Project Intersect: Research Partners

OHSU is partnering with an Advisory Council and with researchers at five other universities.Our university partners are:

Georgetown University

Tawara D. Goode, MA, Director of the National Center for Cultural Competence (NCCC), is leading Project Intersect efforts at Georgetown University. Ms. Goode is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.She is Associate Director of the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development, where she has been on the faculty for the past 30 years and has served in many capacities.She has degrees in early childhood education, and education and human development, and over 32 years of experience in the field.In her role as NCCC Director, she works to increase the capacity of health care and mental health care programs to design and implement culturally and linguistically competent service delivery systems.Ms. Goode has been actively involved in the development and implementation of local, national, and international cultural and linguistic competence initiatives and programs that address health care, mental health, social services, community/advocacy organizations, and other diverse audiences.She serves on numerous boards, commissions, and advisory groups at the local, regional, and national levels.

Pamala Trivedi, PhD, NCSP was a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development.Dr. Trivedi earned her PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Washington in Seattle.She is a nationally certified school psychologist and has extensive experience working with children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, transition-aged youth, and their families in school and community settings.Dr. Trivedi and her family relocated to the Washington, DC area in 2008, where she finished the remaining clinical requirements for her doctoral degree through DC LEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities) at Children's National Medical Center and rotations at the Center for Child and Human Development.Dr. Trivedi's dissertation was focused on mixed race children and families.From conducting a school-based ethnography for this work, she developed a model that contextualized multiracial identity development into the social and cultural worlds relevant to children, including school and home.In addition to direct, clinical work with children, families, and adults with disabilities, Dr. Trivedi has also served as a trainer of pre-service teachers and clinicians preparing to serve members of diverse cultural and linguistic groups.

The University of Southern Mississippi

Project Intersect work at The University of Southern Mississippi is being led by Royal P. Walker, Jr., JD, Executive Director of the Institute for Disability Studies.

In addition to his role as Executive Director, Dr. Walker serves as Cultural Diversity Coordinator of the Institute for Disability Studies.Dr. Walker has worked extensively with communities of color, the disability community, and low-income populations.His research and evaluation activities have focused on disparity issues among these communities, using various research methods including focus groups and participatory action research.As a Kellogg Fellow, Mr. Walker traveled to Egypt, Northern Ireland and China to study global and community issues of cultural diversity, cultural competence, and conflict resolution.

University of Illinois at Chicago

Fabricio Balcazar, PhD, Director of the Center for Capacity Building on Minorities with Disabilities Research, is conducting focus groups in the Chicago area. Dr. Balcazar is a Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Developmentat the University of Illinois at Chicago.His primary interest is in developing methods for enhancing and facilitating consumer empowerment and personal effectiveness of individuals with disabilities.Dr. Balcazar has conducted research over the past 23 years on the development of systematic approaches for effective involvement of people with disabilities in consumer advocacy organizations.He has directed several federally funded projects to develop and evaluate intervention models to increase consumer empowerment in vocational rehabilitation service delivery; to prevent dropout and promote successful transitions among minority youth with disabilities graduating from high school; to promote compliance with the ADA in the community; and to provide access to high school graduates with disabilities to college training and career advancement and to disseminate the model among several high schools in the Chicago area. Dr. Balcazar is currently the director of the Center on Capacity Building for Minorities with Disabilities Research, and in this capacity he has lead an effort to develop and validate a conceptual framework for culturally competent trainings and service provision for minorities with disabilities.Dr. Balcazar has published over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and recently published a co-edited book entitled "Race, culture and disability: Issues in Rehabilitation Research and Practice."Dr. Balcazar is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA).

Glenn T. Fujiura, PhD, is leading analyses of data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation.Dr. Fujiura is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago.He is also Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Applied Health Sciences at UIC. Dr. Fujiura's research has focused on demography of the disability service system, poverty and disability, ethnic and racial issues in disability, and statistical surveillance of disability.Dr. Fujiura works extensively in both the creation of large national disability data sets, and in secondary analysis of national surveillance systems – in particular the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) -- and international and state-level data systems.He is a 1999 recipient of the National Rehabilitation Association's Switzer Scholar award for his population research on the intersection of disability, race, and poverty.He has served on numerous national committees, including the Diversity Task Force for the National Council on Disability.

University of Missouri – Kansas City


 

Jana Peterson, MPH, PhD is our Project Intersect partner in the Institute for Human Development at the University of Missouri – Kansas City.Dr. Peterson is the Coordinator of Health Disparities Research. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University.She earned a PhD in Community and Behavioral Health and a Masters of Public Health from The University of Iowa.She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Disability and Health with the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC): Health & Wellness at OHSU.She served as Principal Investigator of a Collaborative Research Award funded by a cooperative agreement between the Association of University Centers on Disabilities and the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The focus of the award was an extensive literature review on health self-management during young adult transition. She also directed the Promoting Access to Health Services (PATHS) project within the RRTC: Health & Wellness.She is trained and experienced in systematic literature review techniques.At The University of Iowa, Dr. Peterson analyzed data from the Iowa Family and Household Health Survey for a study of children with special health care needs that examined the intersection between race, ethnicity, and special health care needs in predicting access to care among Iowa children.

University of Southern California University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (USC UCEDD) at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles

Work in California on Project Intersect is being led by Barbara Wheeler, PhD, RN, Associate Director of the USC UCEDD.Dr. Wheeler has an undergraduate degree in Nursing and a PhD in Special Education. She is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine and holds adjunct appointments in the USC Rossier School of Education and the USC School of Social Work.Dr. Wheeler has had numerous grants which focus on addressing barriers to services for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families from racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse underserved communities.Her recent focus is on creating models for meaningful partnerships between university researchers and communities which are under-represented in major research efforts.She is currently PI for a Minority Partnership grant with California State University Los Angeles, a minority serving institution. Under this grant, she is working with the College of Health and Human Services, the College of Natural and Social Sciences, Office of Students with Disabilities, and the Minority Opportunities in Research program, to organize strategies to bring CSULA's student population into the field of neuro-developmental disabilities and maternal child health.She is the Chair of the Multicultural Council of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities and sits on the AUCD Board of Directors.

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SAVE THE DATE!

Health Disparities Research at the Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, and Disability:
A National Conference

April 25^th & 26^th 2013
Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill
Washington, DC