MSU PCRC Leadership

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Senior Leadership Team

Yasi Zamani-Hank, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Director, MSU Primary Care Research Collaborative. Dr. Zamani-Hank is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health. She became Director of the MSU-PCRC in 2023. In this capacity, Dr. Zamani-Hank oversees project management, development, implementation, and evaluation, and provides guidance and support to the Advisory Board and the Research Committee. Dr. Zamani-Hank holds a PhD in Epidemiology from Michigan State University and an MPH from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Her areas of expertise include maternal and child health, social determinants of health, life course and health equity frameworks, practice-based research networks, and quality improvement.

Julie Phillips, MD, MPH, Professor and Chair, Department of Family Medicine. As a member of the senior leadership team of the Collaborative, Dr. Phillips provides guidance and support to the Advisory Board and the Research Committee and helps to facilitate the progress of Collaborative goals and objectives. Dr. Phillips received her medical degree and MPH from the University of Michigan and completed her residency training in Family Medicine at the same institution. She oversees a vibrant statewide academic family medicine department focused on community-engaged education, patient care, and research. Her professional interests include faculty professional development; social mission-driven medical education; women in Family Medicine; and development of the primary care physician workforce. Dr. Phillips is an international expert on the emerging primary care physician workforce. She practices Family Medicine in East Lansing, Michigan.

Lainy Burress, MPH, Research Assistant II, MSU Primary Care Research Collaborative. Lainy Burress is a public health researcher with experience in community-engaged health education, program planning, and evaluation. As a Research Assistant for the MSU Primary Care Research Collaborative, Lainy is responsible for managing and facilitating the conduction of primary care-focused research studies, overseeing data management and dissemination of research, and promoting research engagement and scholarship in the MSU Family Medicine Residency Network. Lainy has a Master in Public Health degree from Michigan State University and Bachelor’s degree in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. Lainy’s areas of research include chronic disease prevention, food access and nutrition, and maternal and child health.

Advisory Board

The Advisory Board comprises residency program directors and faculty, family physicians, public health professionals, research experts, and patients who are responsible for assessing the primary care relevance, feasibility, and fundability of research proposals submitted to the Collaborative, and whether research studies align with the mission and goals of the Collaborative. The Advisory Board meets quarterly to discuss research proposals.

Current Members:

• Molly Polverento, MSEd, CPH
• Delicia Pruitt, MD, MPH, FAAFP
• Dick Sadler, PhD, MPH
• David Klee, MD, FAAFP
• Richard Bryce, DO
• Katrina Weirauch-Engle, DO
• Uzma Khan, MD

Research Committee

The Research Committee comprises research methodology experts who evaluate the science, methods, feasibility, and fit of research study methods to answering the research study questions of submitted proposals.

Current Members:

• Colleen MacCallum-Bridges, PhD
• Emiko Blalock, PhD
• Laci Zawilinski, PhD, LP