2021-2022 AMCHP Annual Conference Planning Committee

Jalen Franklin, is a junior at Myers Park High School. He has particular academic interests in science and medicine, which both relate to his involvement in public health. Jalen currently serves as a co-lead on the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Child and Family Well-Being’s Youth Advisory Board. He has been on AMCHP’s conference planning committee since 2019. In August 2020, Jalen served as a youth panelist for the conference’s “Inside a Teen’s Mind: Empower Youth, Empower You” plenary session. An active member of his high school, Jalen is a member of his school’s National Honor Society and Science National Honor Society. Outside of school, Jalen is a member of the South Charlotte Chapter of Jack and Jill. Jalen is currently the chapter’s Teen President-Elect and has previously served as the chapter’s teen treasurer, teen parliamentarian, and foundation committee member during his time in Jack and Jill. Jalen’s love of music is demonstrated by his participation in the National Federation Music Festival, where he plays the piano, and the Jazz Arts Charlotte Youth Ensemble, where he plays the trombone. Jalen enjoys cooking, playing cards, and spending time with his friends and family in his free time.

Sedona Allen

Kathleen Kuiper

Julie Traylor - Committee Chair, is the Director of Strategic Development for the Division of Family Health and Wellness at the Tennessee Department of Health where she focuses on developing staff and partnerships. She came to the department as a CDC/CSTE Applied Epidemiology Fellow in 2013 and led the completion of the 2015 MCH Block Grant needs assessment. Following the fellowship, she spent 6 years as the MCH Block Grant coordinator leading assessment, planning, implementing, and reporting on grant activities. She now leads a team focused strategic planning, staff training and development, and MCH informatics projects. Julie has been a member of AMCHP since 2014. In 2016 she joined the Best Practices committee because of her interest in evaluation and desire to disseminate best practices throughout the MCH workforce. She joined the Conference Planning committee in 2019 and now serves as committee chair.

Karla Palmer, has been with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for over 16 years and oversees the federally funded Healthy Tomorrows Partnership for Children Program (HTPCP). She joined the National Resource Center for Patient/Family-Centered Medical Home in the summer of 2020 as the program specialist for the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention program. Previously, she served as the program specialist for HTPCP and the Community Access to Child Health Program in the Division of Community-Based Initiatives at the AAP. Prior to her employment at the AAP, she worked in a variety of roles at the Carole Robertson Center for Learning including as an Adult Learning Project Specialist, a Senior Eligibility Specialist, and a Support Service Coordinator. Her professional interests include community-based initiatives, evaluation, technical assistance, program implementation, and grant administration. She earned her BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a Certificate in Management from the University of Illinois Chicago, School of Public Health. On October 1, 2021, she was appointed to serve on the AMCHP Conference Planning Committee.

Kimberly Seals, is the Director of the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. As Director, Ms. Seals, oversees activities within the Divisions of Children’s Health and Perinatal Services, Women’s Health, and the Division of Children’s and Youth with Special Healthcare Needs. Ms. Seals recently received the Association of Maternal and Child Health Program’s (AMCHP’s) 2020 MCH Emerging Professional award that recognizes outstanding state and local MCH professionals under the age of 45 and was subsequently elected to serve as the new Director-At- Large by AMCHP’s Board of Directors. In January 2021, Ms. Seals was featured in AMCHP’s widely shared publication Bold Voices from the MCH Field: The Urgency of Accompliceship to Advance Racial Justice.

Ms. Seals received her Master of Public Administration degree from Texas Southern University and her Master of Public Health degree from Meharry Medical College. She completed her undergraduate work from University of Alabama at Birmingham, with a bachelor’s degree in biology. Ms. Seals participates on several committees across the state of South Carolina and is passionate about racial/ethnic disparities research and evidenced-based programs that minimize the impact of inequities among communities of color.

Linda Starnes has spent her life actively involved in the disability community as a special educator, parent, speaker, and advocate. After working in special education and at the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, she began her most important role: Mother of two with varying abilities and very different, rare, complex medical conditions. Linda managed years of 24-hour home nursing, worked with physicians and therapists in 15 medical specialties, and oversaw over 40 hospitalizations or surgeries for her children. She has served on numerous boards of disability, healthcare, and educational institutions, and presents at conferences each year. Linda is the Statewide Family Leader for the Florida Department of Health Office of Children's Medical Services Care Plan and Specialty Programs -Title V CYSHCN Program, and is their Family Delegate to AMCHP. She’s part of AMCHP’s Leadership Lab, serves on a hospital team with the National Care Coordination Academy, is an advisory member for UM-Miller School of Medicine's Mailman Center for Child Development, Board of Directors for Disability Rights Florida, and advises on a large multi-site PCORI-funded study on healthcare transition.

Kate Marcell - ex oficio

Erin Patton - ex oficio, is a Public Health Analyst within the Division of State and Community Health of HRSA's Maternal and Child Health Bureau. She provides support for the work of the MCH Block Grant in Regions I, II, and III. Prior to joining HRSA MCHB, Erin spent 7 years working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). During her time at CMS, she worked at the Innovation Center on the Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns Initiative and the Health Care Innovation Awards, and at the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality on the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program and the PPS-Exempt Cancer Hospital Quality Reporting Program. Before coming to CMS, Erin worked on a variety of public health topics with a focus on maternal and child health at the Maryland State Medical Society, MedChi, and Lifebridge Health System.

Lynda Krisowaty - Staff MHS, has over nine years of experience across a range of public health programs and topics with an emphasis on program development, evidence-based practice, implementation science, and curricula/training development and implementation. Ms. Krisowaty currently serves as the Senior Program Manager for Evidence-Based Practice and leads AMCHP’s Evidence & Implementation Team. In this role, she manages activities which enhance the MCH workforce’s capacity to identify/develop, implement, improve, and sustain evidence-based/-informed practices as well as apply evidence-based decision making tools and processes. Prior to her current position at AMCHP, Ms. Krisowaty worked at several international NGOs and domestic nonprofits supporting a variety of public health initiatives including cultural orientation and community interpretation programs for newly arrived refugees as well as developing a scripted parenting curriculum for nontraditional caregivers. In addition, Ms. Krisowaty has over six years of experience teaching, training, and facilitating from her time as a middle school special education teacher, as an ESL instructor, and as a public health education coordinator at a health center in Uganda. Ms. Krisowaty received her BS in Anthropology from Binghamton University and her MHS in Mental Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Maura Leahy - Staff MPH, CHES is the Program Analyst on the Child and Adolescent Health team. She supports many projects across AMCHP’s child and adolescent health portfolio and brings extensive experience with communication, research, and coordinating activities. Maura received her Bachelor of Arts from Rice University and holds a Master of Public Health in Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Texas School of Public Health. She is also a former Leadership Education in Adolescent Health (LEAH) trainee. Prior to AMCHP, she has experience as a community health education specialist and research assistant with the University of Texas School of Public Health, including planning and coordination of an annual conference, the Adolescent Sexual Health Course, curriculum lesson development, support for advisory groups, and coordination for communications.

Michelle Crawford - Staff Michelle Crawford is the senior specialist for family leadership initiatives at AMCHP. Michelle contributes to the advancement of maternal and child health programs through planning and program implementation, research, advocacy, education and evaluation, and projects related to family engagement and leadership development. Prior to joining AMCHP, her experience includes assisting in the drafting of and passing legislation for fair and equal coverage for individuals with autism, grant development, leadership in developing trainings, public information, policy research, coordinated supports and services for individuals with special health care needs and their families, as well as delivering trainings to diverse audiences.

Iliana White - Staff is a public health practitioner with extensive experience in large scale programming and technical assistance efforts, including initiatives geared toward child and adolescent health. She graduated from Towson University with a Bachelor of Science in health science, concentration in community health education, focus on maternal and child health. She received her Master of Public Health from Indiana University, with a focus on Public Health Leadership. Iliana is also a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) and also Certified in Public Health (CPH). At AMCHP, she directs the adolescent health-related portfolio of activities, including AMCHP’s contributions to the MCHB-funded Adolescent & Young Adult Health National Resource Center and youth engagement within the Title V field. Iliana also coordinates the association’s Youth Voice Amplified committee. Previously, she served as a program manager at the School-Based Health Alliance. There, she directed the technical assistance and training activities for the organization’s Hallways to Health initiative, a national school-based learning collaborative focused on behavior and systems changes for healthy eating and active living utilizing school-based health centers as catalysts for improvement. She also managed the Alliance’s Leadership Fellows Program, aimed at training health professionals to build their capacity and leadership skill set in school-based health care. Iliana has worked for a variety of sectors and organizations, including the National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Office on Women’s Health, National Women’s Health Network, Planned Parenthood of Indiana, Indiana’s Tobacco Retailer Inspection Program, Indiana Prevention Resource Center and Society for Public Health Education.

Paige Bussanich - Staff MS, is the senior program manager for children and youth with special health care needs on the child and adolescent health team at AMCHP. Ms. Falion has over 10 years of extensive experience in working with individuals with disabilities in research, evaluation, and outreach settings. As a former Wisconsin Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (WI LEND) fellow, she’s received training in service and care of MCH and CYSHCN populations, leadership development, core knowledge of neurodevelopmental disabilities, interdisciplinary and family-centered practices, and research and dissemination. She also has experience as a facilitator for a psychoeducational group for adults with autism and is clinically certified to administer the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2). She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Alabama and received her Master of Science in Human Development & Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Human Ecology, where her research was focused on parental attributions for positive behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Ben Kaufman, MSW - Staff, (he/him/his) is the Associate Director for Workforce Development and Capacity Building at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP). Ben leads a team that is accountable for the development, implementation, and evaluation of program activities aligned with AMCHP’s strategic plan goal to attract and retain highly competent people in the MCH public health workforce. These efforts include intensive, individualized leadership development programming for current and aspiring MCH professionals, focused capacity building with Title V programs and their agency/community partners, and the creation of products to meet real-time workforce needs. They analyze multiple sources of data to identify and report on workforce strengths, needs, and trends, and collaborate with partners at all levels of the socioecological model (including the CDC) to ensure that women, children, and families are planned for in the event of public health emergencies, recognizing workforce preparedness as a key driver of systems-level response outcomes.

Courtney Salley, MPH, CHES - Staff, is the Program Manager of Equity, Metrics, and Evaluation on the Equity, Epidemiology, and Evaluation team and the co-chair of the Internal Equity Committee at AMCHP. Courtney leads activities and functions related to the collection, assessment, evaluation, and translation of organizational, health equity, and MCH-related metrics aligned with AMCHP’s mission to optimize the capacity of states and territories to use evidence that shapes and champions equitable health policies and programs. She also provides technical assistance related to program evaluation to internal teams and external partners and members. As the co-chair of the Internal Equity Committee, she leads AMCHP’s organizational equity efforts to center equity in our practices, policies, and interactions. Courtney Salley has a Master of Public Health in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education from Emory University and a Bachelor of Art in Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is also a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES).

Jessica Simon - Staff, is a Program Manager for Health Systems Transformation at AMCHP. At AMCHP, Jessica specializes in the application of systems thinking as a tool for the maternal and child health workforce and provides technical assistance to strengthen maternal and child health behavioral health systems. Jessica holds an MSW, with a concentration in Social and Economic Development and System Dynamics, from Washington University in St. Louis, and a dual BSW/BA in Communications from the University of Pittsburgh. Jessica's experiences prior to AMCHP have touched on a range of maternal and child health and social issues including substance use/behavioral health, homelessness, food insecurity, economic development, and intimate partner violence.