Meet the Team
Belinda F. Hernandez, PhD
Lead Researcher
Dr. Belinda Hernandez is an Assistant Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the San Antonio Campus. Her research interests include prevention of risky behaviors among adolescents; military populations; and intervention development, evaluation, and dissemination. Throughout her career, she has worked to identify and address the needs of adolescents at risk for negative health outcomes and to build the capacity of schools and other organizations to implement effective programs. She has worked on studies funded by NIH and CDC to develop and rigorously evaluate health programs and implementation strategies, including Me and You, a teen dating violence prevention program, and iCHAMPSS, a decision support system that facilitates adoption, implementation, and maintenance of evidence-based sexual health programs in schools. She currently teaches Advanced Methods for Program Planning (Intervention Mapping). Dr. Hernandez received her Master’s and doctoral degrees in health promotion and behavioral sciences from the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health.
Melissa Peskin, PhD
Lead Researcher
Dr. Melissa Peskin is a Professor and Vice Chair for Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. She is an epidemiologist and behavioral scientist with over 15 years of experience conducting research focused on the determinants of adolescent health risk behaviors related to sexual risk-taking and violence, including bullying, aggression, and dating violence. She also has extensive experience designing, implementing, and evaluating health promotion programs for youth. She has been PI or co-PI on several large randomized controlled trials to develop, evaluate and disseminate these programs. Examples of programs include “It’s Your Game… Keep it Real”, an effective adolescent sexual health program, “It’s Your Game-Tech”, the Internet version of It’s Your Game, and “Me and You: Building Healthy Relationships”, an effective healthy relationships and dating violence prevention program for middle school students. She was also PI of a study to develop an online decision support system to help school districts adopt and implement evidence-based sexual health programs.
Christine Markham, PhD
Researcher
Dr. Christine Markham is Professor and Department Chair for Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. She has over 30 years' experience in child and adolescent health promotion, developing and evaluating multilevel interventions in adolescent sexual health, childhood obesity prevention, and chronic disease management. These studies have been conducted in multiple urban and rural settings (e.g., schools, clinics, communities, and homes) with various populations, including Hispanic, African-American, American Indian and Alaska Native, and HIV-positive youth. Much of her research focuses on the use of technology to increase the reach and implementation of evidence-based interventions. Examples include It’s Your Game…Keep It Real, a multilevel, multimedia sexual health education curriculum for middle school students. Evaluated in two randomized controlled trials, It’s Your Game is recognized by USDHHS Office of Population Affairs as an effective teen pregnancy prevention program. Through dissemination efforts, It’s Your Game has been adopted by school districts across the U.S. She has extensive experience in Intervention Mapping, a systematic, theory-, evidence-, and community-based framework for developing and adapting health promotion programs and implementation interventions. She is co-author of the textbook, Planning Health Promotion Programs: An Intervention Mapping Approach, 4th edition, and teaches graduate-level courses and workshops in Intervention Mapping nationally and internationally.
Paula Cuccaro, PhD
Researcher
Dr. Paula Cuccaro is an Assistant Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the UTHealth Houston School of Public. She has almost 30 years of experience in child and adolescent health, including the development, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of youth health interventions. Her work includes cancer prevention and control in medically underserved populations, healthy relationship development, mindfulness and health, and community and school-based interventions.
Ross Shegog, PhD
Researcher
Dr. Ross Shegog is a Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, an adjunct Professor with the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics, and an investigator on the iCHAMPSS research team. He has over 25 years of experience in developing and testing interventions that use health communication technology to promote improved disease prevention and treatment behaviors. He contributed to the development of the original CHAMPSS adoption model and to the concept, design, and content of the iCHAMPSS decision support system. A graduate from the University of Sydney, Dr. Shegog received his PhD in Behavioral Sciences, Master’s degree in Public Health, and post-graduate diploma in Biomedical Communications from the University of Texas. His projects have focused on the application of computer-based education, decision-support systems, and gaming in pediatric asthma management, tobacco smoking cessation and prevention, HIV/STI/pregnancy prevention, violence prevention, physical activity, HPV vaccination, and epilepsy self-management. He enjoys research that involves the collaborative creation of innovative strategies and products to positively impact the public’s health.
Susan Tortolero Emery, PhD
Researcher
Dr. Susan Tortolero Emery is a Professor of Epidemiology and Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences and Senior Associate Dean of Academic and Research Affairs at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. In addition to her academic leadership experience, Dr. Emery has over 30 years of experience researching risk and protective behaviors regarding physical and mental health, focusing on reproductive health. She has expertise in developing and disseminating interventions with community partners.
Laura Thormaehlen, MPH
Project Coordinator
Laura Thormaehlen received her master’s degree in Public Health from the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. She has coordinated research projects on topics including adolescent sexual health, sexual assault and sexual harassment prevention, HPV vaccination uptake, and youth violence prevention. In addition, she coordinated the recent updates to iCHAMPSS, a decision support system that facilitates adoption, implementation, and maintenance of evidence-based sexual health programs in schools, to reflect current Texas Education Code statues.
Chelsey Kanipe
Research Coordinator
Chelsey Kanipe is a Ph.D. candidate in Health Promotion & Behavioral Sciences at the UTHealth School of Public Health, researching sex education policy and adolescent behavior. She coordinates public health projects related to sexual assault prevention, teen pregnancy prevention, and adolescent mental health. As a former fellow in the Leadership Education in Adolescent Health (LEAH) Fellowship Training Program, Chelsey is committed to advancing adolescent health through research, education, and policy evaluation..