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Kellogg Scholars Program

The Kellogg Health Scholars Program is composed of two tracks:

  • A community disparities track to enable postdoctoral fellows to develop and enhance skills in working with communities and engaging in community-based participatory research at institutions where these skills are present
  • A multidisciplinary-disparities track whose intent is to prepare a new generation of minority scientists for careers and leadership roles in health disparities and health policy, with the objective of facilitating the translation of such research to policy and practice.

CHEER/HDEART brings together the strengths of over 30 member institutions (Baylor College of Medicine, City of Houston-Houston Department of Health & Human Services, Florida A&M University, Lee College, Michael E. DeBakey Veteran Administration Hospital at Houston, State of Texas Department of Health Services, Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View University College of Nursing, Rice University, San Jacinto College, Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, Texas Southern University, Texas Tech University Health Science Center, Texas Woman's University, The American Lung Association of Texas, The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the University of Houston) to focus on developing solutions to ameliorate health disparities.

The major themes of research projects at DH-CHEER are:

  • Eliminating health disparities through a community/participatory based research approach
  • Value interdisciplinary approaches to developing solutions to health disparities, wherein natural scientists, social scientists and community advocates work collaboratively to develop new insights
  • Promote inter-institutional efforts to leverage the intellectual strength, diversity of ideas and energy from a multitude of faculty

Site Director

Lovell A. Jones, Ph.D.
Director of the Dorothy I. Height Center for Health Equity & Evaluation Research (DH-CHEER)
Formerly the Congressionally mandated Center for Research on Minority Health (CRMH)
Center of Excellence in Partnerships for Community Outreach and Research on Disparities in Health and Training (EXPORT)
Graduate College of Social Work, University of Houston /
Office of the Vice President for Cancer Prevention & Population Sciences,
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Co-Directors

Craig H. Blakely, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Dean - School of Rural Public Health
Texas A & M University

Billy U. Philips, Jr, Ph.D.
Professor and Director - Department of Preventative Medicine & Community Health
Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Director of the Graduate Program
UTMB - Galveston

The other core faculty of the Health Disparities Education, Awareness, Research & Training Consortium include:

Karl Eschbach, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor - Department of Internal Medicine/Geriatrics
University of Texas Medical Branch

Jeffery Guidry, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - Department of Health & Kinesiology
Texas A & M University

Larry E. Laufman, Ed.D.
Assistant Professor of General Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine

Kyriakos S. Markides, Ph.D.
Director - Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health
Annie & John Gnitzinger Distinguished Professor of Aging Studies
University of Texas Medical Branch

Guadalupe R. Palos, Dr.PH
Manager of Clinical Protocol Administration
Department of Cancer Survivorship
UT MD Anderson Cancer Center

Leslie Schover, Ph.D.
Professor - Department of Behavioral Sciences
UT MD Anderson Cancer Center

Jenny Yi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - Department of Health & Human Performance
University of Houston

Houston’s Kellogg Scholars

LaKeisha Batts, Ph.D., completed her Ph.D. in Immunology from The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in October 2011. She obtained a BA in Biology from Rice University in Houston, TX in 2002. Her dissertation research focuses on microRNAs that regulate the development of T cells and their role in the asthmatic response. Her previous experiences include: observing health outcomes in a rural health clinic (Carterville Family Practice Clinic, Carterville, IL), investigating the pathogenic mechanisms of Candida albicans (yeast) in immune compromised individuals (Rice University, Houston, TX) and evaluating mechanisms of T cell death in African-Americans and Caucasians (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX).

She is particularly interested in using her biomedical research background to investigate the influence of the immune system on breast tumor development in African-American and Caucasian women. She hopes to identify biomarkers that can be used as tools for diagnosis and therapeutic treatments.

Kimberly R. Enard, Ph.D., M.S.H.A., M.B.A., received her Ph.D. in health services research with specialization in health policy from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health.  Prior to that, she earned masters’ degrees in health administration and business administration from Georgia State University, and a B.A. in mass communications from the University of Denver.  

Dr. Enard has nearly 10 years of experience in healthcare management and several years of experience as a professional journalist.  Dr. Enard’s research focuses on identifying mechanisms to improve healthcare access and quality for vulnerable populations – including racial/ethnic minorities, the uninsured/underinsured and the elderly.  She is interested in examining the effect of hospitals and other community-level factors on the health of these populations and intends to further this research by conceptualizing, implementing and evaluating community-level interventions that involve public-private partnerships to address health disparities.  

Dr. Enard is also interested in evaluating differences in perceived versus actual barriers to access to care and quality of care for vulnerable populations, as well as conceptualizing, developing and evaluating the effectiveness of communication and patient education mechanisms that may reduce these disparities.  Dr. Enard is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.Houston’s Kellogg Scholar Alumni

Shelly Hovick, Ph.D., completed her Ph.D. in communication at the University of Georgia, focusing on health communication. Her research focuses on health information seeking across the socioeconomic continuum and how social factors influence information seeking behaviors.  She also considers how health communication interventions stimulate information seeking, impact risk perceptions, and increase health protection behaviors among at-risk groups.

Stacy M. Lloyd, Ph.D., completed her Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health in May 2010, where her primary goal was to elucidate a possible biological explanation for the disparity in breast cancer morbidity and mortality between African American and Caucasian women.  Therefore, her dissertation research investigated some of the relationships between a polymorphism found in a gene highly involved in estrogen metabolism, the Cytochrome P450 1B1 Leucine 432 Valine polymorpism, the 2-hydroxyestrone 16a-hydroxyesterone estrogen metabolite ratio, mammographic density, race, and breast cancer risk.

While at the University of Pittsburg, Stacy also received an M.P.H. in Public Health Genetics, where she evaluated the utilization of internal controls for high-throughput ELISA microarray experiments, designed to identify biological biomarkers to predict breast cancer risk.  Dr. Lloyd is a proud graduate of Prairie View A&M University, where she received her B.S. in Biology in 2004.  As a Kellogg fellow at CHEER/HDEART, Stacy will investigate the role of chromosomal instability on breast and lung cancer risk and will continue to expand her knowledge base, by learning to utilize admixture analysis in genetic association studies.

Lucinda Nevarez, Ph.D., completed her Ph.D. in social work at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work in the summer of 2010. Prior to receiving her Ph.D., Dr. Nevarez earned her Bachelor of Arts in Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and her Masters of Social Work from the University of Houston. While working on her doctorate, Dr. Nevarez was a research assistant at Baylor College of Medicine where she conducted research and published two manuscripts on the risk behaviors of young fathers. She has also held various Graduate Research Assistantships at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, through which she has participated in community projects and assisted in faculty research initiatives.

Dr. Nevarez has a background in medical social work and case management. She served as a medical social worker for the Women and Infants Transmission Study at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas, and later at Christus Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Nevarez’s dissertation examines the relationship between discrimination and depression in Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Her research interests include investigating the role of culture, ethnicity, and internalization in health behaviors. She is also interested in examining the psychosocial factors that influence health disparities and impact the health behaviors and practices of oppressed communities.

Houston’s Kellogg Scholar Alumni

Gina L. Evans, Ph.D., is an assistant professor (tenure track) in Health Services Research at the Baylor College of Medicine. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology with a minor in biology from the University of Indianapolis in Indianapolis, Indiana, and a master’s degree in counselor education and a doctoral degree in counseling psychology from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She has eight years of extensive clinical and research experience in improving mental and physical health outcomes among underserved populations. Much of her prior work was in the areas of coping with depression and anxiety, cultural, psychosocial and behavioral determinants of dietary choices and health education and promotion. She recently completed a pilot study exploring the utility of a brief culturally appropriate disease self-management intervention among ethnic minority stroke patients in an acute care setting. She is expanding upon this work by exploring patient health outcomes and caregiver levels of anxiety and depression after providing disease management education to caregivers. Through her work with the Eliminating Disparities in Clinical Trials (EDICT) initiative she develops educational workshops that encourage researchers in community and academic settings to adopt culturally appropriate policy recommendations in their clinical trial research. She is also investigating methods to use disease self-management as a tool to improve recruitment and retention of and outcome for clinical trial participants. Her primary research interests are in the areas of using self-management to improve behavioral and biological chronic disease risk factors, depression and anxiety related health outcomes and improving clinical trial participation among vulnerable groups. Dr. Evans has publications and manuscripts under review in the areas of ethnic minority faculty mentoring, racial/ethnic differences in health outcomes, nutrition patterns of ethnic minority women, tobacco usage of ethnic minority children, anxiety and depression in caregivers of ICU patients and chronic disease management in acute care. 

Angelica P. Herrera, M.P.H., Dr.P.H. has 15 years of health promotion and health education experience with medically underserved and ethnic minority communities in the areas of HIV/ AIDS, cancer prevention and control and healthy eating. She holds a doctorate of public health (DrPH) in health education with an emphasis in health administration from Loma Linda University, a B.S. in biochemistry and cell biology from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and an M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University at Albany, New York. She has recently published work on the cultural influences of long-term care use in Mexican-American elderly, and the role of religiosity on depression and physical health of caregivers. Dr Herrera is currently investigating the availability of family and instrumental support to care of older Mexican-Americans in the home, and the impact of functional decline on their care and living arrangements using the Hispanic Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (HEPESE), as well as examining the impact of social support on Latino caregivers’ emotional and physical well-being. With the Eliminating Disparities in Clinical Trials (EDICT) initiative, she is compiling consensus from experts and policy recommendations for increasing the recruitment and retention of minority/older adults into clinical trials. Her research interests are in developing family-centered geriatric care models to improve the chronic disease management of a frail, older minority aging population and their family caregivers, developing community-based programs that promote awareness of depression, mental health and well-being in older adults and examining ways of integrating civic engagement into physical activity health promotion programs targeting seniors.

Shedra Amy Snipes, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Health at Pennsylvania State University.  Dr. Snipes graduated from Emory University with a bachelor of science degree (B.S.) in anthropology and human biology. She continued her training at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, where she received her masters and doctoral degrees in biocultural anthropology. Dr. Snipes’ research interests include bio-cultural designs for understanding environmental health, farmworker pesticide exposure and culturally appropriate interventions in immigrant communities.

During her Kellogg Scholar fellowship at CHEER, Dr. Snipes explored unique cultural beliefs and behaviors of farmworkers along the Texas-Mexico border using combined qualitative and quantitative techniques. This work will be used to develop a new, distinctly tailored biocultural intervention aimed to reduce pesticide exposure among farmworkers living along the Texas-Mexico border.

Denae W. King, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Tyler and is also an affiliated faculty with CHEER.  Dr. King graduated from Texas Southern University with an undergraduate degree in chemistry. She completed her masters and doctoral degrees in environmental science with a concentration in toxicology at The University of Texas, Houston Health Science Center, School of Public Health. 

Dr. King’s research interests include biomarkers of genetic susceptibility to breast cancer associated with African-American women and breast cancer incidence, mortality and recurrence. She is particularly interested in the etiology of the breast cancer disparity observed in pre-menopausal African-American women.  Dr. King is working on a project designed to examine a possible association between AIB1 protein expression and AIB1 polymorphic glutamine repeat length in African-American breast cancer survivors.

Patricia Y. Miranda, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Administration at Pennsylvania State University.  Dr. Miranda received her Ph.D. and M.P.H. from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.  Her research interests focus on cancer prevention among vulnerable populations, specifically disparities in cancer screening affecting immigrant and Latino populations.  Dr. Miranda’s research reflects the shifting demographics of the United States; examines how policies and screening guidelines may differentially impact vulnerable populations; explores the role of place (e.g. neighborhoods) in understanding access to health services; engages affected populations in a community-based participatory research approach to create recommendations for future interventions and policy efforts at local, regional and national levels, as well as methods of engaging policymakers as members of a community to create multilevel interventions for reducing health disparities.

Anthony Omojasola, Dr.P.H., is the chief operating officer at the Park DuValle Community Health Center, a federally-qualified health center in Louisville, Kentucky.  Dr. Omojasola’s research interests are in reducing health disparities, specifically as it relates to health care access, health insurance and prescription drug issues. His focus is on utilizing health services research to reduce health disparities in low-income African American populations. During his fellowship at the CHEER, he examined the utilization of discount generic prescriptions as a way of reducing health disparities among low-income populations. Additionally, he also examined the capacity of public and primary care providers that serve the uninsured, underinsured and Medicaid populations in Houston. The demand for primary care by the uninsured was compared to supply to monitor gaps and evaluate initiatives to expand capacity. His educational background includes a B.S. in health care administration and planning (Tennessee State University, Nashville), master of health administration (Tulane University, New Orleans) and doctorate of public health (University of Kentucky, Lexington). He is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE).

Cayla R. Teal, Ph.D., received her undergraduate degree at William Jewell College in chemistry, with minors in psychology and math. She completed both her masters and doctoral degrees in community/clinical psychology at Wichita State University, with emphases in applied research methods and psychometrics. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.  Her research interests include identifying the domains of culture that explain variability in health outcomes that have utility in cross-cultural work and that allow for the dynamic nature of acculturation and cultural assimilation, while developing measures that are valid and reliable.  Dr. Teal Kellogg's appointment at CHEER was through the Health Disparities Education, Awareness, Research & Training (HDEART) Consortium, at the MD Anderson training site. Dr. Teal's term as a scholar was funded through the Centers for Disease Control, Baylor College of Medicine and the Veterans Administration.

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