People

Dr. Mohr is a Professor of Emergency Medicine, Anesthesia Critical Care, and Epidemiology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. His academic interests include rural health and novel methods of care delivery, especially as it impacts survival from early critical illness. His recent work on rural healthcare regionalization has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Veterans Health Administration. He has published more than 220 manuscripts and textbook chapters, with over 40 focused on rural telehealth.

Dr. Ward is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on telehealth, health services research, and rural healthcare delivery. In recent years, Dr. Ward co-chaired the National Quality Forum (NQF) Committee on the Framework for Telehealth Measures and the NQF Committee on the Rural Telehealth and Healthcare System Readiness Measurement Framework. Prior to joining the University of Iowa in 1997, Dr. Ward co-led the Health Outcomes Program at SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute) where she served as Associate Director of the Center for Health Sciences. She received her PhD in clinical psychology from the Ohio State University and is a fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

Dr. Carter is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Deputy Director of the Center for Public Health Statistics (CPHS) in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa. Dr. Carter has over 25 years of experience in health services research. Before moving to the United States, he conducted research at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s Dental Statistics and Research Unit where he was involved in the design, implementation, and analysis of large scale national dental public health surveys, and longitudinal studies of the oral health of older adults with dementia and in nursing homes. He has a wealth of experience with the use of large medical claims databases for research, including Iowa Medicaid claims, and private commercial insurance claims. Dr. Carter provides statistical expertise to researchers across campus and has been conducting research with the RTRC since 2015.

Dr. Gutierrez is a Clinical Associate Professor of General Internal Medicine at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and the Iowa City VA Healthcare system. She works clinically as a hospitalist and Telehospitalist and is the founder and Director of the National Tele-hospital medicine program for the Veterans Health Administration, which has provided services to rural VAs since 2019. Her research interests include rural health, telehealth implementation and outcomes, health disparities, and alcohol use disorders. Dr. Gutierrez has published numerous manuscripts and has over 10 years of research experience.

Dr. Jonk is an Associate Research Professor within the Department of Public Health at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service and is the Deputy Director of the Maine Rural Health Research Center. As a health economist, Dr. Jonk has over 20 years of experience working within the field of health services research. Dr. Jonk’s areas of specialization include rural health, access to care, health insurance coverage, program evaluation, and cost and cost effectiveness analyses. Her current projects focus on analyzing Medicare and Medicaid administrative claims data to address beneficiaries’ use of telehealth to access outpatient and behavioral health services, the use of telehealth and telebehavioral services within Critical Access Hospitals, Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) and Federally Qualified Health Centers, the spectrum of services provided by RHCs, the use of Z codes to record social problems, barriers to testing for COVID-19 within rural areas, and identifying and characterizing populations living in ambulance deserts.

Dr. Khairat is the Beerstecher-Blackwell Distinguished Term Scholar and associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Khairat holds joint appointments at the Carolina Health Informatics Program, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, and the School of Nursing. He is the Principal Investigator (PI) of a five-year NIH-funded Center for Virtual Care Value and Equity (ViVE) and the associate director of the Carolina Health Informatics Program at UNC. Dr. Khairat has authored more than 100 influential scientific articles in over 35 different peer-reviewed journals and conferences. He has been an investigator for over $7.5 million in research grants over the past five years. Internationally, Dr. Khairat provides expert opinions to the World Health Organization (WHO) to inform national policies and strategies for digital health targeting non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries. His work has been featured in major media outlets, including the Harvard Business Review (HBR), American Medical Association (AMA), and the AHRQ Patient Safety Net (PSNET).

Ms. Merchant is Project Manager of RTRC and a research specialist in the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Iowa. She brings a background of organization management, communication, program development, and more than 10 years of research project management to RTRC. Since coming to the University of Iowa College of Public Health in 2008, she has facilitated worksite wellness group sessions, written and designed newsletters and other publications, conducted a statewide eating disorders needs assessment, was project coordinator for the RUPRI Center's Mission: Lifeline program evaluations in South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Minnesota, and been involved in a number of qualitative research studies.

Ms. O’Connor is a Sr. Data Analyst at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service. She brings a background of more than 20 years of health services research and analysis with areas of specialization including rural health, access to care, health insurance coverage, program evaluation, and cost and cost effectiveness analyses. Over her career, she has worked with researchers at the University of Minnesota, University of North Dakota and University of Southern Maine, as well as within the private sector (e.g. Fairview Health System and Blue Cross Blue Shield). Since coming to the University of Southern Maine in 2022, her work has included creating working datasets and analyzing Medicare and Medicaid administrative claims data to address beneficiaries’ use of telehealth to access outpatient and behavioral health services, the use of telehealth within rural health clinics (RHCs) and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), the spectrum of services provided by RHCs, the use of Z codes to record social problems, and barriers to testing for COVID-19 within rural areas.

Dr. Planey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She is also a Faculty Fellow in the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. She is a health/medical geographer with an overarching interest in health and healthcare equity. Her expertise includes conceptualizing and measuring health care access, health workforce issues, and chronic illnesses. Her research and teaching focuses include the application of spatial statistical and epidemiologic methods to study health(care) policies, healthcare access and utilization, and underlying, population-level health inequities.

Dr. Shea is Professor of Health Policy and Management in the Gillings School of Global Public Health and Adjunct Associate Professor of Social Medicine in the School of Medicine. He also serves as Director of the PhD program in Health Policy and Management, Research Fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, and Co-Director for Implementation Science in the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the implementation of telehealth and other innovations in health organizations.

Dr. Talbot is a core member of the Maine Rural Health Research Center (MRHRC) rural behavioral health research team in the Muskie School of Public Health, University of Southern Maine. A clinical psychologist by training, she focused more than 10 years of practice on providing behavioral health interventions in inpatient facilities, community mental health agencies, university medical centers, and primary care. Since joining the MRHRC, she has been the principal investigator or lead author on a range of projects that have contributed to insights into behavioral health needs, treatment access, infrastructure gaps, and capacity building in rural areas.

Mr. Ullrich is a Program Director-Research Activities in the Department of Health Management and Policy, College of Public Health, University of Iowa. He has served as a research analyst, research methodologist, and project manager on a very broad array of health policy and bio-medical research projects ranging from local and national survey projects, cancer and surgical clinical trials, and regional and international epidemiologic studies. His recent work has focused on state, regional, and national projects in health services research, policy analysis, and program and policy evaluation.

Dr. Vakkalanka is an Assistant Professor and Research Analysis Team Lead within the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Iowa. She is trained as an epidemiologist and has over 10 years of experience with study design, data management, and quantitative data analysis. Her research areas of interest include opioid use disorder management, telehealth access, emergency psychiatric care, and Veterans’ health.

Dr. Zahnd is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy in the College of Public Health and the Deputy Director of the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis. Her research focuses on rural health, particularly access to care and cancer disparities. She received her PhD in Community Health from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.