Successful Voyages on the Health Education Mentorship

Dr. Chopak-Foss is Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy and Community Health, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health. Dr. Chopak-Foss received her Ph.D. and M.S. from Pennsylvania State University in Health Education and B.S. degree in Physical Education from the University of Delaware.

Dr. Gabarda is the Senior Director of Clinical Training & Development at UPMC Health Plan where is responsible for the creation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of training and skill development of lifestyle health coaches and care managers. She has a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Exercise Science from Slippery Rock University, a Master of Public Health from Walden University, and a Doctor of Education in Health and Physical Activity from the University of Pittsburgh. Ms. Gabarda is a National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach a Certified Health Education Specialist, and a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers.

Dr. Leah C. Neubauer is an internationally recognized expert in curriculum development, teaching, training, learning and assessment. She is a multiple award-winning educator and evaluator who collaborates to facilitate learning, capacity-building and systems-strengthening among individuals and organizations. She leverages doctoral training in critical adult, continuing and professional education with academic public health to develop philosophical and theory-aligned, competency-driven approaches to real-world public health education and training.

Kathryn Houk is Health Literacy & Community Engagement Librarian and assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s Health Sciences Library. She received her MLIS from Kent State University in 2009 and recently completed her MPH from San Jose State University in community health education. Katie has a keen interest in health communication, particularly in improving science and health literacy in the public and improving expert’s communication skills. She is also interested in community and university collaborations in the Las Vegas valley, including securing and running a recent grant that provides continuing education on consumer health information for the local community health workforce.

Laura Valentino, MPH, M.Ed.,CHES is the academic affairs coordinator for the Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) in Las Vegas. In her role, she coordinates all internships, clinical rotations, and student experiences at SNHD. She leads the Academic Health Department and oversees the Health District After Dark. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Health Studies at Texas Woman?s University where her dissertation topic is on Depression and Unmet Support Needs among Family Caregivers. She expects to graduate in February 2021.

Erin Seger, MPH, CHES is a public health professional who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has ten years of experience as a Health Educator and Public Health Professional. As Health Professions Coordinator for the Network of the National Library of Medicine- Middle Atlantic Region, she supports clinicians, health educators and public health workers throughout Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware by ensuring they have access to quality heath information.

Elaine Hicks, MS/LIS, MPH, MCHES merged three occupations into the work of a public health librarian: nutrition educator, public health educator and librarian. A recent product of this body of knowledge and skills was the creation of the Librarian Reserve Corps, a mash-up of public health emergency preparedness training and library/information science needed to catalog the avalanche of daily scientific publication distributed by the WHO library to the Global Outreak Alert and Response Network.