Welcome to the Florida Center for Medicaid and the Uninsured : About Us : Faculty & Staff

R. Paul Duncan, Ph.D.
FCMU Interim Director

Paul Duncan has been a faculty member at the University of Florida since 1979. He currently serves as the Director of the Florida Center for Medicaid and the Uninsured, and is Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Services Research, Management and Policy in the College of Public Health and Health Professions. His teaching assignments are targeted to the training of health services administration professionals focused on the challenges of administrative leadership in health care organizations, as well as doctoral level trainees focused on studying and understanding how the health care system works.

Dr. Duncan is a nationally prominent health services researcher, best known for his studies of access to various forms of medical and dental care. In recent years, much of his work has focused on health insurance and the uninsured. Between 1999 and 2001, he served as Principal Investigator for three major surveys examining health insurance circumstances in Florida, Indiana, and Kansas. Dr. Duncan has published widely, including articles in such prominent journals as Medical Care, and Health Affairs. In 1996, 1997, and 1998, Dr. Duncan was selected "Teacher of the Year" by the department's graduate students. From 1998 until the present, he has been responsible for the design and implementation of major surveys of health insurance coverage in Florida, Kansas, Indiana and elsewhere. His current research includes an evaluation of Florida’s Medicaid Provider Service Network Demonstration Project, ongoing studies of dental care utilization, and a study of the characteristics of high-cost hospital patients.

When not teaching or doing research, Duncan takes his interests into the community. He has been a member and chair of the Health Care Board of Alachua County, Florida. For almost ten years, he served on the Board of Directors, and has twice been elected President of the ACORN Clinic, an award winning medical and dental care clinic that serves poor and uninsured rural residents in the areas north of his home in Gainesville, Florida.

Telephone: (352) 273-6065
Email: pduncan@phhp.ufl.edu

Heather Steingraber
FCMU Research Project Manager

Heather Steingraber joined FCMU in 2002 as the Research Program Manager. In this role, she is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Center, as well as being a major scientific contributor in some Center research. Before coming to FCMU, Heather acted as a research project director at the Institute for Child Health Policy, where she directed several funded research and evaluation projects, including the State of Florida's Title XXI Evaluation, the Florida Department of Health Outreach Analysis, the AHCA Immigration Study, and the USF Refugee Study. After attending graduate school at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Heather worked as an archivist for the school's Robert Wood Johnson Health Care Reform Project. She received her Bachelor of Science from University of Florida in 1993.

Telephone: (352) 273-5059
Email: hgs@phhp.ufl.edu

Graduate Assistants:

Andrea Lee, M.S.
Ph.D. Candidate, Clinical and Health Psychology
Telephone: (352) 273-5130
Room DG147
Email: alee@phhp.ufl.edu

Zoe Swaine, M.S.
Ph.D. Candidate, Clinical and Health Psychology
Telephone: (352) 273-5059
Room DG147
Email: zswaine@phhp.ufl.edu

Overview | Faculty & Staff | Affiliated Faculty

Allyson Hall, Ph.D.
FCMU Director of Research

Dr. Hall is the Research Director for the Florida Center for Medicaid and the Uninsured and is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Health Services Research, Management, and Policy at the University of Florida. Prior to joining the University of Florida, Dr. Hall worked for the United Hospital Fund (UHF) of New York and was an adjunct assistant professor at New York University. At UHF she was a senior health services researcher and served as the principal investigator on a project that examined the quality of primary care in New York City. Dr. Hall also served as a program officer at the Commonwealth Fund where she was responsible for managing grant programs related to access to care for vulnerable populations. Dr. Hall holds a Ph.D. in Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and a Masters degree in Health Administration from the University of Florida. She earned her Bachelors of Business Administration from the University of Miami. Dr. Hall's main research interests are in access to care for vulnerable populations.

Telephone: (352) 273-5059
Email: ahall@phhp.ufl.edu

Robert L. Cook, MD, MPH
FCMU Associate Director

Robert L. Cook is Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Medicine, and Associate Director of the Florida Center for Medicaid and the Uninsured. He received his MD and MPH in Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1991. After completing residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Virginia, he completed a two-year fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and then joined the Faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has held joint appointments in the Departments of Medicine and Behavioral and Community Health Sciences (1996 – 2006). Dr. Cook’s research has focused primarily on prevention issues involving HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. His NIH-funded research studies include an investigation of the relationship of alcohol and drug use patterns to STD outcomes in young persons, a clinical trial investigating the impact of home screening for gonorrhea and chlamydia, and a study of immune response in persons infected with influenza and the West Nile Virus. He recently received funding to serve as Protocol Chair on a clinical trial to investigate whether screening and treatment of bacterial vaginosis can reduce the incidence of STDs in young women. His current research interests include 1) interventions to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including those that target substance abuse; 2) clinical and health services research related to HIV infection; and 3) research to address health issues in uninsured and underserved populations.

Telephone: (352) 227-5869
Email: cookrl@phhp.ufl.edu

Jianyi Zhang, Ph.D.
Coordinator, Statistical Research

Dr. Zhang became FCMU's Statistical Research Coordinator in 2003. As FCMU's primary data analysis, he is responsible for the formulation of data requests and conducting data management and statistical analysis for all FCMU projects. He was previously employed at the University of Florida Institute for Child Health Policy. He also served as a Decision Support Analyst at Shands HealthCare at the University of Florida from 2001 to 2002. He received his Ph.D. in Physiology in 1998 from the University of Tennessee and his M.S. in Business Administration in 2000 from the University of Memphis.

Telephone: (352) 273-5059
Email: jzhang@phhp.ufl.edu

Lisa Chacko, MPH
FCMU Research Coordinator

As a research coordinator, Lisa Chacko works primarily on the dissemination of FCMU research and findings through issue briefs, newsletters, web resources, and the Annual Medicaid Research Conference. Lisa joined FCMU in 2005 as an intern while obtaining her Masters degree in Public Health, Policy and Management from the University of Florida. She received her Bachelors of Arts from the University of Florida in 2003.

Telephone: (352) 273-5244
Email: lchacko@phhp.ufl.edu

Lorna Chorba, CCNA
FCMU Data Analyst

Telephone: (352) 273-5127
Email: lchorba@phhp.ufl.edu

Overview | Faculty & Staff | Affiliated Faculty