People

CHCR Leadership Team

Lawrence C. An, MD

Co-Director
Areas of Focus
  • Increasing the reach, engagement and efficacy of telemedicine
  • Technology-supported health behavior change interventions
  • Evaluation of personally tailored health communications

Lawrence C. An, MD

Dr. An has extensive prior experience in the development and evaluation of efficacious personally tailored health communications programs. As a Director of CHCR, he has helped develop over 100 programs utilizing a wide array of technology and communication channels. Dr. An has also worked extensively in the areas of clinical guideline implementation, quality improvement, and health systems change. Dr. An has also served as the Medical Director for Telemedicine Programs at the University of Michigan and in that role worked closely with health system IT leaders and teams.

Sarah Hawley, PhD, MPH

Co-Director
Areas of Focus
  • Understanding factors associated with the quality of cancer care and outcomes
  • The measurement of patients’ preferences and decision making
  • The association between decision-making and cancer screening and treatment

Sarah Hawley, PhD, MPH

Dr. Hawley is a social scientist trained in health services research with a focus on understanding and improving quality of cancer care across the continuum. Her work focuses on translating results from large population-based studies into interventions to improve the quality of decision-making and outcomes for cancer patients, their families, and for clinicians. In this work she applies expertise in both quantitative and qualitative analysis. She further focuses on implementing evidence-based interventions into clinical practice and communities. Sarah is also the associate director for training, education and career development at the Rogel Cancer Center.

Ken Resnicow, PhD

Scientific Consultant
Areas of Focus
  • Motivational interviewing (MI)
  • Development of measures and methods
  • eHealth tailoring

Ken Resnicow, PhD

Over the past 35 years, Dr. Resnicow has designed and evaluated behavior change programs across a wide range of health content areas including: smoking cessation, weight loss, diet and physical activity, medical adherence, cancer screening, organ donation, and substance use. In recent years, his work has often included individual-level tailoring and the use of mHealth technology to deliver messages, particularly for specific ethnic/racial populations. He has collaborated with researchers in over 25 countries and trained over 1000 professionals to use motivational interviewing. His intervention work, both interpersonal and mHealth, has been influenced by motivational interviewing, chaos theory, and self-determination theory.

Elizabeth Hershey

Elizabeth Hershey, MS, PMP

Managing Director

Elizabeth Hershey, MS, PMP

Elizabeth is a motivated, high achieving professional who has worked extensively in both functional management and project management in a variety of industries domestically and internationally. Her leadership purpose is to turn your vision into reality. She is responsible for strategic planning, collaborative relationship development, and operational management for the CHCR team.

CHCR Project Teams

Project Management

The project management team ensures that your project is completed within scope on time and on budget. Your project manager translates your project needs into deliverables for the team. They understand the research process and make sure that the intervention we are building meets your study and data needs. This includes gathering materials for IRB submission and understanding the study design. They will be in close communication with you for the full life of the intervention.

Behavioral Science

Our behavioral scientists hold master’s degrees in public health and help create or modify content for your intervention. They are trained in health behavior change theory, plain language writing, and survey design. They have years of experience creating tailored, evidence-based health communication content for a variety of research interventions. Our behavioral scientists will work directly with you to define communication goals and design a method that will meet these goals.

Design

Our design team brings a wealth of experience and creativity to your project. With expertise in graphic design, web development, user experience, and interface design, they help build programs that are visually appealing and easy to navigate. Our designers create user-centered interventions that are accessible and specifically made for the needs of your participants and the devices they are likely to use. They will work closely with you and other members of the CHCR team to develop an engaging product that meets your study needs and presents information in a way that is most beneficial to the user.

Software Engineering

Our software engineering team consists of experts in the fields of computer science, machine learning, natural language processing, and data science. They build the custom architecture for your project and support your project when it is in the field. To ensure that your project is secure, the software engineers utilize the University of Michigan’s powerful IT infrastructure. They are also responsible for structuring the data in a useful way for post-study analysis.