NAAEP Faculty
The following are present and past members of the NAAEP team:
Susan Cheng, PhD, MPH (Principal Investigator)
Susan has been a core member of the Native American Alliance for Emergency Preparedness and the California Native American Research Center for Health for the past seven years. Along with local topic area experts, she has developed training modules for biological and chemical terrorism preparedness as well as emergency preparedness workshops for Indian Health Clinics. She is especially interested in the unique requirements and barriers faced by Native American populations when responding to man-made or natural disasters. Susan is also involved in research focusing on the differential effects of methamphetamine abuse in heterogeneous groups of methamphetamine users. She is especially interested in the motivations that underlie decision making and high risk behavior in regular and chronic users of methamphetamine in San Diego. Susan received her masters of public health degree from San Diego State University in the field of osteoporosis research and completed her PhD in a joint program with the University of California, San Diego in the field of methamphetamine use research.
Brian Tisdale, MS
Brian Tisdale is a Project Coordinator for the County of Riverside, Department of Public Health, Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Branch. His duties include planning for a Mass Prophylaxis Event, HRSA and working with Family Health Centers. Prior to this position, he was with the Council of Community Clinics as an Emergency Preparedness Coordinator. There he developed emergency plans for community health centers, worked with Indian Health Centers and In conjunction with the California Primary Care Association in Sacramento, developed an emergency operations plan template and conducted training seminars for medical clinics throughout the state of California.
Former NAAEP Members
Louise S. Gresham Ph.D., M.P.H. (Former Principal Investigator)
Dr. Gresham is the Director of the San Diego State University Center for Public Health Security and the Faculty Coordinator of the Global Emergency and Response Master of Public Health, San Diego State University, Graduate School of Public Health.
Dr. Gresham is Co-Director of the Google-funded InSTEDD Southeast Asia Pandemic Preparedness initiative as well as a consultant to the NTI Middle East Consortium on Infectious Disease Surveillance.
She is the former Senior Epidemiologist for San Diego County, Health and Human Services Agency, Epidemiology Branch with over 20 years of experience conducting and supervising infectious disease surveillance, alert and response activities.
Dr. Gresham participated on the expert panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publication Framework for Evaluating Public Health Surveillance Systems for Early Detection of Outbreaks. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and recently authored a contributing chapter "Case Detection, Outbreak Detection and Outbreak Characterization" in the Handbook of Biosurveillance (Wagner MM, Elsevier Press, 2006).
Dennis E. Amundson, D.O.
Dr. Amundson is the Program Director for Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine at the Naval Medical Center San Diego as well as an Associate Professor of Medicine at Uniformed Services University of the Health Services.He is a senior Critical Care Specialist and is a regional expert on Chemical/Biologic Warfare. Dr. Amundson has written and taught on both subjects for over 15 years and has authored peer-reviewed literature.Dr. Amundson is involved in the local military's command response to Chemical/Biologic/Radialogic incidents and is a consultant to the Department of Defense initiative on case based research training. He currently teaches Biologic Warfare classes at San Diego State University. Dr. Amundson received his D.O. from the College of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery in Des Moines, Iowa. As an integral member of the IHC collaborative, Dr. Amundson assisted with the development of the Radiologic/ Biologic presentations.
Stephanie Brodine, M.D.
Dr. Brodine is a Professor and Division Head of Epidemiology and Statistics at the San Diego State University, Graduate School of Public Health. In her prior Navy career, Dr, Brodine directed an Infectious Diseases fellowship at Naval Medical Center San Diego, and headed up Clinical Epidemiology at the Naval Health Research Center, which generated more than $2 million in extramural funding annually and maintained a staff of researchers, and masters/doctoral students. Dr. Brodine continues to work with the military and is the Technical Director for the Department of Defense African Military HIV/AIDS Prevention Program. Dr. Brodine received her M.D. from Georgetown University, School of Medicine. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Brodine's interest and expertise in Bioterrorism and Disaster Preparedness is based on her specialty training, military career and epidemiology research and she is an invaluable team member of the IHC collaborative.
Lucy Cunningham, MS
Lucy serves as the Project Manager on several CHHS multi-year grants in collaboration with the Indian Health Council Inc. These include the California Native American Research Center for Health (CA-NARCH), a NIH funded initiative whose goal is to increase the number of Native American scientists and health care professionals and to support health disparities research and the Native American Alliance for Emergency Preparedness (NAAEP) which provides emergency preparedness training and education for Indian clinics throughout California. Both of these grants are directed by Faculty from the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) within the CHHS. Lucy also serves as the Special Projects Manager for the Dean, College of Health and Human Services (CHHS). In this role, she has coordinated the development of the new Master of Science in Public Health/Gloabl Emergency Preparedness and Response under the Graduate School of Public Health and continues to assist with the management of the new degree. In addition she serves as the SDSU representative on the Health Advisory Committee on Terrorism (HACOT) and on other health related disaster preparedness initiatives in the community. Lucy has spent 20 years of her career as an executive with a major health care corporation, has developed and managed a corporate charitable giving program, and has extensive experience serving on non-profit boards of directors. In addition, she was the recipient of the Alumna of the Year Award (the Monty Award) for the College of Health and Human Services in 1991.
Asha V. Devereaux, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Devereaux is a Pulmonary/Critical Care physician in private practice in Coronado, California. Dr. Devereaux has 11 years of training and service with the U.S. Navy and formerly served as the ICU Director on the Isolation Unit of the USNS Mercy Hospital ship. She currently serves as a Steering Committee Member for the American College of Chest Physicians Disaster Response Network. Dr. Devereaux has spearheaded a national conference on Disaster Preparedness, has published on the topic, and presently serves on the Board of Directors of the San Diego American Lung Association. Dr. Asha Devereaux received her undergraduate education at the University of California, San Diego followed by a M.D/M.P.H from Tulane University. She is a key participant in our IHC collaborative workshop and focuses on Chemical related terrorism.
Sonja Ingmanson, MPH
Sonja Ingmanson, MPH, is an emergency preparedness consultant with the Native American Alliance for Emergency Preparedness (NAAEP) and for the San Diego State University Research Foundation (SDSURF). Before joining the NAAEP collaborative, she worked as a Project Coordinator for the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Public Health and Disasters and as a research assistant at the Institute for Public Health at San Diego State University. She has designed and facilitated many disaster preparedness workshops and table top exercises, evaluated workshops and conferences, and she is currently planning a one day conference on Global Disease Surveillance for August 2006. Ms. Ingmanson did her undergraduate studies at the University of California Santa Barbara and through the Semester at Sea study abroad program, and received her Masters Degree in Public Health at San Diego State University.
Suzanne P. Lindsay, Ph.D, MSW, MPH
Suzanne Lindsay, Ph.D., MSW, MPH, is the Co-Director of the Institute for Public Health (IPH) in the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University (http://IPH.sdsu.edu). The mission of the IPH is to provide a bridge between the academic resources of San Diego State University and the public health practice community with particular emphasis on the development, implementation and evaluation of the highest quality evidence-based approaches to public health. Efforts include collaborative applied research and evaluation projects, community-based participatory research, and translational research. Within this community-based context, Dr. Lindsay's primary area of research interest involves the study of interpersonal violence including youth violence, homicide, suicide, family violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, and sexual assault. She has also directed and participated in the design and implementation of research and evaluation studies in a wide variety of content areas including perinatal health, breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnosis (http://qap.sdsu.edu), teen substance abuse prevention, HIV/AIDs prevention, chronic disease prevention, teenage pregnancy prevention, tobacco education, and homelessness. Her expertise includes extensive experience in the development of multi-site research and evaluation management information systems including the collaborative design of appropriate data elements, data collection protocols, data quality assurance, research and evaluation training, and electronic mechanisms for confidential data entry and transfer. In addition, the IPH provides distance learning opportunities in the form website content development and web-based training modules to provide easily accessible educational opportunities for clinical health care providers and the public health professional community.
Deborah Morton, Ph.D.
Dr. Morton is an Assistant Professor in the Epidemiology Division of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. She teaches Applied Epidemiology a required course for doctoral students in epidemiology. Dr. Morton's specific areas of interest are osteoporosis and osteoarthritis and she has published a wide range of articles on the effects of various medications on bone mineral density, the risk of clinical osteoarthritis with the long term use of estrogen therapy and other related studies. She is interested in the health of ethnic and sexual minority populations and how culture influences disease patterns and health risk behaviors. Dr. Morton received her Master's degree in anthropology from San Diego State University and her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the UCSD/SDSU Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health. She serves as the Researh/Evaulation expert on the IHC collaborative.
Deven Parlikar, MBA (Co-Founder)
Deven Parlikar is the Executive Director and CEO of the Indian Health Council, Inc. Deven has a BA in Business Economics from the San Diego State University and an MBA from University of California, Irvine. Deven has worked in public health and the community health center setting for over 15 years. During his tenure as the CEO of the Indian Health Council, Inc., a number of new prevention and public health programs and services have been made available to patients and clients of IHC. In addition to his responsibilities at IHC, Deven is also the Principle Investigator for the NIH funded California Native American Research Center for Health and the Indian Health Service funded California Native American Epidemiology Collaborative. In his community involvement, Deven serves on the Board of Directors of the San Diego Council of Community Clinics, on the State of California's Council on Multicultural Health, the Advisory Board for the College of Health & Human Services at San Diego State University and the Scientific Advisory Committee for the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Deven was instrumental in securing seed funding for the Native American Alliance for Emergency Preparedness from the California Area Office of the Indian Health Service.
J. Scott Parrish, M.D., FCCP
Dr. Parrish is the Medical Director of the Intensive Care Unit at Naval Medical Center, San Diego. He previously served as the General Medical Officer and Radiation Health Officer aboard the nuclear powered cruiser, USS Arkansas. Dr. Parrish is actively involved in the American College of Chest Physicians/ Disaster Response Network and has spoken on various terrorism related topics. He has recently published articles in the field of disaster response, and his active research projects include studies in Sepsis, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and Pulmonary Edema. Dr. Parrish received his undergraduate education from Villanova University followed by a M.D. from SUNY Upstate Medical Center. He has completed training and is triple board certified in the fields of Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Parrish is a key participant in the IHC collaborative workshop and focuses on Radiological related terrorism.
Leland Rickman, MD, Ph.D. In Memorium (1956 - 2003)
Leland Rickman, MD, Ph.D., was the Director of the Epidemiology Unit at the University of California San Diego Medical Center and was an Associate Clinical Professor in the Infectious Diseases Division at the University. His involvement in bioterroism preparedness arose from his interest in the discipline of tropical infectious diseases and he presented extensively on bioterroism and related infectious diseases throughout his professional career. Dr. Rickman received his undergraduate education and his MD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, his training in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and an infectious diseases fellowship at the Naval Medical Center San Diego. Following his fellowship, he was an attending physician at Naval Hospital Portsmouth and Naval Hospital Bethesda at the Naval Medical Research Institute. Dr. Rickman served in the military from 1983-1990. Dr. Rickman was a key participant in the NAAEP collaborative as a founding faculty member; he developed the original curriculum on Biological related terrorism. Dr. Leland Rickman, died suddenly on June 24 while traveling and teaching medicine in Lesotho, Africa. Actual cause of death, apparently due to natural causes, is not known. He was 47.
