Kathy Anderson (2009) email

Kathy's background is in “corporate America,” in high technology, retiring in 1998 from  AT&T in the Lower 48 as VP of Business Internet Services. Going into the MPH program, she had a BS in Math, a vintage-1970s MS in Computer Science, and an executive-MBA from Harvard. She has been teaching marketing in the MBA program at Alaska Pacific University for about five years. The confluence of marketing and public health, along with all things quantitative, interest Kathy, and she hopes to establish herself as a free-lance program evaluation consultant in Alaska. She and her software-guru husband, Patrick Speranza, are currently consulting with the State Division of Public Health, performing an ongoing program evaluation of the CDC-funded Breast and Cervical Health Check program. This assignment is actually a continuation of her thesis work. which compared the practices of cervical cancer screening providers in the BCHC program to national practice guidelines.

Sara Buchanan (2008) email

Jody Carman (2009) email

Jody Carman is a proud alumnus of the UAA MPH program. She did research on the association of body mass index and sleep duration for her thesis project. Jody works for the US Coast Guard in Kodiak, Alaska as the Regional Health Promotion Manager. She provides health awareness, education and intervention activities in the areas of physical fitness, nutrition, weight management, stress management, tobacco cessation, and health risk appraisals. She also coordinates the Unit Health Promotion Coordinator School which trains US Coast Guard active duty members to administer health promotion activities and assistance at their units.

Vanessa Hiratsuka (2007) email

Vanessa is interested in American Indian and Alaska Native health promotion and chronic disease prevention. In 2007, she was one of four MPH students who received a travel grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty International Center to attend the 13th International Congress on Circumpolar Health in Novosibirsk, Siberia where she presented a poster on “Alaska Native Women’s Cardiovascular Health Intervention Research Project.” Vanessa’s thesis was titled "Changes in Attitudes, Beliefs and Behavior in Physical Activity Due to the Traditions of the Heart WISEWOMAN Intervention," a research project conducted in Anchorage by Southcentral Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vanessa works at the Southcentral Foundation on qualitative and quantitative health services research.

Allyson Kelly (2006) email

Allyson completed her MPH in December 2006. With a background in environmental health, community health, and American Indian/Alaska Native public health, she works as the Community Engagement Director at the Center for Native Health Partnerships in Bozeman Montana. Working directly with tribal communities to build community health research capacity, her work takes on many forms. This includes teaching classes and workshops in environmental health, data anlaysis, grant writing, and strategic planning for health programs.

Dan Lien (2007) email

Dan currently serves as the president of UAA’s MPH Alumni Association, and has remained connected with former and current students. His thesis project focused on a Medicare program that allows pharmacists to bill insurance for patient counseling services, and generated baseline data that will allow pharmacists statewide to see the benefits that Medication Therapy Management (MTM) can bring to Alaskans in the years ahead. Dan currently works as a district manager for a pharmaceutical company and remains fascinated by the ongoing stress that chronic disease places on Alaska’s patients, health care programs, insurance programs, and finances.

Lisa McGuire (2008) email

Lisa is an independent consultant working with local nonprofit and tribal organizations on environmental health and management training, preparation of grant proposals, program implementation, and other professional services in the public health arena. Her business name is McGuire Community Health Strategies (www.mcguirehealth.com). Lisa continues to teach local HIV prevention and education classes through the American Red Cross, Alaska Chapter.

Jenny Salcido-Austin (2007) email

Jenny’s thesis focused on nutrition education by the Dietitian to help reduce cases of anemia in Alaskan children participating in the WIC (Women, Infant, and Children) Program. Jenny currently lives in Yorktown, Virginia with her husband who is in the Air Force, two children (Jacob 3 years and Rosie 9 months), two dogs, and orange tabby cat. She works as a Nutrition Consultant specializing in pediatric and geriatric nutrition, menu and recipe development, and food safety.  She also continues to have a working relationship with The Alaska Salvation Army working as a Nutrition Consultant.  Some of her job assignments include, developing menus and special diets for those who are diabetic, recipe development, food safety protocols for employees working in the kitchen, and composing nutrition articles for a health newsletter. 

Amanda Walch (2008) email

With a background in food and nutrition, Amanda has been working as an independent consultant at several clinics and hospitals in Alaska. Working directly with patients and groups, she teaches various health topics, including food safety, diabetes, nutrition, weight management, weight loss surgery, and kidney disease to help people improve their health and quality of life. Since her thesis and degree completion she continues to conduct research and seeks avenues which expand into the public health arena.

Tammy Zulz (2007) email

Tammy continues to work as a Public Health Analyst at CDC’s Arctic Investigations Program in Anchorage. As an alum, she is one of the founding members of the MPH Alumni Association and is still involved in the MPH program book club and serves on the admissions committee. The circumpolar tuberculosis surveillance project, which was the focus of her thesis work, continues to mature. One of the goals of this project was to engage the Russian Federation in sharing tuberculosis data with other circumpolar countries; representatives from two regions in Russia have since agreed to share data with an international circumpolar tuberculosis working group. Tammy was co-author on three articles in the January, 2008, Emerging Infectious Diseases journal which focused on the International Polar Year and authored a supplement in 2009 for the International Journal of Circumpolar Health on the International Circumpolar Surveillance project.