STAFF

Deborah McLean Leow brings over 10 years of experience in public health to her role as an associate director for CSAP's Northeast CAPT. Her expertise includes training and consultation on strategies to prevent alcohol and other drug abuse and related problems. In this capacity she has worked with state agencies including departments of health, education, and mental health as well as community-based organizations and colleges and universities. Previous to her work with EDC, Ms. McLean Leow served as special assistant to the Vice President of Student Affairs at Syracuse University coordinating a federally-funded grant to address substance abuse among college students. She has developed and implemented peer-based HIV/AIDS prevention programs, conducted HIV/AIDS testing counseling with young people, as well as community-based HIV/AIDS prevention research with women. Ms McLean Leow is the principal investigator for the New Jersey Immigrant Health Promotion Project and directs Connecting across Cultures. She is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Developing Leadership in Reducing Substance Abuse Fellow and a first generation immigrant from Guyana, South America.


Tania Garcia brings more than 20 years of professional experience in public health to her role as Director of CSAP's Northeast CAPT. An experienced trainer and consultant, Ms. Garcia's areas of expertise include alcohol and other drugs (AOD) and violence prevention, HIV/AIDS awareness, and women's health promotion. Her work in communities in the United States, South America and the Caribbean has brought attention to AOD addiction, HIV/AIDS, and violence and its impact on women, adolescents, and Latino migrant populations. Ms. Garcia has demonstrated her cultural capacity and her ability to manage materials development, knowledge application, and training activities designed to serve a range of diverse communities. Ms. Garcia has also worked independently as a consultant for government and community agencies on issues of leadership development and cultural sensitivity. She was instrumental in the creation of the Latino Health Institute and the Massachusetts Hispanic Health Council. Ms. Garcia's community-based advocacy on behalf of Latino health and socioeconomic issues have earned her both local and national recognition. Ms Garcia is a first generation immigrant from Puerto Rico.


Wendy Santis is a Senior Research Associate with CSAP's Northeast CAPT. She has developed tobacco prevention materials for the World Health Organization and the American Cancer Society and HIV prevention materials on behalf of the World Bank Institute. Prior to joining EDC, Wendy worked at Management Sciences for Health, providing technical assistance to health decision-makers in Latin America including strategic planning, training, management and grant-writing. At the Harvard School of Public Health, she served as a Field Coordinator of a multicultural school health project providing training and technical assistance to Boston-area middle schools, carrying out curriculum development, and conducting ongoing monitoring and evaluation of activities. She also served as a Health Educator with the Peace Corps in Ecuador.


Lisa McGlinchy has experience providing training and technical assistance around a variety of public health issues. At the NECAPT, Ms. McGlinchy conducts research and provides technical assistance to state systems in substance abuse prevention. Prior to her work at EDC, Ms. McGlinchy worked for a public health evaluation group in Washington DC providing program planning and evaluation services to community organizations and national associations. Much of her work was focused on the development and implementation of evaluation plans in HIV prevention, teen pregnancy prevention, youth development, parenting education, and service learning. She provided services to organizations such as the DC Health Department HIV/AIDS Administration, the National Education Association, the United Negro College Fund, local management boards in several counties in MD, local community based organizations. Ms. McGlinchy also has taught Health Education, conducted nutrition counseling to pregnant women and parents, and provided basic health education to female migrant workers.


Valda Grinbergs is the training and technical assistance coordinator for the Northeast CAPT. Prior to coming to the Northeast CAPT; she worked at EDC's Center for Science Education as Project Coordinator on the K-12 Science Curriculum Dissemination Center Project. Prior to that, she worked at TERC as the Project Coordinator on the Hanau Model Schools Partnership, and in Latvia developing a health education program for the Latvian Ministry of Education. In 1992, she received her Master of Education degree from Boston University in International Education Development, focusing on health education. She holds a B.A. from Boston College in Germanic Studies.


Chelsey E. Goddard is an associate director for CSAP's Northeast CAPT. Ms. Goddard where she provides technical assistance to state and local alcohol and other drug professionals on effective prevention strategies, knowledge application, and technology. Ms Goddard has a diverse background working in the adolescent health field on issues including substance abuse, HIV/AIDS and sexuality education. She has worked as a coordinator of the University of Michigan safer sex peer education program, a research associate in the Office of Postgraduate Medicine at the University of Michigan, a program assistant for international programs at Advocates for Youth in Washington, D.C., and a community health worker at the Washington Free Clinic serving socially and economic disadvantaged women including migrants.


Kim Dash is primarily responsible for overseeing CSAP’s Northeast CAPT Service to Science initiative. She works with local program directors, developers, and evaluators, as well as other Northeast CAPT staff and associates, to improve the evaluation and utility of innovative programs and practices designed to address the structural and individual factors associated with substance abuse.
Before joining the CAPT staff, Ms. Dash served as project director for two federally-funded research projects in EDC’s Center for Research on High Risk Behaviors—Reach for Health Middle Childhood Risk Prevention Study and Multi-level Bystander Strategies: Preventing Youth Violence. She also served as interim managing director of the Department of Education’s National Training Center for Middle School Drug Prevention and School Safety Coordinators in which she oversaw the development, as well as authored significant proportions, of a resource guide designed to help school personnel apply effective research-based prevention strategies. Ms. Dash is currently a doctoral student at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University. She earned her M.P.H. in health education from the University of North Carolina, School of Public Health – Chapel Hill and her B.A. in social geography from Clark University.


To learn more about CAC, contact Deborah McLean-Leow, Associate Director of CSAP’S Northeast CAPT and RWJF Fellow.