ThinkResearch Podcast

Carolyn (Carrie) Fisher (She/her/hers), PhD, is a research and evaluation scientist at the Institute for Community Health (ICH). At ICH, she leads evaluation and applied research projects with a focus on health-related advocacy and policy, trauma and trauma-informed approaches to evaluation, qualitative methods, and equitable evaluation. She has lectured and led workshops and webinars on community engagement, trauma-informed approaches, and qualitative methods. Fisher earned her PhD in cultural anthropology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Her dissertation, “From Incentives to Ayudas,” was based on fieldwork in rural Nicaragua and described the history and dynamics of interactions between a community of impoverished, small-scale coffee farmers and the various development agencies that have worked in the area between 1979 and 2006.

Sofía Alejandra Ladner (She/her/ella), MPH, is a research and evaluation project manager at the Institute for Community Health (ICH). At ICH, she is involved in evaluation projects on healthcare disparities among minority groups, substance use disorder prevention and treatment, and community organizing impact in health policy. She also supports Dr. Jessica Santos and the Leah Zallman Center for Immigrant Health Research as the community and staff engagement manager. Prior to her work with ICH, Ladner was a fellow at the Health Policy Commission, where her research and work focused on patient protection policies and carrier claims processing for Massachusetts. She received a BS in international health from Georgetown University and completed her MPH with a focus on community health at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Mark Kennedy, MBA, is a senior program manager in the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Division at the Boston Public Health Commission. In this role, Kennedy is leading the creation and implementation of the cancer early detection plan for the City of Boston. He is also faculty for “Shared Decision-Making: Essential Skills for Prostate, Lung and Breast Cancer Screening,” an online continuing medical education course at the Massachusetts Medical Society, and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at Regis College and Emerson College.

Additionally, he is the Boston Region Leader for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Cancer Coalition (MCCC) for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and is co-chair for the Boston Medical Center Oncology Accelerator Advisory Council. Previously, Kennedy spent 13 years at Dana-Farber. He received his executive MBA from Northeastern University.

Rosa Alemán, BA, is a digital communications and content strategist at American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts. She helps engage upwards of 70,000 ACLUM community members across social media platforms, with timely, relevant, and valuable content designed to educate and inspire meaningful action.

In 2015, Alemán designed a higher learning project titled #MyDiyMFA: A three-year self-directed education experience consisting of a year of reading, a year of writing, and a year of making.  The DIY MFA project aims to empower people to learn powerful communication technology skills that amplify voice and perspective while encouraging the exploration of pathways and practices for proactively confronting systemic oppression, white supremacy, colonialist ideologies and institutional racism across societal sectors.

Mark Kennedy, MBA, is a senior program manager in the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Division at the Boston Public Health Commission. In this role, Kennedy is leading the creation and implementation of the cancer early detection plan for the City of Boston. He is also faculty for “Shared Decision-Making: Essential Skills for Prostate, Lung and Breast Cancer Screening,” an online continuing medical education course at the Massachusetts Medical Society, and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at Regis College and Emerson College.

Additionally, he is the Boston Region Leader for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Cancer Coalition (MCCC) for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and is co-chair for the Boston Medical Center Oncology Accelerator Advisory Council. Previously, Kennedy spent 13 years at Dana-Farber. He received his executive MBA from Northeastern University.

Rosa Alemán, BA, is a digital communications and content strategist at American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts. She helps engage upwards of 70,000 ACLUM community members across social media platforms, with timely, relevant, and valuable content designed to educate and inspire meaningful action.

In 2015, Alemán designed a higher learning project titled #MyDiyMFA: A three-year self-directed education experience consisting of a year of reading, a year of writing, and a year of making.  The DIY MFA project aims to empower people to learn powerful communication technology skills that amplify voice and perspective while encouraging the exploration of pathways and practices for proactively confronting systemic oppression, white supremacy, colonialist ideologies and institutional racism across societal sectors.

Jhordan Wynne, MPH, is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Wynne’s research interests encompass early food environments, breastfeeding, and the onset of preventable chronic diseases. She is also interested in intergenerational approaches to chronic disease prevention. Her work focuses on Black and Afro-Latin populations in the Americas, and other under-researched minority populations. Wynne obtained her BA degrees in Spanish and global environment and health, as well as her MPH in health behavior & health education from the University of Michigan, where her research centered on psychosocial factors associated with decisions to breastfeed.

In this third segment of 2022 episode highlights, researchers discuss health equity, neurotechnology to treat brain disorders, and mental health considerations for biomedical trainees and students.

In this second podcast highlighting segments of the past year, researchers discuss utilizing health and economic data to generate interesting questions, assessing penicillin allergies, tackling healthcare costs in America, the importance of mentorship, and educating homeless youth in LA about HIV prevention.

In the first episode of our series highlighting previous podcasts, we return to insightful conversations with researchers who have taken unconventional paths to form their academic and research careers. This episode first episde of the retrospective series features Dr. Charles Deutsch, Dr. Alex Lin, Dr. Corrie Painter, and Dr. Raj Gupta.