Julie Baldwin, PhD

Executive Director, Center for Community Health and Engaged Research (CHER)
Regents’ Professor, Department of Health Sciences
Northern Arizona University

Profile

Dr. Julie Baldwin, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Center for Community Health and Engaged Research (CHER) and a Regents’ Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Northern Arizona University. She earned her doctorate in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Baldwin’s research focuses on infectious and chronic disease prevention, with cross-cutting emphases on community-based participatory research and addressing health disparities through culturally centered, theory-driven public health interventions. She is the Principal Investigator of the Southwest Health Engagement and Research Collaborative (SHERC), a U54 NIMHD-funded research center for minority-serving institutions. Dr. Baldwin was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine in 2023. As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, she has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to serving diverse communities and advancing health promotion efforts for children, adolescents, and families.

Selina Stasi, DrPH, MPH

Assistant Professor, Department of Health Behavior
Texas A&M University

Profile

Dr. Selina Stasi, DrPH, MPH, received her DrPH in Health Promotion & Community Health Sciences from Texas A&M University and joined the Department of Health Behavior at Texas A&M University as an assistant professor in 2018. Dr. Stasi’s research focuses on community engagement in teaching, research, and practice and the promotion of physical activity. Dr. Stasi has a community partner network of over 30 partners, has sent over 3000 students to serve community partners through a community engaged learning project, practicums, and research efforts, and has presented at national conferences on her pedagogy. Dr. Stasi has served on over 150 honors, masters, and doctoral committees within public health and across multiple disciplines. Most recent, Dr. Stasi received the Texas A&M University Community Engagement Award for Faculty from the Office of the President in 2025.

Courtney Thomas Tobin, PhD

Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences and African American Studies
Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence
Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA

Profile

Dr. Courtney Thomas Tobin, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences and African American Studies and serves as the Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence in the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Thomas Tobin’s research examines how racialized social stressors and coping processes shape health trajectories and multimorbidity among Black Americans across the life course. She directs the Collaborative Research on African American Wellness and Longevity (CRAAWL) Lab at UCLA, which unites scholars, clinicians, and community partners to address the social and contextual determinants of health. The lab leads interdisciplinary research on multimorbidity and community-engaged science through the Multimorbidity Outcomes & Solutions for African/Black Americans in California (MOSAIC) Initiative, integrating participatory and dissemination frameworks to translate findings into community-informed solutions. In partnership with the Deters Lab and the Parkinson’s CORE Collaborative, CRAAWL launched its first collaborative research hub, the Black Brain Health Network (BBHN), which advances brain health equity in Los Angeles’ Black communities through reciprocal, trust-based collaboration and community education.

Monday, March 30, 2026, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Session Description:
Moving from philosophy to practice, this session provides specific methodological tools for enhancing community collaboration. Attendees will learn about “audience personas” as a superior alternative to demographic targeting for health messaging. The session will also cover governance structures, specifically how to transition from “Advisory Boards” to “Leadership Boards” to foster genuine power-sharing, and how to implement trauma-informed design principles in research methods.

Learning Objectives:

• Differentiate between Community Advisory Boards and Community Leadership Boards to determine the appropriate level of authority and compensation for community partners.
• Apply audience segmentation techniques, specifically the use of “personas” rather than broad demographics, to design effective health messages.
• Integrate trauma-informed design principles into research methods to protect community trust, autonomy, and safety during data collection.

Leigh Ann Simmons, PhD, MFT, FAAHB

Professor, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing
Director, Health Equity Across the Lifespan (HEAL) Lab
Co-Director, Perinatal Origins of Disparities Center
University of California, Davis

Profile

Dr. Leigh Ann Simmons, PhD, MFT, FAAHB, is a tenured professor at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis, Director of the Health Equity Across the Lifespan (HEAL) Lab, and co-director of the Perinatal Origins of Disparities Center. Her research advances health equity among historically marginalized populations through digital, clinical, and community-engaged interventions. She has led multiple NIH- and state-funded projects, including mHealth trials during pregnancy and the postpartum period, trauma-informed, county-level redesign of health and social services systems, and community collaborations to evaluate personalized models of care, including postpartum home visiting and patient education after adverse pregnancy outcomes. Dr. Simmons also co-leads the ReACH Equity predoctoral T32 and CTSC KL2 in patient-oriented research, both NIH-funded, interdisciplinary training programs at UC Davis focused on cultivating the next generation of community-engaged scholars.

Michael Mackert, PhD

Director, Center for Health Communication
Professor, Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations
The University of Texas at Austin

Profile

Dr. Michael Mackert, PhD, is the Director of The University of Texas at Austin Center for Health Communication and Professor in the School of Advertising & Public Relations and Department of Population Health. His research focuses primarily on the strategies that can be used in traditional and new digital media to provide effective health communication to audiences with low health literacy. He leads projects on a variety of public health issues – including tobacco cessation, opioid overdose prevention, and men's role in prenatal health – that generate evidence-based health communication strategies and contribute to health communication scholarship.

Monday, March 31, 2026, 10:15 am - 12:00 pm

Session Description:
Focused on the theme “With, Not For,” this session emphasizes the relational aspects of research through the lens of authentic community partnership. Discussion will center on the concept of “accompaniment” in local and global research, moving beyond transactional data collection to deep, reciprocal relationships. Speakers will highlight strategies for ensuring community partners are heard and valued as experts in the research process.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze the principles of “accompaniment” in research to shift community engagement from a transactional model to a relational, authentic partnership.
• Identify strategies for incorporating community partner voices directly into the research design and dissemination process to ensure equity.
• Evaluate the role of cultural humility and power-sharing when cultivating long-term partnerships in diverse settings.