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Alumni Inducted into Delta Omega Honor Society during 2013 ceremony

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Three alumni were inducted into the Pitt Public Health Omicron Chapter of the Delta Omega Honor Society during the March 28, 2013, Alumni Awards dinner. 

Charles Christen (BCHS '10) is executive director for the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force, which provides care to people living with HIV and works to prevent the spread of the virus. He has more than 15 years of experience in administration, advocacy, research, and psychosocial counseling with HIV. His previous employment was as director of operations for the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities at Pitt Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health. The focus of this Center was to explore the public health implications of shale gas exploration as well as prepare a southwestern Pennsylvania regional environmental threat analysis. Christen also serves on the board of the Hazelwood Initiative, working to revive and revitalize a Pittsburgh neighborhood. He was formerly administrator of Persad Center’s HIV program, co-chair of the former Southwestern PA Healing Weekend, and a board member of the former Southwestern Pennsylvania AIDS Planning Coalition. He was also a founding board member for the Hazelwood Urban Garden program. He obtained his doctoral degree in public health from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and was one of the first in the nation to obtain a graduate certificate in LGBT health research. He also holds a bachelor’s degree from Duquesne University in philosophy and psychology and a degree in sacred theology from the Gregorian University in Rome, Italy.

Gregory Homish (EPI ’03) is an assistant Professor of Community Health and Health Behavior, and Co-director of the Community Health and Health Behavior Concentration of the MPH program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He holds appointments at the Research Institute on Addictions at the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as in the departments of family medicine and pediatrics. He is a consulting editor for Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. His research focuses on social network influences on substance use and mental health. He has published 49 peer reviewed articles and three book chapters and has served as a principal investigator or co-investigator on grants funded by private foundations as well as the National Institutes of Health that have examined a variety of public health issues including substance abuse, intimate partner violence, and mental health. Homish also serves as the alternate sector leader for the emergency mental health component of Erie County, New York’s Specialized Medical Assistance Response Team, the public health emergency response team sponsored by the department of health.

Daniel Patterson (EPI ’12) is a nationally registered paramedic, assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine, and director for research at the Center for Emergency Medicine of Western PA, Inc. He holds a doctorate in health services policy and management and a master’s degree in public health service and management from the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health. He holds a master’s degree in epidemiology from Pitt Public Health. From 2004–06, he was an AHRQ (T-32) post-doctorate fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has received focused education and training in patient safety. He is a graduate of the Patient Safety Leadership Program co-sponsored by the American Hospital Association and National Patient Safety Foundation—PSLF Class #7, and is also the first non-physician recipient of the prestigious Patient Safety Fellowship co-sponsored by the Emergency Medicine Patient Safety Foundation and Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. Patterson has served on several committees addressing quality and safety. From 2008 to 2009, he served as an ad-hoc member of the National Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council (NEMSAC) safety sub-committee established by Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters in 2006. In July of 2010, he was appointed by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to a two year term on the NEMSAC. Other committee work has included the steering committee for the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Workforce Data Definitions Project supported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Office of EMS. In 2012, he was reappointed to the NEMSAC for another two-year term. He has spent his career investigating issues that threaten quality, safety, and performance and impact the EMS worker and work environment. In addition, his current research includes the development of valid and reliable measures of EMS teamwork supported by a career development and training grant from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Pittsburgh.



3/28/2013

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