Faculty

When the College of Public Health was formally approved by the Kent State Board of Trustees on Jan. 30, 2009, an invitation was extended to all Kent State faculty members to join the newly formed college and eight faculty members were formally invited to join the College of Public Health.

The founding faculty members consist of five social and behavioral science faculty members (Drs. Flannery, Hussey, Brewer, Jefferis and Olds), one environmental health faculty member (Dr. Woolverton) and two health policy and management faculty members (Drs. Alemagno and Frank). In addition, five new faculty have been hired as of Aug. 2009 with plans to reach 15 full-time tenure track faculty by fall 2009 and 25 by fall 2010 when the first students arrive.

Sonia Alemagno (Professor of Health Policy and Management) received a Ph.D. in medical sociology (Case Western Reserve University). Her most recent projects focus on the misuse of prescription medicine among adolescents and the impact of substance abuse on the community.

 

 

Madhav P. Bhatta (Assistant Professor of Epidemiology) received a Ph.D. in epidemiology (University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health). His most recent research focuses on the epidemiology of HIV and STDs in women.

 

 

Thomas W. Brewer (Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences) received a Ph.D. in criminal justice (University at Albany–SUNY). He is a nationally recognized expert in the decision-making patterns of capital juries.

 

 

Daniel J. Flannery (Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences) is director of the Institute for the Study and Prevention of Violence. Flannery was named a University Distinguished Scholar in 2006. Flannery received his Ph.D. in clinical-child psychology (The Ohio State University).

 

 

Robert G. Frank (Acting Dean and Professor of Health Policy and Management) is the senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at Kent State. A board-certified clinical psychologist, Dr. Frank previously was professor of clinical and health psychology and dean of the College of Public Health and Health Professions at University of Florida in Gainesville and Director of the Florida Center for Medicaid and the Uninsured.

 

Scott Grey (Instructor of Biostatistics) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Case Western Reserve University). For the past four years, he has been the statistician on a large Robert Wood Johnson grant (Zloboda, PI), developing a new substance abuse prevention program for adolescents.

 

David Hussey (Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences) received a Ph.D. in social welfare (Case Western Reserve University). Hussey’s research has focused on youth violence and victimization, and its intersection with behavioral health and evidence based practice.

 

 

Eric Jefferis (Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences) received a Ph.D. in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati. Jefferis has extensive research experience in the areas of violence and violence prevention as well as expertise in GIS mapping.

 

Willie H. Oglesby (Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management) has a Ph.D. and an MSPH in Public Health (University of South Carolina).  Prior to coming to Kent, Dr. Oglesby led research on the strategic planning practices of community-based health service organizations, the cost-effectiveness of school-based nursing programs, and policy studies assessing community/institutional capacity to reduce childhood obesity and adolescent STD/HIV risk behaviors.

 

R. Scott Olds (Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences) completed a Ph.D. in health and safety (Indiana University). Olds’ work focuses on characterizing adolescent and college student tobacco and alcohol use and translating those findings into prevention programs.

 

 

John Staley (Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management) has a Ph.D. in Health Policy and Administration and Health Services Research (UNC Chapel Hill).  He has more than 15 years of experience as a practitioner, workplace health researcher and instructor.  His areas of interest include health and safety management and health services research.

 

 

Maggie Stedman-Smith (Assistant Professor of Environmental Health) has a Ph.D. and M.P.H. in Environmental Health (University of Minnesota). She has more than 10 years of clinical experience in perinatal nursing. Her most recent research has focused on toxic substance and other environmental exposures of mothers and their children.

  

Tomas Tamulis (Assistant Professor of Environmental Health) has a Ph.D. in public/environmental health (University of South Florida). Tamulis’ research focuses on asthma and the role of the environment in the transtheoretical model of behavior change.

Dr. Chris Woolverton is professor of environmental health sciences. He is also the director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness and coordinator of the Northeast Ohio Consortium on Biopreparedness. He developed and patented a device that rapidly identifies disease-causing agents, including bioterror agents, in real time using liquid crystals. Woolverton oversees the BSL-3 Designated Training Facility, one of only two in the U.S., for the National Biosafety and Biocontainment Training Program of the National Institutes of Health.

 

Melissa Zullo (Assistant Professor of Epidemiology) has a Ph.D. in epidemiology (Case Western Reserve University) and an M.P.H. (Kent State/NEOUCOM). Her recent research is on rehabilitation models for congestive heart failure.