Staff

Katharine Buek, PhD, MPH
Research Project Manager

Kalup Cuellar
Project Support Specialist

Laura Cruzada-Davis
Director of Communications

Nagla Elerian, MS
Director of Population Health Strategic Initiatives

Jon Gibson, MS CS
Data Architect and Developer

Mohamad 'Em' Karimifar, MFA
Senior UX Designer

David Lakey, MD
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs

Dorothy Mandell, PhD
Associate Professor

Melissa Marts
Budget and Contract Manager

Haruna Miyakado, MS
Research Data Analyst

Mercy Muyia
Program Manager

Divya Patel, PhD
Associate Professor

Natalie Poulous, PhD
Research Associate

Sarah Presti, MS
Senior Event Planner

 

 

DAVID LAKEY, MD

Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Chief Medical Officer
The University of Texas System
Senior Adviser to the President, UT Health Science Center at Tyler

David Lakey is Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Chief Medical Officer for The University of Texas System. He is also Senior Adviser to the President at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. He previously served on federal public health advisory committees for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Defense Health Board. Currently he serves on the March of Dimes Board of Trustees and the Trust for America’s Health Board of Directors.

Dr. Lakey served as Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services from January 2007 to February 2015. As Commissioner, Dr. Lakey led one of the state’s largest agencies with a staff of 12,000 and an annual budget of $3.3 billion and oversaw programs such as disease prevention and disaster preparedness, family and community health services, environmental and consumer safety, regulatory programs and mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment programs. During his tenure as Commissioner, Dr. Lakey served as president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) in 2011‐2012, and received several national awards including the AMCHP President’s Award, the March of Dimes President’s Public Health Leadership Award, and the Arthur T. McCormack Award. 

He earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, graduating with high honors from Rose‐Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, and received his medical degree with honors from Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Lakey was a resident in internal medicine and pediatric medicine and completed a fellowship in adult and pediatric infectious disease at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

NAGLA ELERIAN, MS

Director of Population Health Strategic Initiatives
University of Texas System
Email: nelerian@utsystem.edu

Nagla Elerian is the Director of Population Health Strategic Initiatives at the Office of Health Affairs at UT System and the Program Director for the Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies (TCHMB), the state perinatal quality collaborative. Prior to joining the UT System, Ms. Elerian was the Director of the Center for Health Statistics at the Department of State Health Services. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Zoology and a Master of Science in Health Statistics with a minor in Geography. She has 30 years of work experience in public health, health statistics, program evaluation and program management. Ms. Elerian worked in the areas of maternal and child health, birth defects, mental health and substance abuse, Medicaid managed care, and healthcare quality. In 1995, Ms. Elerian established the first electronic Birth Defects registry in Texas. In 1998, she established an evaluation program for Medicaid managed care where she initiated many improvements to the Medicaid managed care data and reporting. In 2007, Elerian joined the Decision Support unit at the Mental Health and Substance Abuse, where she developed through a multi-stakeholder collaboration the risk assessment tools to allow the state to evaluate and manage mental health centers and substance abuse providers using financial, access, quality and outcome indicators. She provided information and recommendations to the Texas Resiliency Disease Management workgroup for migration of the mental health assessment tool and worked with various stakeholders as she developed the algorithms for placement of eligible children into mental health services using the newly adopted Children and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS). Ms. Elerian continues to actively develop systems that incorporate data and quality improvements to informing programs and processes.

 

KATHARINE BUEK, PHD, MPH

Research Project Manager
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of The University of Texas System
Email: kbuek@utsystem.edu

Dr. Buek received her PhD in Human Development and Quantitative Methods from the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds a master’s in public health (MPH) and a BA in Psychology. She brings over 20 years’ experience designing and conducting evaluation research in the areas of maternal and child health, education, and economic development. At Population Health, she works on the Safe Babies project conducting quantitative and qualitative research related to improving services for parents of young children in prenatal, obstetric, pediatric and home-based care contexts. Dr. Buek is currently managing a Coordinated State Evaluation of the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program in Texas to inform systems change and quality improvement for home visiting services around maternal mental health and substance use. She is also developing a measure of Perceived Developmental Risk for parents and healthcare providers. Her research interests include healthcare provider attitudes and practices, parenting, maternal mental health, father involvement, and maltreatment prevention. 

 

KALUP CUELLAR

Project Support Specialist
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of The University of Texas System
Email: kcuellar@utsystem.edu

Kalup Cuellar joined UT System population health as a Project Support Specialist in June 2021. He worked previously as a Senior Administrative Specialist with Ottobock Healthcare and a Test Administrator for Pearson Professional Center. He is working on a degree in electronics and advanced technologies at Austin Community College. Kalup spends most of his time fixing stuff, and has achieved a success rate of about 40/60. If you're in the building, he's always up for a chat.

 

LAURA CRUZADA-DAVIS

Director of Communications
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of The University of Texas System
Email: lcruzadadavis@utsystem.edu

Laura Cruzada-Davis is the Director of Communications for UT System Population Health. Her focus is creating valuable content and engagement opportunities for several initiatives, including the Texas Collaborative for Health Mothers and Babies, Safe Babies and the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium. Cruzada-Davis brings a 20-year career in strategic communications and stakeholder outreach. Prior to joining UT System, she directed the Texas Department of Transportation’s Beyond The Road campaign, bridging the gap between what people know about TxDOT’s environmental responsibilities and getting them involved in the transportation decision-making process. Cruzada-Davis also has a decade of experience in public health working for the national non-profit foundation responsible for the award-winning truth® youth smoking prevention campaign. She graduated in 2003 with a B.A. in Public Relations from the University of Texas at Austin. 

 

JON GIBSON, MS CS

Data Architect and Developer
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of The University of Texas System
Email: jgibson@utsystem.edu

Jon Gibson joined Population Health in 2016 in the role of Data Architect and Developer to support research needs with incoming and generated data as well as any IT system needs the group might have.  He also serves as the Population Health Information Security Administrator.  Jon earned a  BA in History as well as a BS and MS in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.  Prior to Population Health, Jon spent seven years as a Software Developer/Software Engineer with the University of Texas Libraries helping develop large data repositories for digital collections such as the Guatemalan National Police Archive (ahpn.lib.utexas.edu) and the Latin American Digital Initiative (ladi.lib.utexas.edu) containing millions of objects and their associated metadata.  He has over 20 years of experience in IT in a variety of areas including user support, technical training, network administration, server support and SQL and web development.

 

EM KARIMIFAR, MFA

Senior UX Designer
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of The University of Texas System
Email: mkarimifar@utsystem.edu

Mohamad "Em" Karimifar received his MFA in multidisciplinary design from The University of Texas at Austin in 2017. He is also certified as a full-stack web developer from UT Austin and his design practice spans both user experience and product development. At population health, Em works with the research and communications team to develop data visualizations, web solutions and provide brand management to various initiatives. His interactive life expectancy data visualization tool was named the best health data visualization of 2019 by the American Association of Geographers. 

 

DOROTHY MANDELL, PHD

Associate Professor
Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies
Safe Babies Research Initiative
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of The University of Texas System
Email: dmandell@utsystem.edu

Dr. Mandell received her PhD from the University of Washington, Seattle in Developmental Psychology and her BA from The University of Texas at Austin. She also served as a post-doctoral fellow at the Wake Forest School of Medicine and the University of Amsterdam. Her research has spanned multiple topics in maternal and child health including understanding long-term effects of a variety of perinatal and post-natal insults and intergenerational transfer of traits. She has also conducted analyses and research on a variety of public health topics, including work that has supported the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force, Healthy Texas Babies, and the strategic plan to align prevention resources between the Department of Family Protective Services and the Department of State Health Services in Texas. She served as the primary investigator for the Texas Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) and is currently a research consultant for Texas PRAMS. She is currently an Associate Professor at UT Health Science Center at Tyler and supports the Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies and is the Primary Investigator for the Safe Babies project in Population Health.

 

MELISSA MARTS

Budget and Contract Manager
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of the University of Texas System

Melissa Marts joined UT System Population Health as the Budget and Contract Manager in January 2022. She has over 20 years experience working with IT budgets and negotiating telecommunications contracts for national and international businesses. Melissa received her Bachelor of Business Administration from Abilene Christian University.

 

HARUNA MIYAKADO, MS

Research Data Analyst
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of the University of Texas System
Email: hmiyakado@utsystem.edu

Haruna Miyakado joined the UT System Population Health team in July 2021 as a Research Data Analyst. She brings expertise in using SAS, SQL, Python, Tableau, and ArcGIS to translate data into critical insights. Previously, she was a lead epidemiologist in the Office of Injury Prevention at Texas Department of State Health Services in Austin, TX. She has over 10 years of experience in public health data-related work both in local and state health departments. She also presented her research at numerous conferences, published papers on peer-reviewed journals, and served as a peer reviewer of journals. She received her Master of Science in Health and Medical Geography with a minor in Epidemiology/Biostatistics from the University of North Texas in 2013. Outside of work, she is currently pursuing her PhD in Epidemiology from UTHealth Austin Campus part-time. She is an avid tennis player, plays kendo (Japanese martial art), and practices hot yoga. 

MERCY MUYIA

Program Manager 
Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of the University of Texas System
email: mmuyia@utsystem.edu 

Mercy Muyia joined UT System Population Health as a Program Manager in June 2022. With a background in traditional and agile project management methods, she has over 6 years of experience working as a project coordinator and administrator for public research universities and local government agencies, managing and supporting diverse teams. Mercy received her bachelor’s in Economics and master’s in Public Administration from Clark University. She recently received her certification in project management from Cornell University.

DIVYA PATEL, PHD

Associate Professor
Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of the University of Texas System
email: dpatel@utsystem.edu

Divya Patel joined the Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies (TCHMB) in November 2015 as Assistant Professor.  She is an epidemiologist (Ph.D., 2003, University of Michigan) with a broad interest in women’s health research.  Previously, she served on the faculty in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan (2004-2010) and in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at Yale University (2010-2012).  She received a 5-year career development award from the National Cancer Institute for her research focused on the prevention and early detection of human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers in women.  She has also worked at the Texas Department of State Health Services and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on population-level maternal and child health projects.  Dr. Patel holds an adjunct position at the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston - Austin Regional Campus, has taught several graduate-level courses in Epidemiology, and has provided research mentorship to students ranging from undergraduates to medical residents and fellows.

 

NATALIE POULOS, PHD

Postdoctoral Research Associate Senior
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of the University of Texas System
email: npoulos@utsystem.edu

Natalie Poulos received her PHD in Health Behavior and Health Education (2015), MS in Health Education (2012), and BS in Nutritional Sciences (2008) from the University of Texas at Austin.  She is also a Registered Dietitian.  Her research focus on the food environment of youth, family and community nutrition, and nutrition behavior change.  Natalie also has over 4 years of experience teaching undergraduate and graduate-level courses in nutrition and dietetics at the University of Texas at Austin.  She is currently the Postdoctoral Research Associate Senior working on Safe Babies in the Office of Population Health.

Sarah Presti, MS OTR/L

Senior Event Planner
Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies
UT Tyler Health Science Center
Affiliate of the University of Texas System
email: spresti@utsystem.edu

Sarah Presti joined the UT System Population Health team in June 2020. She holds a master's in Occupational Therapy and a BS in Occupational Science from Keuka College. Sarah has dedicated the past 16 years primarily focusing on pediatrics. Prior to joining UT, Sarah was the Training Director for a non profit in Austin, working on inclusion opportunities for children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other developmental disabilities. In 2018 she received her certification in Autism Movement Therapy®. In her role at Population Health, she plans and organizes all educational conferences and large events, including the Annual Texas Collaborative for Health Mothers and Babies (TCHMB) Summit and the Pediatric Brain Health Summit. Her focus is creating valuable content and engagement opportunities to advance health care quality, equity and patient safety for all Texas mothers and babies and promote community resilience and optimal development in Texas’ children.