Stakeholder Advisory Committee Chair

Christopher R. Cogle, MD

Chief Medical Officer, Florida Medicaid; Professor, University of Florida

Christopher R. Cogle, M.D. is the Chief Medical Officer for Florida Medicaid and a tenured professor at the University of Florida. He is a practicing oncologist, distinguished as a Clinical Research Scholar and a National Academy of Medicine Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine. Dr. Cogle founded and directs the Florida Health Policy Leadership Academy at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service, which trains community leaders in health policy.

As Chief Medical Officer for Florida Medicaid, Dr. Cogle leads the health and health care of over 5 million mothers, infants, disabled people, and seniors in Florida. He is fully engaged with government agencies, health insurance companies, physicians and other health care providers, health systems, hospitals, and patient advocacy groups to improve population health, including tobacco prevention and cessation. In addition, Dr. Cogle co-leads the state’s Chronic Disease workgroup for Florida’s State Health Improvement Plan. As Chairperson of the Promote UP Stakeholder Advisory Committee, Dr. Cogle leads thought-leaders from multiple disciplines in discussions on how to implement mHealth technology. Dr. Cogle combines his experience in biomedical research, clinical care in a center of excellence, health services research, and health policy leadership to improve the health of all Floridians.

Health System, Clinician, and Payer User Group

Maribeth Williams, MD

SAC Co-Chair | Health System, Clinician, and Payer User Group

Associate Professor and Program Director, Department of Community Health and Family Medicine, University of Florida

Dr. Maribeth Williams is a family medicine physician and a co-investigator in this study. She also trains family medicine residents and tries to model the importance of engaging in research that seeks to improve health outcomes that matter to patients. Dr. Williams initially became involved in tobacco cessation in college while working as a tobacco cessation counselor. She now continues her passion as a physician through research and continued cessation efforts. She is hopeful this study will provide new or improved strategies.

Kendra Siler, PhD

President and CEO, CommunityHealth IT

As President and CEO of Community Health IT (CommHIT) at Kennedy Space Center, Dr. Siler is a nationally-recognized leader with 20+ years of experience in technologies that connect communities (health and transportation) and the digital security and workforce development that those technologies require. CommHIT is one of the 12 partners of the OneFlorida+  Clinical Research Consortium (OneFlorida+) and works with community mental health centers, federally qualified health centers, rural and community hospitals, primary and specialty practices, and rural health clinics to expand these facilities’ health IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, and care coordination. As a member of the Promote UP Stakeholder Advisory Committee and key consultant, Dr. Siler is committed to recruiting and coordinating project activities with primary healthcare practices that care for underserved patient populations as part of the study’s comparative effectiveness trial. She and her team are excited to support the evaluation of the study’s three smoking interventions in real-world community setting and look forward to contributing to engagement activities to ensure that each will benefit the patient populations that CommHIT serves.

David C Willis, MD

Chief Medical Information Officer, Community Health IT

As CommunityHealth IT (CommHIT) Chief Medical Information Officer, Dr. Willis merges his clinical and technology expertise to assist medical providers and social service organizations with cybersecurity, community engagement research, and better uses of technology to improve community health. CommHIT is one of the 12 partners of the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium (OneFlorida+) and works with community mental health centers, federally qualified health centers, rural and community hospitals, primary and specialty practices, and rural health clinics to expand these facilities’ health IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, and care coordination. As a member of the Promote UP Stakeholder Advisory Committee and key consultant, Dr. Willis is committed to recruiting and coordinating project activities with primary healthcare practices that care for underserved patient populations as part of the study’s comparative effectiveness trial. He and his team are excited to support the evaluation of the study’s three smoking interventions in real-world community setting and look forward to contributing to engagement activities to ensure that each will benefit the patient populations that CommHIT serves.

Elizabeth Shenkman, PhD

Professor and Chair, University of Florida Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics

Elizabeth Shenkman, PhD is the Chair of the Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, the Co-Director of the University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI),and the Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement for the UF Health Cancer Center. Dr. Shenkman is a health outcomes researcher with a research focus on: 1) determining which combinations of health care delivery, community, and patient factors influence quality and outcomes of care; and 2) developing and testing corresponding evidence-based strategies to reduce disparities in health outcomes among underserved populations. As a member of the Promote UP Stakeholder Advisory Committee, Dr. Shenkman will ensure the resources and expertise of the Office of Community Outreach and Engagement will be available for the study team as well as supporting stakeholder engagement activities.

Naykky Singh Ospina, MD

Professor, Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, University of Florida

Naykky Singh Ospina, MD, MS, is an endocrinologist and healthcare researcher at the University of Florida. Her research program focuses on patient centered endocrinology with emphasis on the diagnostic and management decisions faced by patients with thyroid nodules and cancer. Her goal as a partner in this study, is to provide input to the research team as a clinician-researcher and to learn and experience how stakeholder engagement can improve the quality of the research process.

Laura Corbin

Bureau Chief, Bureau of Tobacco Free Florida, Florida Department of Health

Laura Corbin is bureau chief of Tobacco Free Florida (TFF), the Florida Department of Health’s tobacco education, cessation, and prevention program. Her tenure with the Florida Department of Health dates back more than 20 years, beginning with work as a Tobacco Prevention Coordinator in Brevard County. She later worked as a Regional Tobacco Prevention Coordinator within central Florida. In this role, she planned and implemented programs across 16 Florida counties, training local staff and advocates on key tobacco issues and policy intervention processes. As a member of the Promote UP Stakeholder Advisory Committee, Bureau Chief Corbin will collaborate with the study team to optimize the dissemination and implementation potential of the interventions and ensure they benefit the population her team serves.

Miguel Venereo, MD, FACOG, CPPS

Senior Vice President & Chief Medical Officer, Community Care Plan

Miguel Venereo, MD, FACOG, CPPS serves as the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Community Care Plan (CCP). CCP serves the health of their community in South Florida by providing patients access to a high standard of care and community resources, including individuals eligible to participate in Medicaid, Florida Health Kids, and commercial, self-insured employee health plans. As a member of the Promote UP Stakeholder Advisory Committee, Dr. Venereo will represent his health plan and is interested in how the mHealth interventions explored in the study could potentially boost engagement in and outcomes of their Healthy Behaviors Program.

Ian Nathanson, MD, FCCP, FAAP

Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Medicaid Services, HUMANA

Dr. Nathanson is the Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Medicaid services for HUMANA. A pediatric pulmonologist. Dr. Nathanson is interested in learning and developing new ways to reduce the burden of lung disease, particularly related to tobacco products, including cigarettes, environmental tobacco smoke exposure, and vaping.

Olveen Carrasquillo, MD, MPH

Professor of Medicine and Public Health Sciences, Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine Co-Director, Miami Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI)

Dr. Carrasquillo is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health Sciences and Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Carrasquillo now serves as co-Director of the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute whose mission is to drive research translation into evidence-based clinical and community practices to improve the health of South Florida’s diverse population. His research is in minority health, health disparities, community-based participatory research, access to care and community health worker interventions. As a member of the Promote UP Stakeholder Advisory Committee and key consultant, Dr. Carrasquillo will advise the study team on issues related to culturally tailoring the interventions and recruiting racially and ethnically diverse patient populations with a special focus on the Latino population in Florida.

Jihane Naous, MD

Clinical Champion, UF Health Family Medicine – Old Town

Assistant Professor, University of Florida

Dr. Jihane Naous is a Family Medicine specialist with a concentration in Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine and Health. She is a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine. She has worked in both academic and clinical pathways, including experience working in multiple student health centers and Youth clinics, in a sexual health center, and treating eating disorders. Dr. Naous also has an interest in Balint groups. Partnering with the PCORI smoking cessation study as an investigation site in UF Old Town-FL can:

• increase the expertise within the health care staff in the center in dealing with smoking cessation cases;
• innovatively deal with current patients smokers to reach a smoking cessation outcome;
• have an impact on chronic diseases like COPD, cardiovascular events and cancers found related to tobacco;
• and work on the awareness vis-a-vis tobacco within the community and reach out to young adults to promote and help in smoking cessation.

Shaunak R Mulani, MD

Clinical Champion, UF Health Family Medicine Eastside

Medical Director, UF Health Family Medicine – Eastside, University of Florida College of Medicine

Dr. Shaunak Mulani is a general internist by training interested in social determinants of health, preventive care, and chronic disease management. Currently, he serves as the medical director of UF Health Eastside Community Practice. His clinic primarily serves the medically underserved community of East Gainesville. Tobacco use is rather prevalent in his clinic’s patient population, and aside from routine counseling, they hope to open more innovative, new pathways for their patients to have access to assist with smoking cessation.

Patient and Community User Group

Ryan Theis, PhD

SAC Co-Chair, Patient and Community User Group

Professor, Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, University of Florida

Dr. Theis’s training is in medical anthropology, and he has practical experience in numerous qualitative approaches and methods, including ethnographic research, participant observation, in depth interviewing, and focus groups, as well as quantitative field and analytic techniques used in anthropology such as cultural domain analysis. Dr. Theis has significant experience in program evaluation of health services, including extensive work with state Medicaid health plans. As co-investigator and qualitative research methods expert, Dr. Theis will contribute to the final design of the interview moderator guides, conducting interviews, and to the coordination of stakeholder meetings. He will also participate in regular meetings of the research team and in various dissemination activities.

Jaclyn Hall, PhD

Associate Research Scientist, Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics

Dr. Jaclyn Hall is a medical geographer contributing to a variety of health outcomes studies and outreach initiatives at the University of Florida. Due to her extensive experience in spatial technologies, she contributes to a variety of community health and heath policy related research, as well as working with researchers on study design, managing the process of geocoding (generating spatial locations from written address data) multiple large data sources, analyses such as health care network adequacy, hotspot identification, cluster analyses, and disparities research.

Shirley Bloodworth, RN, MN

OneFlorida+ Citizen Scientist

Shirley has lived in Gainesville, Florida since 1951, eventually receiving a master’s degree in Psychiatric Nursing from UF. She went on to serve in the UF College of Nursing in an adjunct position as Nursing Director of the Shand’s/UF Clinical Research Center until retiring in 1980. She then went on to provide Alzheimer’s Disease education and develop advanced care planning seminars and end-of-life education programs with Haven Hospice for 11 years before retiring a second time. Shirley is very active in the community and became a OneFlorida+ Citizen Scientist in 2015. She loves staying abreast of new and cutting-edge developments in science, medicine, and community engagement efforts. As a former smoker, she is excited to provide advice and support as a member of the Patient and Community User Group.

Carlos Maetzu

OneFlorida+ Citizen Scientist

Carlos Maetzu worked as an applied linguist for nearly 40 years in Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East before joining the Citizen Scientist program 7 years ago. He has worked with studies on diabetes, obesity, telemedicine, and cardiovascular health. Most recently, he has been involved with the Health Cancer Center initiatives and looks forward to collaborating with his fellow SAC members and study team on the Promote UP project.

E. Stanley Richardson

OneFlorida+ Citizen Scientist

E.Stanley Richardson is a member of the OneFlorida+ Citizen Scientist program and the inaugural Poet Laureate of Alachua County, Florida. He is the founder and Director of ARTSPEAKSgnv, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting literacy in youth and adults, encouraging creativity, bringing awareness through art activism, and expanding ideas and opportunity by providing a medium for expression through the art of poetry, spoken-word, and storytelling. As a member of the Promote UP Stakeholder Advisory Committee and a former tobacco-user, he is excited to see how the project will benefit patients in underserved communities where the burden of tobacco use is highest.

Daniel A Rubin, MD

Program Director University of Florida AHEC Program; Clinical Associate Professor, Dept of Community Health and Family Medicine, University of Florida

Dr. Daniel A. Rubin has been a faculty member in the University of Florida’s Department Community Health and Family Medicine over 20 years. His role has included patient care, medical student education, and curriculum development. He has recently assumed the role of Program Director for the University of Florida’s AHEC program office. A goal of their office is to participate in innovation related to smoking cessation.

Sarah Catalanotto, MPH

Executive Director, Suwannee River Area Health Education Center

Sarah Catalanotto, MPH, CTTS is the Executive Director of the Suwannee River Area Health Education Center (AHEC), a diverse, resourceful public health nonprofit located in Alachua, Florida. Her team’s Tobacco Free Florida AHEC Program focuses on providing tobacco treatment groups for community members, training healthcare professionals and students, and implementing systems change in local healthcare facilities. With their help, local clinics and hospitals implement strategies and make changes in their organizations to better support tobacco users. Along with the Suwannee River AHEC Healthy Communities Director, Lauren Mollman, Director Catalanotto looks forward to collaborating with the Promote UP team to ensure the study is meaningful to the people their team serves and is more readily translated to community settings to improve health outcomes.

Lauren Mollman, MS, CHES, CTTS

Healthy Communities Director, Suwannee River Area Health Education Center

Lauren Mollman is the Healthy Communities Director of the Suwanee River Area Health Education Center (AHEC).  Along with the Suwanee River AHEC Executive Director, Sarah Catalanotto, Ms. Mollman looks forward to collaborating with the Promote UP team to ensure the study is meaningful to the people their team serves and is more readily translated to community settings to improve health outcomes.

Allison Wiman, RN, BSN, MPH

Executive Director, Big Bend Area Health Education Center

As a nurse, Allison Wiman, has seen first-hand the devastating effect of that tobacco has on health. Her organization, the Big Bend Health Education Center (BBAHEC), works tirelessly to encourage clients to stop using nicotine products. She looks forward to partnering on this study with goals to provide her boots-on-the-ground perspective regarding outreach and recruitment efforts. She also aims to work with research and community partners to help avoid high attrition rates, and to provide ideas for deploying interventions in larger areas if proven successful.

Frank Orlando, MD, FAAHP

Clinical Associate Professor and Medical Director – UF Family Health Springhill

Dr. Frank Orlando is the medical director of the UF Family Medicine-Springhill and a clinical associate professor in the UF Department of Community Health and Family Medicine. He teaches clinical and didactic courses at the UF College of Medicine and serves as a Faculty Advisor.  His research interests include COVID-19, cardiovascular diseases, type-2 diabetes, pharmacogenetics, chronic pain management, and social determinants of health.

In 2023, Dr. Orlando became a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and an Associate Editor of Family Medicine and Primary Care, a specialty section of Frontiers for Medicine. He also serves as the medical advisor for an Alachua-county non-profit Southcare Community Wellness Program.

Grant Harrell, MD

Medical Director – UF Family Health Old Town and UF Mobile Outreach Clinic

Dr. Grant Harrell is a physician at the UF Health Family Medicine – Old Town and the medical director of the UF Mobile Outreach Clinic (MOC). His clinical interests include rural medicine and student-run clinics. While attending medical school at the University of Florida, he co-founded the Gainesville Community Ministries Health Clinic. Dr. Harrell also became an Assistant Professor for the UF Department of Community Health and Medicine in 2013.

Francisco Martinez-Wittinghan, MD, PhD

Medical Director – UF Family Health Jacksonville Augustine Oaks, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine

Dr. Francisco Martinez-Wittinghan is the medical director of the Augustine Oaks Clinic at UF Health Family Medicine in Jacksonville, Florida. His expertise includes chronic disease management in various primary care settings, from rural health clinics to private practices. He is passionate about improving quality, team-based care. He has earned a master’s degree in clinical informatics through the John Hopkins School of Medicine. He believes technology should be used to improve patient care and to reduce burden on healthcare professionals. He bases patient care on prevention and lifestyle changes that have lasting effects on health.

Jennifer Woodard, MPH, RN, CCRP

Director, Office of Community Outreach and Engagement, UF Health Cancer Center

Jennifer Woodard serves as the Director of Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) with the UF Health Cancer Center. As director, she connects community members, patients, families, clinicians, health system leaders, policymakers, and Cancer Center scientists through outreach and engagement programs  to reduce the cancer burden in 23 counties. The COE office is dedicated to create collaborations that emphasize reciprocal relationships, mutual co-learning, transparency, honesty, and trust.