Michigan Tailoring Workshop

Lena Barczynski

Lena Barczynski is a second year dual degree student in the schools of social work and public health at the University of Michigan. She has been a research assistant since September 2007 at CHCR and has since then worked on a variety of projects. Lena is very passionate about creating materials that help support and increase health literacy in the population. Besides anxiously awaiting graduation, Lena infrequently spends her time at the gym and enjoys decorating and reorganizing her new apartment.

Alan L. Bliss

As the elder at the CHCR it's been my lot to watch the talented young writers, researchers, technicians and designers come through as students -- and to fortunately see several of them end up as employees here. It's also been amazing to watch and be part of the incredible changes and advances here, and to realize that what we do is unique and important. As a designer at CHCR I have worked with print, multimedia, CD, DVD, Websites, and now what comes beyond -- podcasting, blogs, text messaging etc. One never knows where we will poke the curious minds of science next. But it's always interesting.

Carola Carlier, MSW

Carola is the CHCR Project Manager. She is an experienced software developer and highly skilled in interdisciplinary software design. She has been developing sophisticated web and database applications for six years. Her work emphasizes human-computer interaction and data integrity.

Hannah Faye Chua, PhD

Hannah Faye Chua is a psychologist at the Center for Health Communications Research. She started out as a research fellow working on neuroimaging and eyetracking projects on health communication research. She is interested in emotions and decision making, culture and cognition, and mechanisms explaining efficacy of health communication tools. When she’s not working, she loves to eat out, hang out with friends, talk with her family, discussing current events, philosophy and life, and she loves to swim and play badminton.

Shannon Considine, MPH, MSW

Shannon Considine-Dunn began working with the Behavioral Science team in 2004 while pursuing her graduate degrees. Upon completion of her MSW and MPH, Shannon found leaving CHCR and Ann Arbor too difficult, and was hired on as a full time Behavioral Science Specialist. She has almost 5 years of experience developing tailored behavior change interventions. She has extensive experience in survey and tailored content development She also has a background in interpersonal therapy and is skilled in providing psychosocial support and counseling to patients, which is apparent in her writing style. Shannon has extensive experience working within multidisciplinary teams, as well as providing in-depth quality assurance testing on the Center's interventions. Outside of work, Shannon is an avid scrapbooker, loves reality tv, and enjoys taking weekly ballroom dancing lessons with her husband, Tim.

Trevor Cortez

Trevor has been a student employee at the CHCR since Fall 2006. He is currently working on his undergraduate degree in Computer Science Engineering. Starting as a tech support guy, he now works on web application programming and deployment for several of the projects at the center. In his spare time outside of work he is usually analyzing and critiquing any combination of music, movies or beer.

Rachel Davis, MPH

Rachel is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education. She is the Project Director for the Eat for Life study, which explores the impact of tailoring on motivational predisposition and ethnic identity on dietary behaviors among African American adults. Rachel is also conducting studies looking at interviewer race and ethnicity effects in health surveys with African Americans and relationships between acculturation and diabetes-related behaviors and beliefs among Mexican Americans. When not at the Tailoring Workshop or her computer, Rachel can probably be found with her 8-year-old son and youthfully handsome husband and her favorite local place to be in August: Rolling Hills Water Park.

Holly Derry, MPH

Holly has been working with CHCR since 1996. She has written tailored content for interventions delivered in print, over the web, via cell phones, and on kiosks. Topics include fruit/vegetable consumption, STD prevention, Alzheimer's disease, physical activity, oral health, alcohol-related injury, and childhood obesity. She has recently received training in Motivational Interviewing techniques and is using them more and more in her tailored writing. She has also managed a wide range of projects at CHCR, most recently the Tailoring System Software used at the Tailoring Workshop.

After she punches out, Holly enjoys good movies, good books, good food, good beer, and good times with her kids (ages 3 and 5) and husband (age 30-something).

Mary Eyler

Mary has been with CHCR for 2 years and has been with the University for 21 years. Mary takes care of the Finance, Human Resources and Payroll in our Center. When she is not at work she is with her husband Will and daughter Alyssa. She loves to walk with her puppy T-bone.

Jacob Fisher

Jacob A. Fisher, Computer Engineering BA, has 5 years experience developing web applications with 3 years primarily focused in the areas of Public Health systems and interventions. He brings a multi-disciplinary skill set having worked in various business environments from start-up company to enterprise health systems to educational research, with roles including business process and analysis, project management, customer support/training, and software development. Currently his primary responsibility is working with the technology team to develop, support, and improve underlying technology frameworks used in chcr projects and research.

Jaime Hughes

Jaime has just completed her first year in the MPH program and has worked as a CHCR Research Assistant since September 2007. Jaime’s interests include wellness coaching, exercise physiology, and chronic disease. Also a certified yoga instructor, she is currently partnering with several groups at UM and throughout southeast Michigan, working to design and evaluate yoga programs for individuals of all ability levels.

Kate Hsieh

I've been working in CHCR for more than 3 years from when I was doing my MPH. Now I'm in the doctoral programe, and am supplementing classes with working as a research assistant on different health communications projects with people from various academic discipines.

Originally from Taiwan, I really enjoy being with the fabulous people at the center who treat me like their family.

Ian Jones

Ian is a programmer in the CHCR technology group specializing in tailoring system internals, specifically the tailoring engine. He has been at CHCR for nearly eight years now. He only recently, after joining Facebook, has learned to write about himself in the third person.

Janine Konkel, MPH

Janine met Dr. Strecher in 1998 while working on her MPH at the University. After taking his class and learning about the virtues of tailoring, she was one of the first to join his team at HealthMedia, Inc, a company Dr. Strecher began to bring tailoring to the private sector. In 2004, she left the business side of tailoring and joined the research team at the CHCR. She has helped develop tailored programs for smoking cessation, nutrition, asthma management, stress, and physical activity among other disease prevention and health management topics.

Outside of work, Janine is likely to be found running trails out in the Pinckney Recreation Area or chasing Frisbees around an ultimate field. She and her husband love movies and prefer heading downtown to the Michigan Theater to see them – thanks to the theater's pre-movie organ extravaganza and real buttered popcorn.

Fiona McMaster

Fiona has been with CHCR as a Graduate Student Research Assistant since September 2007. She is in the first year of her PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education, and is particularly interested in cultural adaptation of tailoring programs. Before coming to Ann Arbor, she lived and worked in Singapore, China and the UK (where she grew up).

When she isn’t grappling with American English for health messages, she may be found cycling around Ann Arbor’s many one-way streets, or tied in yoga knots to relax and meditate.

Ian Moore

Realizing that being a pianist means that you typically make less money per year than it takes to buy a 10' grand, Ian decided to pursue other interests, discovering that he probably should have been a graphic designer all along. Now fortified with 8 years’ experience in print, web and video, Ian is a multidisciplinary powerhouse.

Michael Nowak

Mike has nearly 20 years of experience as a systems designer and programmer. He has worked on numerous technically sophisticated projects, including the development, deployment, and maintenance of applications and systems as well as interactive video and web-based projects. He has been developing technology for tailored interventions at the CHCR for seven years.

Dennis O’Reilly

Dennis is a software developer for CHCR, joining the team in March 2007. Since that time, he has found himself working on projects as mundane as automated reading and writing of simple text files to ones as fun and challenging as writing software to send tailored text and picture messages. Outside of the lab, Dennis likes to listen to music, cook along with his fiancée, and get way too into Curling.

Sarah Pennewell

Many paths have led Sarah to CHCR, one of them being her pursuit of an MPH and a BA in Communication. She is in her first year of study in Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Prior to landing in Ann Arbor, she has lived and traveled to various parts of the globe from serving as Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria to walking along the pyramids of Egypt. If you’re around her when she gets tired, you may hear some southern phrases slip into her speech — a rare treat, depending on who you ask. Sarah considers Georgetown, Kentucky her hometown and isn’t shy about being a Kentucky Wildcat alum.

Michelle Ruiz-Moore

Michelle started working at CHCR in early August 2007. She is Administrative Assistant to Dr. Victor Strecher, and helps CHCR with general office administration as well. She has lived in Ann Arbor for 13 years and thinks its one of the best places on earth.

Andrew Sardone

Andrew Sardone has been a student programmer in the CHCR technology group since 2005. When not worried about finishing his latest project, he can be found scrambling to get his degree. Andrew is a native Ann Arborite and Wolverine.

Edward Saunders

Ed has been directing technology-based innovation since 1974. He has been the CHCR Deputy Director for over a decade, managing a team of highly skilled behavioral scientists, health educators, instructional designers, software engineers, and multimedia artists to conduct large research studies on the ability of advanced communication technologies to affect positive health behavior change in varied populations. He is also a pioneer in the use of advanced media in education and research, having produced over 300 instructional video programs and authoring his first interactive video program in 1983. Mr. Saunders is the former Director of the University of Michigan Office of Instructional Technology, a nationally recognized leader in the development and integration of interactive multimedia learning and teaching applications in higher education.