School of Community Health Faculty and StaffCarlos J. Crespo, Dr.P.H., M.S.
B.S. 1980 Inter American University; M.S. 1986 Texas Tech University; Dr.P.H. 1989 Loma Linda University Dr. Crespo's previous work experience includes working for the State University of New York at Buffalo as an associate professor and as a researcher at Roswell Park Cancer Institute as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the National Center for Health Statistics. His responsibilities included survey planning and development of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. He also worked as a public health analyst for the Office of Prevention, Education and Control of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health. He was an assistant professor at American University in Washington D.C. His main area of research involves the epidemiology of physical activity in the prevention of chronic diseases and research on minority health issues. He has over 60 publications in the areas of exercise, minority health, obesity and nutrition, and is co-author of five textbooks on minority health and sports medicine. He is also a contributing author to more than ten government publications, including the "Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health," and the "Sixth Report on Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of Hypertension." He received the 1997 Secretary of Health Award for Distinguished Service as part of the Salud para su Corazon campaign, and in 2003 became a Minority Health Scholar at the National Institutes of Health. He is an emeritus board member of the American Council for Exercise, former member of the board of directors of CASA de Maryland, and past president of the mid-Atlantic regional chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine. Currently he serves as a senior technical adviser for the Montgomery County Latino Health Initiative, CDC external advisory committee for the First International Physical Activity and Public Health Conference, and is a WHO/PAHO consultant for the Latin American Obesity Prevention Initiative. Gary R. Brodowicz, Ph.D.
B.S. 1977 University of Michigan; M.A. 1981 Wake Forest University; Ph.D. 1986 Ohio State University Dr. Brodowicz's academic interest areas include exercise, fitness, physical activity, and measurement. He is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), a member of the American Physiological Association, and an honorary member of the Japanese Society of Sports and Osteopathic Therapy. Dr. Brodowicz served on the Oregon Governor's Council for Physical Fitness and Sports, and has been involved with the Oregon Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity. A certified ACSM health/fitness director, he regularly works with the YMCA as a consultant for their exercise specialist workshops and certification exams, and continues to be involved in fitness assessment workshops for the Japanese Athletic Trainers Association for Certification (JATAC). He has served on the editorial board of the American College of Sports Medicine's Health and Fitness Journal, and also reviews manuscripts for The Journal of Aging and Physical Activity and The Journal of Athletic Training. Undergraduate courses include Exercise Physiology, Exercise Testing Techniques, and Quantitative Analysis in Health Studies; graduate courses include Physical Activity, Health, and Disease; Exercise, Nutrition, and Performance; Quantitative Research Design and Analysis; and Exercise and Women: Physiological Aspects. Dr. Brodowicz advises master's students undertaking thesis and project work related to exercise, fitness, and physical activity. He is also director of the exercise physiology laboratory and the ON TRAC fitness assessment service. Stephanie Farquhar, Ph.D.
Prior to arriving at the School of Community Health, Dr. Farquhar completed a one-year W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Health Scholars’ postdoctoral fellowship and worked with residents of rural North Carolina to change discriminatory natural disaster recovery policies. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Mark Kaplan, Dr.P.H.
M.S.W. 1977 Arizona State University; M.P.H. 1978, Dr.P.H. 1984 University of California, Berkeley Mark S. Kaplan, Dr.P.H., is a professor of community health at Portland State University and holds adjunct appointments in psychiatry at the Oregon Health & Science University and in epidemiology and community medicine at the University of Ottawa. He was a 2004 Fulbright Scholar in Canada. His research, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Aging and private foundations, focuses on using population-wide data to understand suicide risk factors among senior populations. He has contributed to state and federal suicide prevention initiatives. Dr. Kaplan has served as a peer reviewer for a number of journals and has been a member of editorial boards, including the International Journal of Men’s Health. His most recent publications include “Sooner Versus Later: Factors Associated with Temporal Sequencing of Suicide” in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, “Physical Illness, Functional Limitations, and Suicide Risk” in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry; “Suicide Among Male Veterans: A Prospective Population-Based Study” in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health; and "The Relationship of Body Weight to Suicide Risk Among Men and Women: Results from the US National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File" in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. He has participated on review panels for the National Institutes of Health, the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council, and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. Dr. Kaplan serves on the American Association of Suicidology Council of Delegates and SPAN USA's National Scientific Advisory Council. His teaching interests include urban health, health behavior, and men's health. Dr. Kaplan received the Oregon Master of Public Health 2007 Faculty Excellence in Research Award. M-RSiobhan Maty, Ph.D., M.P.H.
M.P.H. (epidemiology) Johns Hopkins University; Ph.D. (epidemiology, emphasis in social epidemiology) University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Post-doctoral fellowship W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Health Scholars Program, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Dr. Maty is a social epidemiologist who has expertise in the conceptualization and measurement of social factors and their influence on health outcomes, and in the design and analysis of epidemiologic studies. Her traditional epidemiology studies investigate the social determinants of type 2 diabetes incidence and disease progression. In addition, she uses quantitative and qualitative methods within a community-based participatory epidemiology framework to explore causes of health disparities in ethnically and socioeconomically diverse communities. Dr. Maty's current research interests include the social determinants of health and disease, health disparities, the epidemiology of diabetes, and the translation of research into action to achieve social change. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on epidemiology and social inequities in health. Jane Mercer, M.S.
M.S.T. 1986 (physical education), Oregon Basic Teaching Credential 1987 Portland State University; B.A. 1983 (physical education), California Jane began working within the School of Community Health (formerly the Department of Health and Physical Education) in 1986 as a graduate teaching assistant. Since earning her Master's degree she has taught many courses for the school, including many fitness courses, as well as the lecture course Development and Management of Health Fitness Programs. The course that she thoroughly enjoys and has been teaching for the past ten years is Health Promotion Disease Prevention. In addition to her teaching duties, Jane is currently co-coordinator of the undergraduate and graduate internship programs. She is one of our undergraduate academic advisers and also works with current K-12 teachers who are working toward adding a Health or Physical Education Endorsement. Randy A. Miller, M.S.T.
B.S. 1989, M.S.T. 1992 (exercise science) Portland State University Primary area of interest is human movement studies, specifically strength training across the gender and age classifications. Currently serving a three-year term as the National Strength and Conditioning Association state director for Oregon, Mr. Miller is a certified strength and conditioning specialist. He has worked with individuals from pre-adolescent to geriatric ages, and athletes from junior high to the professional level. His current interest is in using strength training to prevent injuries and promote better performance. Margaret Neal, Ph.D.
Dr. Neal's interests are in gerontology, survey research, program development, and evaluation, particularly as related to work-family issues, family caregiving, terminal care, and assessment of quality of care. Additional research interests center around older workers, lifelong learning, and planning for retirement. She has received several grants and written numerous articles, book chapters, and two books (Balancing Work and Caregiving for Children, Adults, and Elders (Sage, 1993), and Work and Caring for the Elderly: International Perspectives (edited with Viola Lechner, 1999, Taylor & Francis). Presently, she and Leslie Hammer (Department of Psychology) are co-authoring a book concerning dual-earner couples in the sandwiched generation. The book is based on the results of a national longitudinal study conducted with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (http://www.sandwich.pdx.edu) and involving the collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from working couples caring both for dependent children and aging parents (forthcoming, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates). Dr. Neal teaches courses in the Graduate Certificate in Gerontology program, the Master of Public Health program, and the doctoral programs in urban studies and public administration and policy. Jason T. Newsom, Ph.D.
Dr. Newsom is a social psychologist whose interests include social relationships, applied statistics, and research methodology. He is currently working on a National Institute on Aging study of the association between negative social exchanges and health among older adults. The study is a national, longitudinal survey of nearly 1,000 adults with extensive measurement of social support, negative aspects of relationships, and mental and physical health. S-ZKaren Seccombe, Ph.D.
M.S.W. 1981 University of Washington; Ph.D. 1985 Washington State University Dr. Seccombe's primary research interests focus on poverty, welfare use, and social inequality and the structure of the U.S. health care system. Her work includes attention to the antecedents and consequences of health insurance coverage for individuals and families, gendered experiences within the family and health care systems, the use of health services among the poor, and the social construction of illness. Her teaching interests include families, health systems, and poverty, inequality, and social welfare policy. She is the author of So You Think I Drive a Cadillac?: Welfare Recipients' Perspectives on the System and its Reform, Marriages and Families: Relationships in Social Context, Families in Poverty, Just Don't Get Sick: Access to Health Care in the Aftermath of Welfare Reform and Families and Their Social Worlds. Ellen Smit, Ph.D.
B.S. (clinical nutrition), Loma Linda University; M.S. (nutrition), Loma Linda University; Ph.D. (epidemiology), Johns Hopkins University Dr. Smit is a nutritional epidemiologist who has taught epidemiology and nutrition for more than ten years. She has expertise in methods of assessment of nutritional status, including body composition, and in the design and analysis of epidemiological studies. Her research is focused on diet, metabolism, and physical activity in relation to both chronic disease and HIV infection in diverse populations. Studies include cohort designs, multi-center studies, survey analysis of national databases, and linking of registry data sets. Dr. Smit has authored or co-authored more than 45 publications and serves as an ad-hoc reviewer for numerous scientific journals and NIH grant review study sections. Judith L. Sobel, Ph.D.
B.A. 1975 University of California, Santa Cruz; M.A. 1977, Ph.D. 1981 (mass communications theory and methodology) University of Minnesota; M.P.H. 1983 University of California, Los Angeles Over the course of her career she has focused her work on designing and evaluating public health campaigns, particularly those campaigns that utilize mass media. Before joining the faculty at Portland State University she conducted health communication research at the Health Behavior Research Institute at the University of Southern California. Hearing loss prevention, breast and cervical cancer, and drug abuse prevention have been her specific research area interests. Currently, she is examining the effects of communication on adolescent hearing conservation in collaboration with the Oregon Hearing Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University. She teaches a graduate course in health communication as well as undergraduate courses in community health. Her coursework also includes a senior seminar in controversial health issues, and a sophomore inquiry course entitled Healthy People, Healthy Places. Lawrence Wallack, Dr.P.H.
B.A. 1972 (urban studies) Franklin and Marshall College; M.S. 1974 (alcohol studies) University of Arizona; M.P.H. 1978, Dr.P.H. 1982 University of California, Berkeley Dr. Wallack's primary interest is in the role of mass communication, particularly the news media, in shaping public health issues. His current research is on how public health issues are framed in print and broadcast news. He is principal author of Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention (Sage Publications, 1993) and News for a Change: An Advocate's Guide to Working with the Media (Sage Publications, 1999). He is also co-editor of Mass Communications and Public Health: Complexities and Conflicts (Sage, 1990). He has also published extensively on topics related to prevention, health promotion, and community interventions. Specific content areas of his research and intervention work have included alcohol, tobacco, violence, handguns, sexually transmitted diseases, cervical and breast cancer, affirmative action, suicide, and childhood lead poisoning. Belinda Zeidler, M.S.T.
B.S. 1981 (anthropology), M.S.T. 1986 (exercise science) Portland State University Belinda has enjoyed teaching health and nutrition at Portland State University for over twenty years. Her current focus areas include general nutrition/weight management and school health. She recently had the opportunity to work with the Beaverton School District on both the health and physical education curriculum adoption committees, and she continues to volunteer in the district where her two children attend school. Belinda has also worked in the community as a health promotion specialist, implementing work-site wellness programs for insurance companies, lumber mills, school districts and other organizations. Belinda is one of two undergraduate academic advisers for the School of Community Health. She really enjoys working with students and helping them achieve their educational and career goals. In her free time, she attends all of her children's sporting events, loves to garden, travel and walk her dog. |
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