Waridibo (Wari) Allison MD, PhD, FACP, CPE, FIDSA
Principal Investigator/ Program Director
Dr. Wari Allison is VP of Health Policy at the University of North Texas Health Science Center Fort Worth, Executive Director of their Center for Health Policy and Professor in the College of Public Health. She attended Imperial College School of Medicine, London, completed internal medicine residency at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and infectious disease fellowship at NYU. She holds a PhD in Public Health and Community Medicine from the Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Australia. She is elected to fellowship of both the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Disease Society of America. Dr. Allison is passionate about providing solutions to health care for disadvantaged and underserved populations. She has successfully secured continuous federal funding for her work which includes directing the national Rural Telementoring Training Center and a project to integrate the National HIV Curriculum e-Learning Platform into Health Care Professions Programs.
Jim Bridges, BS
Database Manager
Mr. Bridges supports all aspects of data management for the RTTC including REDCap database building. He has worked in data management for over 36 years. Previously at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, Mr. Bridges helped develop PEDSYS a pedigree-based database. He built and maintained several data files for pedigree information retrieval and analysis. He also coordinated data from several different laboratories and institutions for large program projects. Within the RTTC, Mr. Bridges builds and manages several REDCap databases. Mr. Bridges has also been involved in innovative ways of utilizing REDCap for the UT Health San Antonio ECHO program and the TACKLE HIV/HCV program.
Erin Finley, PhD, MPH
Implementation Science Co-Investigator
Dr. Finley is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UT Health San Antonio, and a Research Investigator with the Center for the Study of Implementation, Innovation, and Policy (CSHIIPP) at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Healthcare System. Dr. Finley is a medical anthropologist, health services researcher and implementation scientist with expertise in mixed methodology, evaluation, and the implementation of evidence-based practices in inpatient and outpatient settings. She contributes methodological expertise to the RTTC and guides its implementation evaluation efforts.
Sean Hubbard, PhD
Policy and Dissemination Co-Lead
Dr. Hubbard is an Assistant Professor with the Center for Health Policy and the Department of Health Administration and Health Policy. He holds a doctorate in Public Policy and Political Economy from the University of Texas at Dallas. Driven by his belief that health insurance coverage does not equate to access, Dr. Hubbard’s research focuses on healthcare-related financial decisions made by economically vulnerable households. He seeks to use his research to remove financial barriers to healthcare and improve patients’ ability to navigate complex healthcare systems. Dr. Hubbard’s recent work examines medical debt and cost avoidance among American Indians and Alaskan Natives, as well as the role of financial knowledge in healthcare-related financial decisions.
Keito Kawasaki, MPH
Research Associate
Ms. Kawasaki supports all components of the RTTC including administration and communication, training and technical assistance, evaluation and policy and dissemination. She supports program data collection and analysis of its implementation and communication activities as well as contributing to scholarly output. She graduated from Tulane University School of Public Health with an MPH, with a focus on global health. Her research interests include HIV, hepatitis C, social determinants of health, health systems strengthening, health program management, and program monitoring and evaluation. Prior to coming to the United States, she lived in Japan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. As a RTTC team member, she is eager to contribute to improving access to quality healthcare for all who need it.
Sarah Lill, MA
Business Operations Lead
Ms. Lill oversees the business and administrative operations of the RTTC. She holds a BA in Communication Studies from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and an MA in Arts Management from George Mason University. Ms. Lill has provided overall management and oversight of financial and administrative operations of the Center for Research to Advance Community Health (ReACH) at UT Health San Antonio since 2016 and has over a decade of experience in financial and budgetary management, strategic management, entrepreneurship, and public relations in non-profit and higher education settings
Charles Mathias, PhD
Policy Co-Investigator
Dr. Mathias is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UT Health San Antonio. His research focuses on improving health outcomes stemming from behavioral health risk and its interaction with community systems. His policy work applies a Culture of Health Framework in promoting solutions for population well-being through cross-sector collaboration. He is an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellowship, Dr. Mathias guides RTTC activities related to strategic communication and health policy.
Jason Rosenfeld, DrPH, MPH
CHC Co-Investigator
Dr. Rosenfeld is an Assistant Professor of Medicine/Research and the Assistant Director of Global Health Education for the Center for Medical Humanities at UT Health San Antonio’s Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine. He has dedicated his career to empowering under-resourced communities around the world with the knowledge, skills, and social support to address health disparities and inequities using Community-Based Participatory Research approaches. Dr. Rosenfeld has 20 years of experience collaborating with community health workers in Africa, the Caribbean and South Texas to implement and evaluate community-based health promotion programs that focus on water, sanitation and hygiene, reproductive and sexual health, nutrition and physical activity, and infectious disease prevention. For the RTTC, Dr. Rosenfield guides the adaptation of the Community Health Club (CHC) telementoring model into an all-virtual format designed to educate and empower rural health workers.
