall, Principal Investigator) and Spanish (MD010405; Dr. W. Gill Woodall, Principal Investigator), and the TrainToTend® responsible cannabis vendor training program (DA038933; Dr. David Buller, Principal Investigator).

Currently, Dr. Saltz is working with Dr. Buller and Dr. Woodall on two research projects. One is a PIRE project to assess the impact of California’s new mandatory responsible beverage service (RBS) training law intended to prevent alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes and other harms. The research is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Dr. Robert Saltz, Principal Investigator). The study is examining whether there is a significant reduction in single nighttime motor vehicle injury crashes after implementation of the mandatory responsible beverage service training law, controlling for other factors in California that may influence this outcome, and the national trend in fatal alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes. The training program that will be implemented is the WayToServe® online RBS training program developed and evaluated by PIRE, Klein Buendel, and the University of New Mexico.

The other is a Klein Buendel project developing and testing an in-service professional development component for alcohol servers trained by WayToServe to enhance its effectiveness. WayToServe Plus is intended to motivate servers to implement the responsible beverage service skills in the face of common barriers, provide support for responsible beverage service actions from a “community” of alcohol servers, and prevent natural degradation of skills over time. The in-service training is delivered through the WayToServe Facebook page that currently is followed by over 20,000 alcohol servers trained by WayToServe. This project is funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (AA029364; Dr. W. Gill Woodall and Dr. David Buller, Multiple Principal Investigators).

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Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Andrew Sussman

Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Andrew Sussman

Dr. Andrew Sussman

Andrew Sussman, Ph.D., MCRP, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and the Associate Director of the Office of Community Outreach and Engagement at the UNM Cancer Center. He received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico.

Dr. Sussman focuses his research efforts on primary health and cancer care delivery research and patient-provider counseling dynamics among health disparity populations in New Mexico. He also has research interests in clinical decision making, health service delivery, community-based participatory research, and health disparities in community settings. He also has expertise in qualitative and mixed method research, formative assessment, and process evaluation.

Currently, Dr. Sussman is serving as a Multiple Principal Investigator along with Klein Buendel’s Dr. David Buller on the study, #4Corners4Health: A Social Media Cancer Prevention Program for Rural Emerging Adults (CA268037). This study aims to aid rural emerging adults (aged 18-26 years) in making informed decisions that reduce cancer risk factors and prevent cancer later in life and help emerging adults evaluate and resist misinformation and marketing that promote cancer risk behaviors. This will be accomplished using a social media campaign designed with community advisors for diverse young adults living in rural counties in the Four Corners states (AZ, CO, NM, and UT). Social media may reach emerging adults more than interventions through other community channels (for example, clinics, schools, and workplaces) and for lower cost in the geographically-dispersed, underserved rural communities in the Mountain West.

Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Wendy Hadley

Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Wendy Hadley

Wendy Hadley, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology and Human Services in the College of Education at the University of Oregon. She is also the Julie and Keith Thomson Faculty Chair and HEDCO Clinic Director at the University of Oregon.  

Dr. Wendy Hadley

Dr. Hadley received her doctoral degree in clinical child psychology and behavioral medicine from the University of Memphis in 2003. She went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship with the Brown University Clinical Consortium. Dr. Hadley has worked with many pediatric patients and their families, including those affected by cancer, HIV, feeding disorders, cardiac issues, and obesity.  

In addition to her clinical work, Dr Hadley conducts research on adolescent health issues such as obesity, substance use, and risky sexual behaviors. Her recent work has focused on the development and evaluation of interventions focusing on parent-child communication, parental monitoring, and adolescent emotion regulation skills. Some of her work uses web-based technology to deliver and enhance the interventions. 

Dr. Hadley is currently working as a Co-Investigator on a collaborative web-based project with Dr. Christopher Houck (Principal Investigator) from Rhode Island Hospital and its parent organization Lifespan Health Systems.  The program is called iTRAC, which stands for “Talking about Risk and Adolescent Choices.” The research is funded by an STTR Fast-Track grant to Klein Buendel from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Dr. Christopher Houck, Principal Investigator; HD110333). The goal of the project is to convert the previously existing TRAC program to a web app format while integrating emotional regulation and sexual health education. The program targets young adolescents (ages 12-14 years) at a crucial time of development in order to provide them with evidence-based approaches to manage emotional situations and risky behavior. Additional Co-Investigators include Dr. David Barker from Rhode Island Hospital and Ms. Julia Berteletti from Klein Buendel.  

Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Alexandra Morshed

Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Alexandra Morshed

Alexandra Morshed, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral, Social and Health Education Services at Emory University. She is also a Co-Investigator with the Emory Prevention Research Center. Dr. Morshed received her Master of Science degree from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and her Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. Alexandra Morshed

Dr. Morshed is an implementation scientist with more than ten years of experience in public health research and practice. Her primary areas of interest include implementing interventions in vulnerable populations, chronic disease prevention, public health nutrition, and capacity building and knowledge expansion in dissemination and implementation science.

Dr. Morshed is currently collaborating with Dr. David Buller from Klein Buendel on a research study titled “Go Sun Smart at Work: A Sun Safety Program for Underserved Outdoor Workers” (Dr. Morshed and Dr. Buller, Multiple Principal Investigators). This CDC-funded study builds upon Klein Buendel’s evidence-based comprehensive occupational skin cancer prevention intervention, Go Sun Smart at Work, and aims to reduce UV exposure and prevent skin cancer among underserved outdoor workers in Georgia. Hispanic and African American adults have been overlooked in skin cancer prevention efforts, due to their lower incidence of skin cancer. However, among Hispanic and African Americans, skin cancer is diagnosed at more advanced stages, leading to higher mortality rates than non-Hispanic whites. The Emory University study aims to develop an intervention and implementation strategies to increase policies and practices to support sun safety among outdoor workers in Georgia.