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About the Center > Staff Biographies

Staff Biographies

• University of California San Francisco
• Topeka Independent Living Resource Center
• InfoUse
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• University of Michigan
• National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce
• Institute for the Future of Aging Services
• West Virginia University and Job Accommodation Network

University of California San Francisco

Charlene Harrington, Ph.D., RN, Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF will serve as the Principal Investigator for the Center. She is a widely published authority on LTC and PAS, and is on the faculty of the UCSF Disability Statistics Center, conducting research on PAS. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and a member of the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Harrington has been the principal investigator of numerous research studies on state LTC policies and program characteristics (since 1980) and she conducted a large study of PAS and HCBS waivers in the states for CMS in 1998-2000. She has been funded to track Medicaid PAS participants, services, and expenditures since 1994. She has over 125 published articles and several books, including many on PAS and HCBS. She will lead the overall project and specifically the research on PAS in the home and community.

Mitchell P. LaPlante, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Institute for Health and Aging is recognized as one of the foremost disability researchers in the country. He became Principal Investigator of the Disability Statistics Program at UCSF in 1987 and has served as Director and Principal Investigator of the Disability Statistics Training Center since 1993. He is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and has served on committees of the Institute of Medicine, the National Research Council, and the United Nations and has published numerous publications on various disability-related subjects. Dr. LaPlante will service as a co-principal investigator and lead the research team on studies of the need for formal and informal PAS services and the need and unmet need for PAS services, caregiving support and assistive technologies.

Robert J. Newcomer, Ph.D. is a Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the UCSF. His initial work was in the design and planning of health and LTC programs and has served as principal or co-principal investigator of over 30 grants and contracts related to LTC, including the CMS evaluation of the Social Health Maintenance Organizations and the Medicare Alzheimer’s Disease Demonstration. He is a co-principal investigator and the Director of Training for the UCSF Center for Disability Statistics where he studying housing and congregate living for people with disabilities, and he has published numerous books and articles on LTC. He will serve as a co-principal investigator and will lead the team on PAS workforce studies.

H. Stephen Kaye, Ph.D. is the principal researcher and author of the recently issued book-length report on the status of Americans with disabilities, Disability Watch, which he wrote under contract with Disability Rights Advocates, Inc. At the Disability Statistics Center, he has worked as Statistical Editor and has conducted research and published several Disability Statistics Reports. A physicist by training, Dr. Kaye is currently conducting research leading to the publication of a Disability Statistics Report on mobility device use and he is conducting research to monitor the status of people with disabilities in the US. Dr. Kaye will participate in the research on the need for formal and informal PAS services and the need and unmet need for PAS services, caregiving support and assistive technologies.

Martin Kitchener, Ph.D., M.B.A., Assistant Professor, is in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the UCSF. He received his Ph.D. from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom and has a BS in economics and an MBA from the University of Wales. In 1999, Dr. Kitchener was awarded a prestigious Harkness Research Fellowship in Health Policy at University of California Berkeley. At UCSF, he has conducted a series of studies on PAS and HCBS services funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation where he has been tracking PAS, HCBS waivers, and home care services in the states. He has written several articles on PAS and HCBS services that are currently under review. Dr. Kitchener will be employed 100 percent time for the data collection and analysis work on PAS in the home and community including studies of state PAS activities and policies.

Susan Chapman, Ph.D., RN, is Assistant Professor in the UCSF School of Nursing, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Director of Allied Health Care Workforce Studies at UCSF’s Center for the Health Professions. Dr. Chapman is Co Investigator and Project Director for multiple projects including: a three-year demonstration to improve the educational preparation and career pathway of allied and auxiliary health professionals, a study of the supply and demand for CNAs to provide LTC in California, an evaluation of a state-funded program to recruit and train new populations of workers in LTC, and a study analyzing models for the LTC workforce. She will conduct research on workforce PAS for the project.

Rani Eversley, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. She has focused her research on HIV/AIDS with an emphasis on women, minorities, and youth including issues of risk, access to care, mental services, health disparities, and program evaluation. More recently, she has studied racial and ethnic disparities in breast cancer surgery and access to diagnosis and treatment. She has taught and consulted on projects regarding cultural competency and access to care.

Taewoon Kang, Ph.D. is a statistician with significant experience in survey sampling and analysis. Dr. Kang joined the Center’s research faculty in early 1998. In support of various research projects, he has since performed extensive analyses of the National Health Interview Survey core, the NHIS Disability Supplement, and NHIS Disability Followback Survey. He will be involved in the statistical analysis of formal and informal PAS services.

Joseph T. Mullan, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the UCSF. As P.I. or co-P.I. of two large longitudinal studies of caregivers, he helped to develop a conceptual model of the stress process and to devise a set of survey measures for caregivers. He is a faculty at the UCSF Disability Statistics Center supervising the conduct and analysis of the qualitative data, including personal interviews, focus groups and cognitive interviews. He will participate in the design, collection, and analysis of data collected from interviews and focus groups.

Terence Ng, M.A. is a Research Associate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. He had previously worked on and co-authored a number of articles on AIDS prevention studies among minorities and the underserved community when he was at the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies. Recently, he works on studies of Medicaid HCBS where he is tracking PAS, HCBS waivers and home health activities across all states along with state PAS activities and policies.

Maggie Dowling is a long time community activist and advocate for disability rights. She produces a weekly radio newshow, Disability and Senior News Report, coordinates the non-profit organization, Share-A-Helping-Hand, and is a member Olmstead Plan Advisory Group for the state of California. She is collecting information about best practices regarding the PAS workforce on an international scale for the Center for Personal Assistance Services. Her main research interest is in equal access and rights for people with disabilities.

Marshall Alameida, M.S.N. is a nursing doctoral student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF and the John A. Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence. He received his BSN from San Francisco State University in 1996, and an MSN from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1999. His main research interest is the secondary data analysis of alcohol's relationship to disability, paid assistance services, unmet need and adverse consequences.

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Brian R. Grossman, ScM, a sociology doctoral student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF, received a BA from Rutgers University and a Master of Science in Health and Social Behavior from Harvard School of Public Health. Previously a research assistant for the Disability Statistics Center, he is conducting interviews with users of paid PAS and people who have been institutionalized for the Center for Personal Assistance Services. His main research interests are disability policy and sociological models of disability.

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Mauro Hernandez, BS, a sociology doctoral student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF, received his degree in Business Administration from the Georgetown University. Recently, he has examined Medicaid HCBS waiver policies for the San Francisco Department of Aging and Adult Services. His main research interests are federal and state long-term care policies that impact access to PAS in assisted living/residential care settings.

Teresa Scherzer, PhD, MSW, is Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF and is affiliated with the Institute for Labor and Employment at UC Berkeley. Her research has focused on social inequalities and health disparities; she is especially interested in the intersections of social and health policy, work, and health. Dr. Scherzer is currently working on several community-based studies on labor market issues and working conditions of personal attendants/home-care workers.

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Micky Willmott, a postgraduate fellow in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF, received a B.A. in Social and Cultural Studies from the University of Nottingham and a postgraduate diploma in Health Education and Health Promotion from Leeds Metropolitan University. Previously the National Health Policy Officer for Age Concern England, she is working on home and community services for the Center for Personal Assistance Services. Micky's interests are health policy, older people, and people with disabilities.

Alice Wong received her B.S. from Indiana University in sociology and English in 1997. Alice is currently a graduate student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco. In addition to working at the Center for PAS, she is also a research assistant at the UCSF Disability Statistics Center conducting focus groups and interviews of people with disabilities for their New Measures project. Her main research interests are qualitative methods, disability studies and women's health.

Topeka Independent Living Resource Center

Mike Oxford is the Executive Director of the Topeka Independent Living Resource Center and an organizer with American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT). This center provides personal assistant management services, independent living counseling, legal services, advocacy, housing, skills training, information and referral, and training. Mike is President and Board member of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL). Mike has retired after three years from the steering committee for Project ACTION and is a co-founder of Kansas ADAPT. Mike is an officer with the Kansas Association of Centers for Independent Living (KACIL) and is also on the Board of Directors of the Statewide Independent Living Counsel (SILCK). Mike has been involved with the independent living movement for 17 years and is a PAS user. Mike will serve as the Consumer Research Director for the project. In this role, he will lead the effort in linking our research efforts with PAS users across the country.

InfoUse

InfoUse is a woman-owned small business founded in 1984 by Susan Stoddard, Ph.D. in Berkeley, California. Susan Stoddard will lead the research effort for studies of Workplace PAS. The organization specializes in vocational rehabilitation and disability issues and has extensive research experience.

Susan Stoddard, Ph.D., FAICP, Founder and President of InfoUse, has extensive experience in program evaluation and policy research studies of vocational rehabilitation and independent living. Her expertise includes access to disability data in national population surveys of adults and children, and work includes the design of the second vocational rehabilitation longitudinal study (with Research Triangle Institute) and the identification of survey sources of outcomes for transitional youth (with the Institute for Educational Leadership). She has directed the two major statewide needs assessment studies for the California State Independent Living Council (SILC) and is currently conducting a study of Independent Living/Vocational Rehabilitation Collaboration at the RRTC on Independent Living Management, in association with Western University for Health Sciences. She has been the co-director of the RRTC on Public Policy in Independent Living, and directed the InfoUse subcontract in the study Alternative Models of PAS (studying California’s IHSS system) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She is the Director of the Center’s project on Workplace PAS.

Lita Jans, Ph.D., Senior Analyst, InfoUse, is the Project Director of InfoUse's project to identify role models for employment for youth with disabilities. She has also directed the AT Data Collection project funded by NIDRR to develop performance standards for Assistive Technology Act grantees. She is currently implementing a five-year evaluation of the National Resource Center for Parents with Disabilities, funded by NIDRR. Dr. Jans is bilingual in Spanish and English. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the Wright Institute in Berkeley. She will participate in the research on PAS in the workplace.

Lewis E. Kraus, M.P.H., M.C.P., Vice President of InfoUse, is currently leading a needs assessment and evaluation subcontract of the Family Center for Technology and Disabilities for the Academy for Educational Development working with the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. He has extensive experience in all aspect of training and dissemination and media development at InfoUse regarding PAS and disability Mr. Kraus has Master's degrees from University of California at Berkeley in Public Health (1986) and City and Regional Planning (1987). He will be the director for training and dissemination for the Center for PAS.

Joan M. Ripple, Program Analyst, InfoUse, is the Project Manager of the California State Independent Living Council (SILC) Needs Assessment. She has developed survey instruments for the evaluation of the Family Center on Technology and Disability and has evaluated the Easy Does It Emergency PAS program in Berkeley, California. She played a key role in InfoUse's NIDRR program review project and a Data Access Project collecting statistics related to work disability and vocational rehabilitation and preparing chartbooks and other media products. Ms. Ripple is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and has done post-graduate work at the School of Public Health and Administrative Medicine, Columbia University.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Nancy Miller, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Policy Sciences Graduate Program and Coordinator of the Program’s Health Policy Track and a core faculty member for the new Intercampus Ph.D. in Gerontology. She received both her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, where she specialized in health policy. Dr. Miller has conducted interdisciplinary health policy research, focusing on disability and aging issues, for the past 13 years, first through her work at the Health Care Financing Administration (now CMS). Dr. Miller’s recent work has been supported by NIDRR including a currently NIDRR funded study on younger age (18 to 64) individuals recently admitted to nursing homes and 2 current studies of LTC expenditures supported by NIDRR and The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. She has many publications on PAS services. For this project, she will direct a continuation study of younger people in nursing facilities and transition projects to assist individuals to living in the home or community.

University of Michigan

Brant Fries, Ph.D. is an internationally known Professor of Health Management and Policy and Senior Research Scientist at the University of Michigan, and Chief of Health Systems Research for the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center at the Ann Arbor VA Medical Center. Dr. Fries is a principal author of the Resource Utilization Groups (RUGs) systems for classifying nursing home residents used in all US nursing homes. He is an author of interRAI assessment systems for community-based elders (RAI-HC), acute and long-term mental institutions (RAI-MH), and palliative care (RAI-PC). Dr. Fries currently leads a project to design the national prospective payment system for inpatient psychiatric patients. He is the author of four books and over ninety articles on LTC and quantitative modeling of health care systems. For this project, he will conduct a longitudinal study of PAS user characteristics, service intensive, and outcomes.

Mary James, M.A., joined the University of Michigan Institute of Gerontology in February 2002. For nearly 25 years she held a variety of positions in Michigan state government where she was instrumental in the development, administration, and evaluation of HCBS for people who are elderly or disabled. While in state government, Ms. James had policy responsibility for the Home Help PAS program, a consumer-directed Medicaid personal care program that served nearly 50,000 aged and disabled adults and she established the statewide 1915c Medicaid waiver program known as MI Choice and the companion state-funded Care Management program. She will also conduct the longitudinal study of PAS users.

National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce

This non-profit institute on health care employment and advocacy was established in New York. The Institute conducts studies and develops demonstration projects on workforce improvement.

Vera Salter, Ph.D. is Director of the National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce at the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI.) The Clearinghouse brings together policy- and practice-related resources from around the country and makes them available to providers, consumers, workers, researches, and policy-makers who are concerned with the growing labor crisis in long-term care. PHI is committed to improving the quality of jobs for paraprofessional health care workers through demonstration projects, policy analysis, education and advocacy. Dr. Salter holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh, with a concentration in health services research and she served as a visiting Senior Research Associate at the Health Policy Institute at the University of Pittsburgh and has held a faculty position at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz School. She will assist with the date collection and tracking of information on workforce PAS for the project.

Institute for the Future of Aging Services

The Institute for the Future of Aging Services has been funded by CMS and ASPE to provide a National Resource Center on Home and Community-Based Services Clearinghouse. The project response to the need for people with disabilities of all ages to provide a listing of promising practices to involve consumers. In addition, it is responsible to providing assistance to states and communities regarding HCBS projects.

Robyn I. Stone, Dr.P.H., is a noted researcher and internationally recognized authority on health care and aging policy. In June 1999, she became the Executive Director of the Institute for the Future of Aging Services, of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. Dr. Stone served as the U.S. Dept. Health and Human Services, as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Disability, Aging and Long-term Care Policy from 1993-1996 and as Assistant Secretary for Aging in 1997. In the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a senior researcher at the National Center for Health Services Research and at Project HOPE’s Center for Health Affairs. Dr. Stone was staff to the 1989 Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care (the Pepper Commission) and the 1993 Clinton Administration Task Force on Health Care Reform. Dr. Stone has published widely in long-term care policy and quality, chronic care for the disabled, workforce development and family caregiving. Her doctorate in public health is from the University of California, Berkeley. She will provide consultation to the workforce PAS research project in the Center.

West Virginia University and Job Accommodation Network

The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) is a service of the U. S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy operated through the West Virginia University Research Corporation. Since 1983, JAN's consultants have provided workplace accommodation information to over 300,000 employers, rehabilitation professionals, and individuals with disabilities. JAN has a toll-free telephone and Web-based service that provides information on making workplace accommodations for people with disabilities. JAN's consultants handle over 32,000 workplace accommodation requests each year via the project's toll-free hotlines and e-mail. JAN's electronic services include a web site that serves as a gateway to information on accommodations, disability laws, publications and other resources to assist employment of people with disabilities, a Searchable Online Accommodation Resource (SOAR), and a Small Business and Self-Employment Service (SBSES). JAN will collect data on PAS users in the workplace for the Center for PAS. JAN will additionally conduct surveys of employers to identify changes in accommodations and best practices. Three key employees will participate in the project: Louis Orslene, the Cooperative Relations Manager, Dr. Sita Misra, a research associate with the project and Associate Professor at the University, and D.J. Hendricks, Ph.D.

D.J. Hendricks, Ed.D., is the Associate Director of the International Center for Disability Information (ICDI) and the Project Manager for the Job Accommodation Network (JAN). Dr. Hendricks was one of the authors of the original grant application for JAN and has continued to work with JAN since its inception in 1983. She has worked at the ICDI since 1979. She has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Statistics, a Master’s of Science in Statistics (MSS) and a Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Psychology from from West Virginia University (WVU). Her Master’s thesis was an evaluation of the effectiveness of separate blind agencies versus combined service agencies in the State/Federal Vocational Rehabilitation System. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the use of propositional structures, subgoals, formulas, and text instruction in teaching statistics.

Dr. Sita Misra, Ph.D. is a Research Associate Professor at the International Center for Disability Information (ICDI). Dr. Misra has served as the Project Director for several research projects in the areas of disability and rehabilitation and possesses an extensive background in assessing systems change impact. Dr. Misra has conducted several needs assessment studies for Public VR Programs in Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia. She has prepared Labor Market Digests for Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In 2001, she conducted a statewide study on "An assessment of the Need to Establish, Develop, or Improve Community Rehabilitation Programs (CRPs) in West Virginia". Dr. Misra is the recipient of the 1998 WVU Distinguished Service Award and 2003 Laddie R. Bell Distinguished Service Award. Dr. Misra is serving the lead researcher for the International Center for Disability Informationís subcontract with the University of California at San Francisco.

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Mr. Louis Orslene, M.P.I.A., M.S.W., serves as the Manager of Strategic Partnerships for the ICDIís Job Accommodation Network (JAN). Mr. Orslene has served as the Assistant Manager of the Social Security Administrationís (SSA) Ticket-to-Work demonstration project, a JAN Cognitive and Mental Health Team consultant and as Executive Director of Life Management Consultants. Mr. Orslene graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with Masterís degrees in Public and International Affairs and Social Work. He has also earned certificates non-profit organization management and economic development administration. For this project, Mr. Orslene is facilitating focus groups with employers, rehabilitation professionals, and people with disabilities. Mr. Orslene is also assisting with stakeholder surveys and the development of the "Personal Assistance Service (PAS) in the Workplace" technical assistance document for employers.

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