Peer Collaborators
Diane Adoma
City Council Member, Stonecrest
A veteran business woman and community leader, Adoma holds a doctorate degree in Leadership and Organization Management with an emphasis in Human Resource Management from Capella University in Minneapolis, MN. She received her master’s degree in business administration from Phoenix University and her bachelor’s degree in marketing from Kennesaw State University. Diane has more than 25 years of work experience with companies such as Turner Broadcasting Systems, AT&T, ING Group and other Fortune 500 businesses. Diane’s passion is entrepreneurship, and she believes the small business is the “economic engine” for a revitalized community. Diane is also a graduate of both the Leadership Rockdale Program and the Rotary International Leadership Training Institute. Rotary is a worldwide community organization whose tagline is “service above self.”
Stuart Andreason
Director, Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Stuart Andreason is the director of the Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. In his role he conducts research and works across the country to support Federal Reserve and partner organization efforts in workforce development, the labor market, and economic opportunities for low- and moderate-income workers. Andreason has been at the Federal Reserve since 2014 and previously served as a senior adviser on human capital and workforce development. In that role he has published articles on workforce development practice and policy and labor market trends, including deep analysis of opportunity occupations, or middle-skill jobs that pay high wages. He is the editor of Developing Career-Based Training and Models for Labor Market Intermediaries.
Gwen Benson
Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Partnerships, Georgia State University
Gwendolyn Benson serves as the associate dean for faculty development and partnerships in the College of Education & Human Development at Georgia State University. She previously served as coordinator of the Low Incidence Disabilities Unit of the Division for Exceptional Students in the Georgia Department of Education; director of educator preparation for the Georgia Professional Standards Commission; and director of the Program for Exceptional Children with the Atlanta Public Schools. She was an associate professor at Southern University at Baton Rouge, La., assistant professor at Louisiana State University and has taught graduate courses at Clark-Atlanta University as an adjunct professor.
Alesia Brooks
Chief of Staff at DeKalb County Board of Commissioners- District 4
Alesia is an experienced implementation specialist of evidence based mental and behavioral health practices and programs. She has twenty years of Human Services experience working with juvenile justice,child welfare and community based organizations. Alesia is committed to advancing evidence informed practices.so that any individual that access a human service experiences effective best practices. She has solid analytical, program management and direct treatment experience.
K. Jurée Capers
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Management and Policy, Georgia State University
K. Jurée Capers is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Management and Policy at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies of Georgia State University. She received her Ph.D in Political Science from Texas A&M University and holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Political Science and Psychology from Winthrop University. A scholar of public administration and public policy, she often addresses questions related to policy implementation and outcomes within the governance framework. Her research examines how governance in the broad sense affects each phase of policy— from agenda setting and policy design to policy outputs and outcomes. Substantively, her research centers on social policy issues, particularly k-12 education, as it relates to racial and ethnic minorities and underrepresented groups. Her recent work combines theories of bureaucratic representation, public management, and structure to understand the politics of school desegregation and its effect on student outcomes.
Omar Danner
Associate Professor, Surgery; Director, Trauma, Critical Care, and Advanced Laparoscopy, Morehouse School of Medicine
Dr. Danner is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Surgery. He received his MD from University of Alabama School of Medicine. He completed a General Surgery Residency at University of Alabama School of Medicine and a Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. He subsequently joined the medical staff at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and served as an attending trauma surgeon and surgical intensivist. Afterwards, he completed a fellowship training in Advanced Minimally Invasive Bariatric, Foregut, and General Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Surgery and is board certified in Surgery and Surgical Critical Care. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
Ann DiGirolamo
Research Associate Professor, Director of Behavioral Health, Georgia Health Policy Center
Ann DiGirolamo is the director of behavioral health at the Georgia Health Policy Center and director of the Center of Excellence for Children’s Behavioral Health. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. DiGirolamo provides expertise in research, evaluation, workforce development, and policy related to child and adolescent behavioral health, working with communities and within public health systems to promote an effective System of Care for youth with behavioral health needs.
Hyacinth Edwards
Senior Credit Risk Specialist, Federal Home Loan Bank Atlanta
Jonnell Henry
Educator, Narvie Harris Elementary School
Kim Hoyt
Senior Research Associate, Center for State and Local Finance
Kim Hoyt is a senior research associate in the Center for State and Local Finance of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. In this role, she directs the Kenny A. v. Deal Consent Decree Monitoring Project, which examines the compliance of Fulton and DeKalb County’s Departments of Family and Children Services with the terms of a federal consent decree. In this role, she oversees data collection, management and analysis. Her research interests include child welfare, social service system reform, program and economic evaluations of social services, and professional development of minorities in academia. Her research has been published in journals such as Research on Social Work Practice, Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work, Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, and Journal of Public Child Welfare. She earned a doctorate in social work from the University of Georgia, a bachelor’s and master’s degree in social work from Georgia State University, and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Kennesaw State University.
Donald Hunt
Vice President, Fraud/ Risk Analytics/ Statistics, Worldpay
Donald spent ten years working in law enforcement before joining an international bank as the US Director of Corporate Financial Investigations. He completed both his Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice (2011) and his Master’s degree in Criminal Justice & Criminology (2013) at Georgia State University. Reflecting his interest in the dynamics of violent confrontation, Donald’s thesis was entitled, “The Influence of the Presence of an Audience in Cases of Victim Precipitated Homicide.” His research interests include white collar crime, violent confrontation as a means of conflict resolution, policing, theory testing, and neurological influences on criminal behavior.
Shenia Kirkland
Managing Counsel, Global Marketing & Commerical Law, Vonage
Shenia leads the legal team responsible for supporting the Vonage global marketing organization. This entails not only reviewing customer facing marketing materials (e.g., television/radio scripts, website copy, digital banners, product guides, telemarketing scripts, point of sale materials, sweepstakes, etc.), but also drafting and negotiating marketing related agreements (including nuanced marketing technology agreements) and advising on compliance related matters. Shenia also provides counsel globally regarding the legal convergence of media, technology and brand narratives.
Tameka Lester
Assistant Clinical Professor, Associate Director of the Philip C. Cook Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic
Tameka Lester earned her juris doctorate from North Carolina Central University School of Law, where she served as vice president of the Women’s Law Caucus and Basic Income Taxation tutor. She was the school’s first graduate of the Tax Certificate Program. Lester also clerked for Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog and the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic at Legal Aid of North Carolina. Lester also served as the director of North Carolina Central University’s Low Income Taxpayer Clinic and taught in the legal writing program before joining the Georgia State Law faculty in 2015.
Sharnelle Myles
Clinical Director, youthSpark
Dr. Myles is a licensed psychotherapist (trauma specialist) and advocate who has worked in the behavioral health field over 16 years. She has specialized training, education, and experience working with young children, adolescents, adults, and families. Dr. Myles began her journey as a therapist at Norforlk State University where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Community and Clinical Psychology. She was then awarded a subsequent Master’s degree in Psychology and a Doctor of Psychology degree (child/adolescent and assessment concentration) from Georgia School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Pierre Nguimkeu
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Georgia State University
Nguimkeu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Georgia State University. His research interests are in Econometric Theory, Applied Econometrics, Statistics, and Development Economics. He received his PhD from Simon Fraser University in June 2012. He also received a Master’s degree in Economics from University of Montreal, a Master’s degree in Statistics from ENSEA of Abidjan, and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Dschang. His research and studies have been funded by several grants including the Lindau-Nobel Council, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Centre for Interuniversity Research in Quantitative Economics (CIREQ), the European Development Fund (EDF), and the French Cooperation Fund (FAC). He currently teaches Statistics and Econometrics at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He also serves as Economic Adviser to the Cameroon Council of Business Managers and Professional Associations (GICAM).
Grace O
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Georgia State University
Grace O has taught Principles of Macroeconomics & Microeconomics, Advanced Macroeconomics and International Finance. She was an adjunct professor at Missouri Western State University, at which she received a Teaching Excellence Award in 2007. Her primary research involves Macroeconomics, Aggregation Theory and Monetary Economics as well as the relationship between East Asia’s political economy and North Korea’s Economy.
Chris Parker
Director of Global and Population Health, Georgia Health Policy Center
Chris Parker is the director of global and population health at the Georgia Health Policy Center. He holds a leadership role in many of the center’s projects related to public health and program evaluation. His areas of expertise include strategic planning and evaluation, with a particular interest in projects that link population health and health care. Parker is a skilled facilitator who has guided a significant number of multisectoral, state, and local organizational strategic and evaluation plans. He is the co-principal investigator for Bridging for Health: Improving Community Health through Innovations in Financing, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He also leads the center’s growing health care workforce portfolio with a focus on Georgia’s primary care assets to address gaps in light of the Affordable Care Act, as well as the center’s work on community health needs assessments.
Alex Ruder
Senior CED Adviser, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Alexander Ruder is a senior adviser in the Community and Economic Development (CED) group at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, specializing in workforce and economic development policy. Previously, Ruder was an assistant professor (tenure track) in public policy at the University of South Carolina. He has also held positions as a research project manager at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University and as the Illinois workNet business services coordinator at the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Ruder’s scholarly work has appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Presidential Studies Quarterly, the Economics of Education Review, and Upjohn Press. He has served in an advisory capacity and has volunteered for several community, economic, and workforce development nonprofits. He holds a PhD from Princeton University, an MPP from the Harris School at the University of Chicago, and a BA from the University of Florida.
Michael Shapiro
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology, Georgia State University
Shapiro is a graduate of Emory University (B.A. Political Science, 1978) and the Emory University School of Law (J.D., 1981). He has been a member of the State Bar of Georgia since 1981, and has been licensed to practice law in the State of Ohio since 1991. He is also a member of Alpha Phi Sigma (the National Criminal Justice Honor Society) and Pi Sigma Alpha (the National Political Science Honor Society). He has worked in litigation firms in the Atlanta area, including serving as Managing Partner of Fambrough and Shapiro, P.C., and Peters, Townsend, Shapiro and Wilson, P.A. For more than seven years he was the Executive Director of the Georgia Indigent Defense Council (GIDC), the predecessor to the current Georgia Public Defender Council. He is a Past President of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and has served on a wide variety of State boards and committees including the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, Crime Victim Compensation Committee and Information Technology Policy Council, as well as the State Bar of Georgia’s Drug Task Force, Post-Conviction Capital Representation Committee and Uniform Rules Committee.
Chalanda Smith
General Health Scientist, Center for Disease Control
Angela Snyder
Assistant Research Professor, Georgia Health Policy Center
Angela Snyder joined the Georgia Health Policy Center in 2006. Her research involves child health policy analysis, development, and evaluation. She has more than a decade of public health experience working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In her last assignment as a program analyst for the National Immunization Program, she participated in planning and monitoring national performance measures for childhood immunizations. Angela also co-directs the Georgia Public Health Research and Surveillance for Hemoglobinopathies (PHRESH) project with the Georgia Department of Public Health and is the research and evaluation director for the Center of Excellence in Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health.
Kenyatta Stephens
Scientist, Center for Disease Control
For several years, Kenyatta worked as a Senior Research Scientist (Molecular Biologist/Geneticist) at Emory University School of Medicine. Her research areas included neurodegenerative disorders, breast cancer, and cervical cancer as they relate to mitochondrial mutations. Her cervical cancer research led to studying HPV which sparked her initial interest in Public Health. She went on to use her molecular biology skills to develop assays for several potential bioterrorism threat agents at the CDC, while building public health experience. She has enjoyed working in epidemiology in various areas at the CDC.
Zipangani Vokhiwa
Associate Professor of Science, Mercer University
After having completed a three year study in agriculture at the University of Malawi and a bachelors and masters degrees in animal sciences at Colorado State University, Dr. Vokhiwa worked as a livestock officer for the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Malawi from 1975 to 1992. He worked as Deputy Director of Environmental Affairs since 1996 in the Ministry of Research and Environmental Affairs in Malawi after he completed his doctoral studies in rangeland ecosystem science in 1994 at Colorado State University. His doctoral dissertation was on ecological disturbance where he investigated “Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics in Protected and Grazed Short-Grass Steppe in South-Eastern Colorado.” As deputy director of environmental affairs, he was Malawi’s Desk Officer responsible for the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations Agenda 21, The Wetlands Convention, and UNESCO Man and Biosphere (MAB) Program.
Alexander Vomo
Shire Pharmaceuticals
Chris Wells
Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget
Chris is from South Carolina, where he attended Francis Marion University in Florence, SC. There, he received his Bachelors of Science in both Political Science and Mathematics before furthering his education with a Master’s in Public Administration from Augusta State University (Augusta, Georgia). His career started off as a high school math teacher before moving into government, where he worked as a Budget/Policy Analyst for both the State of Georgia and South Carolina. In these roles he had the opportunity to research both budget and public policy and make recommendations for efficient and effective government. In his current role as a Policy Coordinator within Georgia’s Office of Planning and Budget, and previous roles as a budget/policy analyst, he is able to use his entire educational background. He enjoys every aspect of his job, the people he meets, and the ability to present sound ideas to leaders of Georgia, citizens, and Fellows in the Young African Leaders program.