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Ellen Blokus began working in the Rural Medical Education Program in April of 1999. At that time, she assisted M3 students, was involved with a HRSA grant, which was a collaboration of several entities including Illinois State University, U of I Extension, rural county public health departments and the University of Illinois, and CDC grant through the State of Illinois focusing on diabetes management in rural practices. She maintains her position in the Center for Rural Health Professions, and is involved in database management, continuing her work with the diabetes grant, serving as the editor of the Northern Illinois Diabetes Coalition quarterly newsletter and assisting with seeking future grant funding. Dale Flach served formerly as the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at the Rockford campus of the University of Illinois. He has been involved with the RMED program since its conception in the late 1980’s. He served as interim RMED Director on three separate occasions. Currently, Dale is the Assistant Director for Rural Health Policy for the Center for Rural Health Professions. His interests include public policy and economic development of rural communities. Michael Glasser, Ph.D., is Assistant Dean for Rural Health Professions and Research Associate Professor of Medical Sociology in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. He is co-director of the Masters of Public Health Program at the Rockford campus and Principal Investigator for the Project EXPORT Center for Excellence in Rural Health. Dr. Glasser's research and scholarly activity interests include patient-provider relationships, primary care delivery and health professions education, diagnosis and management of chronic disease, and mental health and older populations. Matthew Hunsaker, M.D. is director of the Rural Medical Education Program (RMED) at the National Center for Rural Health Professions at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford. He is board certified in Family Medicine with special training in additional areas of Hyperbaric and Aerospace Medicine. Dr. Hunsaker’s professional interests include rural and remote medicine, the doctor-patient interaction, international medicine and the delivery of care to special populations despite cultural barriers. Kay Kush, PHR, Business Manager of the National Center for Rural Health Professions, supervises the financial aspects of the Center. This entails reporting on grants and state operational funds, as well as human resource management of academic professionals and support staff according to grant/state budget proposals. Martin MacDowell, DrPH is Assistant Director for Curriculum Development and a Research Assoc. Professor in the Rural Health Professions Center at UIC College of Medicine – Rockford. He participates in the curriculum development, evaluation, and teaching of medical students in the rural physician (RMED) training program. He also participates in the development of interdisciplinary courses, presentations, and curriculum related to all rural health professions. He participates and/or teaches courses in the MPH program. He scholarly interests focus on program evaluation, health services research, and epidemiologic research. He advises and guides project activities of medical and other health professions students and develop relationships with professionals in the health care provider community related to opportunities for students and other Center project activities. Mark Meurer, MS, Assistant Director of Recruitment, Public Relations and Marketing for the Rural Medical Education Program (RMED) and the National Center for Rural Health Professions. Mark is responsible for RMED student recruitment at numerous colleges and universities as well as creating public relations and marketing activities for the National Center and RMED Program. Martin Mistretta is a Phd in Sociology from the University of Illinois, Urbana and also has an MS from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, in Marketing. He has been employed in the RMED and RPEER programs for 2 years as a Research Consultant and Research Data Analyst. He is currently pursuing research on residency choices of RMED students, student perceptions of the RMED program and rural family medicine, and the distribution of physicians in Illinois counties. He has an overriding interest in research methods and quantitative analysis. Ben Mueller, MS is an Assistant Director for the Center for Rural Health Professions University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford and an Extension Specialist, Community Development, for the University of Illinois Extension. He shares curriculum development and teaching responsibilities for the Center’s Rural Health Preceptorship and the Quentin N. Burdick Rural Interdisciplinary Training grant and directs community activities for these programs. His current research projects include the impact of communication and information technologies on rural communities, and sense of community and the impact of Hispanic newcomers on rural communities. Karin Opacich, Ph.D., MHPE, OTR/L, FAOTA is the Project Director for the EXPORT Center for Excellence in Rural Health and an Assistant Director in the National Center for Rural Health Professions. Her practice profession is occupational therapy, and she has accumulated over 20 years of academic experience in graduate professional education, curriculum development and evaluation, and specialized accreditation. Her two major public health research interests pertain to women with HIV/AIDS and labor force health, primarily migrant and seasonal workers, in the horse racing industry. Karen Peters, DrPH, is Assistant Director for Research and Evaluation in the Center for Rural Health Professions and Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Administration in the UIC School of Public Health. She is a co-investigator and program evaluator on several Rural Health Professions initiatives and programs. Dr. Peter's research and scholarly activity interests include minority health and health disparities, community based prevention intervention and evaluation, population-based health, organizational behavior theory, evidence based public health decision-making and gerontology. Michelle Royster, A+, Network+, MCP, is an Applications Analyst for the center. She provides computer support in the areas of computer technician, software development, web development, multimedia applications, DBA, and server administrator. Areas of interest include computer and network security. Pat Stoffregen provides assistance for the RMED office and NCRHP. In particular, collect data of RMED graduates, i.e., residency location, practice location and follow-up on RMED and other graduates. Maintain contact with RMED graduates. Serve as resource person for RMED data. Heather Stroup is responsible for CRHP and RMED finances, as well as all travel and purchasing expenditures. Heather also works with the RMED M1 and M2 year students and helps with the coordination of the first and second year curriculum. Sharon Schumacher, MA, is a project coordinator for Project EXPORT's administrative core. She is responsible for developing projects and informational resources for achieving EXPORT’s goal to improve health and access to health care among rural and underserved populations. Joella Warner, RN, MAT, CDE has a background in nursing and teaching, focusing on diabetes prevention and care. She is a diabetes educator for professionals and consumers. She is the project coordinator for the Comprehensive Diabetes Project which assessed the care of people with diabetes in rural Illinois, provided intervention to 6 clinics and continues to work with primary providers to improve diabetes prevention and care. Areas of interest include chronic disease self-management and health professions education. Genevieve
Werner, BA, is Project Coordinator for the Health Disparities
Howard
J. Zeitz, M.D. is Co-director of the National Center for
Rural Helath Professsions and Associate Professor at the University
of Illinois College of Medicine-Rockford (UICOM-R). In Addition, he
is Co-chair of the Chronic Disease Management Research Team at UICOM-R,
Immediate Past Chair of the Illinois Asthma Partnership and Chair of
the Rockford Asthma Consortium. Dr. Zeitz has specialized training in
education, with a focus on models of meaningful learning such as problem
based learning, project based learning, and interdisciplinary/interprofessional
learning.
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