AIM CCI - Key Persons
Alicia Aroche, MEd, is NHSA - AIM CCI's Communication Director, bringing experience in community engagement, public health research, racial justice and healing, communications, and storytelling to the team. She led a community-based participatory research team at Virginia Commonwealth University's (VCU) Center on Society and Health as Senior Community Engagement Manager and served as Communications Manager and Community Engagement Advocate for the cross-sector, cradle-to-career collaborative Bridging Richmond in Virginia. In this work, she participated in models that shared power and centered the voices of community members, while investigating root causes of health inequities, and presenting community-identified solutions. As a communications professional, Alicia's experience includes serving as the Director of Racial Justice and Healing at Initiatives of Change USA (IofC USA), where she led the team's Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) work. Alicia holds a Bachelor of Science in Mass Media and a Master of Education with a focus in Participatory Action Research from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Amber Wilson is NHSA's AIM CCI Program Coordinator. She is originally from Gaffney, South Carolina, and received her bachelor's degree from Winthrop University. She began her career in maternal and child health in the WIC program where she was a nutritionist, Certified Lactation Counselor and managed a team of nutritionists, peer counselors and Registered Dietitians. After spending several years at WIC, she transitioned into a community/rural health setting where she provided lactation education and support, delivered chronic disease prevention and management programs, assisted with the implementation of policy, systems and environmental changes related to childhood obesity in the school setting, and coordinated COVID-19 sites. She is passionate about maternal and child health and recently obtained her certification as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.
Ashley Calderone, DNP, RN, CLC, IBCLC, C-ONQS, is the Clinical Implementation Manager with the AIM CCI project. She has clinical experience in Pediatric, Postpartum, and Neonatal Intensive Care Units. Ashley is a subject matter expert in the field of lactation. Her interests include improving teamwork and communication, standardizing processes, and breaking silos to create more equitable systems of care. She is also interested in programs aimed at improving access to quality health care as a means of addressing preventable maternal morbidity and mortality through quality improvement. Ashley earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Central Florida with a focus in Nursing Systems. She also holds degrees in Nursing (MSN) and Health Education & Behavior (B.S.) from the University of Florida.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer for the National Healthy Start Association
Deborah Frazier currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer for the National Healthy Start Association. Ms. Frazier has a stellar national reputation having spent 30 years of her professional career in the field of maternal and child health. She is a past member of the HHS Secretary's Committee on Infant Mortality (SACIM), and the former Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Health for the State of Arkansas. Ms. Frazier has a long and very rich history with Healthy Start and the Association serving as grantee evaluator, technical advisor to projects, Project Director for New Orleans Healthy Start, founding member of the Association and past board member. In her role as Co-Chair of the Association's Development Committee, she was responsible for securing funding critical to the growth and expansion of the organization- establishing regional conferences, the Healthy Start Leadership Institute, and the Partnership Grant with AMCHP and CityMatCH. Ms. Frazier has lent her expertise and knowledge as a consultant to numerous national organizations including: The American Academy of Obstetricians and Gynecologists developing and implementing their National Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Program (NFIMR); the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) to evaluate community based programs; and to the National School Health Workgroup to develop national standards and policies for school health programs. She has provided consultation to community-based programs across the country involving the development of strategic plans, needs assessments, and designing programs and services for those in need.
Job Titles:
- Founding Co - Director of the Racial Justice Institute
Dr. Derek M. Griffith is a Founding Co-Director of the Racial Justice Institute, Founder and Director of the Center for Men's Health Equity, Member of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Professor of Health Systems Administration and Oncology. Trained in psychology and public health, Dr. Griffith's program of research focuses on developing strategies to achieve racial, ethnic and gender equity in health. He specializes in interventions to promote Black men's health and well-being and interventions to address racism in organizations and to mitigate the effects of structural racism on health. Dr. Griffith is a contributor to and editor of two books - Men's Health Equity: A Handbook (Routledge, 2019), and Racism: Science and Tools for the Public Health Professional (APHA Press, 2019). He has been interviewed for and quoted in national news outlets such as Ebony, NPR, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Dr. Griffith has provided expert review of reports from the World Health Organization and others. He is the author of over 140 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and he has been the principal investigator of research grants from the American Cancer Society, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and several institutes within the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Griffith serves on the editorial boards of several public health and men's health journals, and he has been a guest editor of journal special issues or supplements on African American men's health, men's health equity, qualitative approaches to health equity research, and other topics.
Fleda Mask Jackson, PhD, is the president of Majaica, LLC, a national research firm/ think tank, and leader of Save 100 Babies©, a cross-sector network devoted to a social determinant approach to equitable birth outcomes. Dr. Jackson has served as a consult-ant/advisor and collaborator with organizations such as the Harvard Medical School, the Ford Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and as a member of the Advisory Committee on Health Disparities for the Director of the CDC and as a member of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality (SACIM). Jackson graduated from Spellman College and the University of Illinois and is the recipient of the Spelman College Alum-nae Achievement Award in Health and Science. She has been honored by the Black Ma-mas Matter Alliance for her MCH research and work and by the National March of Dimes for her contributions to that organization and the field. Dr. Jackson has been previously involved with NHSA, most notably as the author of our Stress and Depression toolkit. Dr. Jackson's role on the AIM CCI cooperative agreement is as a subject matter expert (SME).
Haywood L. Brown, MD, is the Co-Principal Investigator on NHSA's AIM CCI cooperative agreement and Medical Consultant for Women's Health, who began his role with NHSA in March 2020. Dr. Brown, a physician, researcher and leader in higher education, is the University of South Florida System's Vice President for Diversity, Inclusion and Equal Opportunity and Title IX administrator. Along with his USF System role, Dr. Brown is also Associate Dean for Diversity at the Morsani College of Medicine and Chief Diversity Officer for USF Health. At USF Health, Dr. Brown provides vision, leadership, coordination and strategic planning for the design and implementation of a USF Health-wide platform to enhance diversity, equity and respect. He works to align USF Health's diversity initiatives with the university's strategic plan and provides guidance on the recruitment and retention of a diverse community of students, faculty and staff.Dr. Brown comes to USF from Duke University Medical Center, where he has worked in several capacities since 2002. Most recently, Dr. Brown served as the F. Bayard Carter Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and has held leadership roles in a number of university committees. He has also been actively involved in diversity initiatives within his department, university-wide and in the broader Durham, N.C. community. Throughout his career, Dr. Brown has made it a point to focus on serving diverse populations. Prior to his time at Duke University, Dr. Brown spent more than a decade at Indiana University School of Medicine. He received his bachelor's degree from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and his medical degree from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University.
Lidyvez Sawyer, EdD, MPH, is the Equity Implementation Strategist for NHSA's Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health Community Care Initiative (AIM CCI). Prior to this role, Mrs. Sawyer served as the Director of Community Health Wellness and Strategic Partnerships for the Stephen and Sandra Sheller Eleventh Street Family Health Practice of Drexel University. She also served as the former Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Drexel University College of Medicine. Mrs. Sawyer serves as a faculty member for the Arcadia University College of Health Sciences.
Lidyvez has dedicated over 15 years to public health service and specializes on the Sanctuary trauma-informed care model and anti-racism practice and racial trauma integration as a social determinant of health. She earned her master's in public health in 2016 from Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health. She graduated with honors, earning an EdD degree in Leadership and Management, with a concentration in Policy in 2021 from Drexel University School of Education and was named the recipient for the Dr. Terrence Daniels Memorial Award for her research centered on social justice and equity within academic institutions.
Saanie Sulley, MD, PHD, MBA, is a data manager with the AIM CCI project, providing data infrastructure and analytics support to participants in the project. He is a health infomatician with experience in medicine, clinical decisions support systems (CDSS), healthcare data integration and predictive modeling. His interests include utilizing healthcare data in improving health outcomes and gaining better understanding of care processes, health equity, social determinants of health and improving access to maternal pediatric care through quality improvement in these areas. Saanie earned his PhD from Rutgers University in biomedical informatics and an MBA in healthcare management from Columbia Southern University.
Susan Kendig, JD, WHNP-BC, FAANP, is a board certified women's health nurse practitioner and attorney with over three decades of experience as in maternal health care, as a health care provider, educator, and strategist. Her clinical practice and policy work is grounded in a strong background in the intersection of clinical practice and community health. Throughout her career, Sue has worked to improve patient safety and quality of care. Active in public service, she has held appointments to CMS Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC). A member of the Alliance for Innovation in Maternal Health (AIM) Executive Committee, she has significant experience in patient safety bundle development, serving as co-lead in developing maternal safety bundles related to maternal mental health, postpartum and women's health care. She serves on the NQF Perinatal and Women's Health Standing Committee and was a member of the NQF Measures Application Partnership (NQF MAP) Medicaid Adult Workgroup and Social Determinants of Health Data Integration Workgroup. In her home state of Missouri, she served as an appointee to the Missouri Commission on Patient Safety, which led to the development of the Missouri Center for Patient Safety. Sue then worked with the Center in achieving recognition as one of the first ten federally listed Patient Safety Organizations in the country. Sue is committed to the concept of clinical and community integration as a tool to improve health outcomes, and to optimize quality and equity in health care service delivery. To this end, she has provided technical assistance to integrated primary care medical home/behavioral health home and other value-based care initiatives, and collective impact maternal and infant mortality reduction efforts in urban and rural communities. She is honored to support the AIM CCI team as their Clinical -Community Integration & Patient Safety Implementation Strategist.
Job Titles:
- Community Transformation Strategist for NHSA
Valerie Newsome Garcia, PhD is the Community Transformation Strategist for NHSA - AIM CCI. Prior to joining National Healthy Start Association, she has held faculty appointments at NYU School of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, Brooklyn College, and selected as a JPB Environmental Health Fellow at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her work is focused on addressing the social, environmental, and structural determinants of health in underserved communities. Some of her past work has examined the sociocultural factors related to increased HIV risk among Black women, environmental barriers to healthy eating in NYC public housing, geographic and cultural factors related to healthy sleep behavior, and the relationship between neighborhoods and cardiovascular health. Dr. Garcia completed her doctoral training in Biobehavioral Health (Ph.D.) at Penn State University, and holds degrees in Psychology (B.S., M.S.) from Florida A&M University.