Investigators
Adesuwa Olomu
Principal Investigator
Dr. Ade Olomu MD, MS, FMCP, FACP, is the Blanch B. & Frederick C Swartz Endowed Professor of Medicine. She is the Interim Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Vice Chair for Research for the Department of Medicine, College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University. Dr. Olomu is the Chair of Association of Chiefs and Leaders of General Internal medicine (ACLGIM) Unified Leadership Training in Diversity (UNLTD), and an ELUM of the prestigious Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM), Drexel University College of Medicine. Dr. Olomu is a health services researcher, her research interest is focused on Behavioral Interventions and Implementation Research. Her research goal is to develop and test innovative interventions that incorporate evidence-based behavioral theories to help adults prevent and manage chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes in outpatient settings. She is the PI of the NIH, NHLBI funded Office-Guideline Applied to Practice (Office-GAP) IMPACT Program, designed to decrease cardiovascular risk of minority and low-income populations. Dr. Olomu is nationally and internationally recognized for her scholarly activities and won multiple local, national, and international awards, including the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua), Peter Reizenstein Award for Best Paper Published in 2014 in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care, Michigan State University William J.B Award, and the Society of General Internal Medicine, Herbert W. Nickens Award, 2023 for exceptional commitment to cultural diversity in medicine and improving minority health, and the American Medical Association Women Physicians Section 2023 Inspiration Award Honoree, for sharing wisdom, expertise, and passion for medicine to inspire other physicians. Dr. Olomu received her medical degree from University of Benin in Nigeria as well as a Master of Science and a Certificate in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Michigan State University. She completed an internal medicine residency and internship at Michigan State University Associated Hospitals.
Late William Hart-Davidson
Co-Investigator
Bill Hart-Davidson earned his Ph.D. in 1999 in Rhetoric & Composition from Purdue University. He was Associate Dean for Graduate Education in the College of Arts & Letters and an Associate Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, & American Cultures at Michigan State University. He was a Senior Researcher in the Writing in Digital Environments Research Center. He is a co-inventor of Eli Review, a software service that supports writing instruction and co-founder of Drawbridge, a learning technology company.
Karen Kelly-Blake
Co-Investigator
Dr. Kelly-Blake is a medical anthropologist, health services researcher, bioethicist, and an MSU alum. Dr. Karen Kelly-Blake's research interests include health services research, shared decision-making, clinical communication skills and training, decision aid development and implementation, mHealth, chronic illness management, health equity, and men’s health. More recently, her interests have focused on medical workforce policy, patient-provider concordance, and the rhetoric of service for those underrepresented in medicine.
Joseph Gardiner
Co-Investigator
Joseph Gardiner, PhD. is the founder of the Division of Biostatistics in the Department of Epidemiology in the College of Human Medicine. He has been at the university since 1978 and is Professor of Statistics and Probability in the College of Natural Science. Dr. Gardiner has collaborated extensively with epidemiologists and medical researchers at MSU, and with health services researchers outside the university. Since 1991, Dr. Gardiner has had a pivotal role in over 22 epidemiologic/clinical studies, many of these supported by NIH, and as principal biostatistician or collaborator in 12 additional NIH-funded projects. His recent and current research addresses statistical issues in cost-effectiveness analysis which grew from a comprehensive study of cost-effectiveness in heart disease and evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). His current research “Statistical Innovations in Health Services Research” builds upon this early work. It addresses the development of models that reflect the experience of patients in sustained and changing states of health, and methods for analyzing jointly both cost and effectiveness measures using multivariate methods from survival analyses. Dr. Gardiner serves on the editorial boards of American Heart Journal, Statistics & Probability Letters, Journal of Statistics & Applications, and previously on the editorial boards of Medical Decision Making and the American Statistical Association (ASA)/Society of Industrial & Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Series on Statistics & Applied Probability. He is a standing member of scientific review committees at NIMH and AHRQ. Dr. Gardiner is a recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award from MSU. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute.
Michele Heisler
Co-Investigator
Michele Heisler, MD, MPA is professor of internal medicine and of public health at the University of Michigan where she is co-directs the NIDDK P30-funded Michigan Center for Diabetes Translational Research (MCDTR). Dr. Heisler received her MD degree from Harvard University and MPA degree from Princeton University. She completed residency in internal medicine and health services research training as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Michigan. She has authored >300 peer-reviewed studies and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and Association of American Physicians (AAP). Dr. Heisler's research focuses on the design, evaluation, and scaling up of programs that support chronic disease self-management and healthy behaviors between face-to-face clinical visits. Many of them mobilize peer, family, and community support to address social and behavioral determinants of health. Her pragmatic clinical trials demonstrated the effectiveness of diverse peer support models--training and leveraging support from fellow patients, community members, family--to achieve sustained improvements in health and social wellbeing. She is working with health systems and plans in the US and overseas to implement these models.
Zhehui Luo
Co-Investigator
Zhehui Luo, MS, PhD, joined the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics as a tenure-track assistant professor in 2009. Dr. Luo has a PhD in economics (with an emphasis on health economics and econometrics) and an MS in statistics. She has extensive experience in epidemiological and health services research, collaborating with a broad range of investigators in a multidisciplinary environment. Her primary research interest is to develop and apply modern econometric, statistical, and causal inference methods in policy analysis and program evaluation in observational studies. She is currently working on methodologies to examine the impact of environmental policies on health outcomes, analytic approaches to use outcome-dependent sampling data for mediation analysis, and empirical studies using quasi-experimental designs. Her knowledge of econometric and statistical techniques and interests in public health policy and intervention have led to studies of improving cost-effectiveness methodology, estimating costs and disparities in health care, and evaluating the efficacy and effectiveness of numerous randomized or pragmatic trials. Dr. Luo serves as an ad hoc reviewer for numerous journals and study sections related to economics, statistics, and health services research.
Research Team
Chiemika Ihiasota
Professional Assistant
Sandy Samp
Research Assistant
Amy Seaver
Research Assistant
Raqhuel Williams
Project Manager
Lindsey Wilson
Professional Assistant
Other Co-Investigators
Nephertiti Efeovbokhan
Other Co-Investigators
Denise White-Perkins
Other Co-Investigators
Consultants
Kim Eagle
Research Consultant
Margaret Holmes-Rovner (retired)
Research Consultant
Other Team Members
Jonathan Babbage
Data Consultant
Pat Clifford
Finance Manager
Kyle Jones
Data Manager
Mathew Martz
Research Student
Chucks Uwaje
Student Volunteer
Sanjana Vadrevu
Student Volunteer
