Writing Workshop Session 4

Founding editor Health Promotion Practice and President, Public Health Systems Consultants 

Randy is a nationally recognized public health professional with over thirty-five years’ experience in implementing health promotion/disease prevention initiatives in state health departments and voluntary health organizations with an emphasis on chronic disease prevention and control, cancer control, tobacco control, community-based health promotion, and healthy public policy. He is currently President of Public Health Systems Consultants and serves as the Sr. Public Health Consultant for Cancer Control with the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD). He is an Adjunct Faculty member for several leading academic public health programs. Randy has written and presented on the importance of engaging public health practitioners along with researchers and engaged communities as a key factor in advancing implementation science. 

He has authored or co-authored numerous articles on health promotion and chronic disease prevention. Randy is the Founding Editor of the journal, Health Promotion Practice, a journal of the Society for Public Health Education. He has been awarded the Society for Public Health Education’s Distinguished Fellow Award, the Society’s highest honor. 

LaNita S. Wright is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Physical Education, Public Health Education program at Kennesaw State University. She teaches undergraduate courses pertaining to public health theory, planning, implementation and evaluation.

Her current research focuses on how interconnected systems influence health-promoting behaviors, especially among adolescents, with a recent research project focusing on the Black Church’s role in preventing teen pregnancy. She also recently facilitated a community engagement project (alongside a nonprofit) pertaining to the local community’s perceptions of sexual health related topics and implementation. Her recent work has been published in Health Promotion Practice and Journal of Adolescence.

LaNita offers professional service in various ways, including peer-reviewing manuscripts for multiple journals and book publishers, and serving on the Health Promotion Practice Editorial Board.

She received a Doctor of Philosophy in Health Promotion and a Master of Public Health in Health Promotion Sciences from the University of Oklahoma. She received a Bachelor of Science in Health Services Administration from Auburn University.

LaNita is a passionate, dedicated public health professional. She finds joy in playing an active role in the development of young people through research, teaching, training, and mentoring.  

Dr. Alyssa Robillard believes in social justice as a core foundation of public health. In both her academic and consulting work, she is committed to promoting health and health equity—especially among those for whom the burden of adverse health outcomes is high and the web of social and structural determinants is complex. In various roles ranging from health educator, faculty, researcher, and consultant, she has worked to address racial inequities across numerous areas, including HIV. She received her post-secondary training from Xavier University of Louisiana and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Public Health.

René Lavinghouze has over 32 years in designing, conducting, and managing evaluations focusing on prevention programs and is currently the Translation Team Lead in the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity at CDC.  Her focus is on the study of program infrastructure as the foundation that supports program capacity, implementation, and sustainability.  She is lead author of the Component Model of Infrastructure (CMI), a practical, systems-approach model that supports program implementation and enables outcome measurement, links infrastructure to capacity, and facilitates the likelihood of sustainable public health achievements.  She was the evaluation lead in the Office on Smoking and Health at CDC for 6 years and has worked in the Division of Oral Health and in HIV/AIDS prevention at CDC.  Prior to coming to CDC, she worked at a private evaluation and organizational service firm for over 7 years and has worked in academic and local health department settings.  She received her Master’s in Community Psychology from Georgia State University and a Master’s in Interactive Technology from The University of Alabama.

Dr. Laura Kettel Khan is currently the Senior Scientist in the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.  Dr. Kettel Khan is internationally known in the field of obesity prevention evaluation methodology and research design of multi-sectoral interventions and serves on numerous national advisory committees related to evaluation which build the evidence for policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) strategies for healthy communities.  She represents the CDC on numerous national partnerships with public and private funders which focus on healthy eating and active living.  Dr. Kettel Khan graduated with a doctoral degree in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Arizona in 1992, finished her post-doctoral training at Cornell University in 1994, after which she joined the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Department of International Nutrition, followed by her current position at the CDC since 1996. She has authored more than 150 peer reviewed articles and book chapters.