The Infórmate Research Team
Click here to view our organizational chart.

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Elisa Gordon, PhD, MPH (Editor)
Research Associate Professor in the Center for Healthcare Studies, Comprehensive Transplant Center, and Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Dr. Gordon is a medical anthropologist and clinical ethicist. She has been conducting mixed- methods research on ethical issues pertaining to organ transplantation and donation, informed consent, and self-care management for over 10 years.

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Juan Carlos Caicedo, MD
Dr. Juan Carlos Caicedo is a Solid Organ Transplant Surgeon and the Director of the Hispanic Transplant Program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He is an Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Organ Transplantation at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He graduated from the National University of Colombia (Universidad Nacional de Colombia) in Bogota, Colombia.
At Northwestern, Dr. Caicedo pioneered the creation of the Hispanic Transplant Program (HTP) at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Comprehensive Transplant Center. Dr. Caicedo is Chair of the Diversity Issues Committee at the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS), where he advocates for the health of Hispanics/Latinos. Dr. Caicedo is also the only Hispanic Board member of the Organ Procurement Organization, Gift of Hope, thus, representing the interest of Hispanics in the Midwest Region. He is also a founding member of the Colombian Transplant Society, Colombia Surgical Society, as well as the Bogota Transplant Network. In his efforts to improve education about organ donation and transplantation in Hispanics, Dr. Caicedo has worked directly with patients, physicians, social and religious organizations, Gift of Hope (Organ procurement organization), politicians, and leveraged news media (TV, radio) in over 1,000 media outlets, in Spanish and in English. He have received multiple awards including the “Life Goes On” award in 2008 from the Illinois Secretary of State, Jesse White, during National Hispanic Heritage Month for promoting organ donation and transplantation within the Hispanic Community.

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Anne Black
Anne Black is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois (NKFI). She has held this position since October, 2013.
Anne oversees all of the program and fundraising related activities of the organization as well as general operations, fiscal responsibility, and management of staff. Anne has been with the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois since January, 2002 and has more than 14 years of fundraising, design and marketing experience.
Anne holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Olaf College. She enjoys reading and spending time with her family, which includes her husband and their very active seven year old twin daughters.

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Kate Grubbs O'Connor, CEO
Kate Grubbs O’Connor is the former CEO of the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois. She oversaw all of the program and fundraising related activities of the organization as well as general operations, fiscal responsibility, and management of staff. Kate brought over 10 years of experience in the development and evaluation of community awareness programs and over 12 years experience in general program development and management. Kate holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Ohio University. She is now the Executive Director of the Grant Healthcare Foundation.

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Maria Olivero
Maria Olivero is the Community Outreach Coordinator for the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois (NKFI). NKFI is a major voluntary health organization that seeks to prevent kidney and urinary tract diseases, improve the health and well-being of individuals and families affected by these diseases, and increase the availability of all organs for transplantation.
In her role, Ms. Olivero assists the KidneyMobile Program in the Hispanic community as well as the lead on the Follow-up portion of the KidneyMobile program. This is a custom mobile exhibit providing free prevention education and health screenings for high blood pressure, diabetes and chronic kidney disease throughout Illinois. Ms. Olivero works with partners in the Hispanic community and provides education on kidney disease in Spanish to patients, family and community members. Ms. Olivero takes on the lead on patient follow-up for Spanish speakers and handles all bi-lingual inquiries.
Ms. Olivero holds a bachelor’s degree in Board of Governors and Spanish. Additionally, Ms. Olivero holds a certification as a Medical Interpreter form Cross-Cultural Interpreting Service. Ms. Olivero was born in Utuado, Puerto Rico in the Taíno language meaning “valley surrounding of mountains” but has been in Chicago for more than 20 years.

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Daney Ramirez, MPH
Daney Ramirez is a Research Study Coordinator in the Center for Healthcare Studies at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Daney Ramirez is a health scientist with a masters in public health. She has participated in community assessment projects with Latino Communities in Chicago and has worked in program development for elderly diabetic patients and children in the Republic of Panama

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Jennifer Chaput
Jennifer Chaput is the Manager of Communications for the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois (NKFI). In her role, Ms. Chaput is responsible for creating and executing overall communications and marketing materials to increase visibility of the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois amongst all audiences. She also plans and executes educational programs for transplant candidates, recipients, donors and their families.
Ms. Chaput holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, as well as a Master of Science from the DePaul University School of Public Service.

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Jessica MacLean
Jessica MacLean is the former Manger of Communications and Patient Education for the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois. In her role, Jessica planned and executed educational programs for transplant candidates, recipients, donors and their families. She also participated in statewide initiatives to raise awareness for organ and tissue donation with the goal of making organs available to people in need of life- saving transplants. Originally from Atlanta, Jessica is the daughter of a two-time kidney transplant recipient and has spent a large part of her life advocating for organ donation and transplantation. She is now the Manager of Community Relations for the Lurie Cancer Center.

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Joe Feinglass, PhD
Research Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, and Center for Healthcare Studies at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Feinglass is a health services researcher with a degree in Public Policy Analysis. He has over 20 years of experience in health policy, quality improvement, health disparities, medical informatics, patient safety, and social epidemiology research.

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Paula Carney, PhD
Paula Carney, PhD is Research Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Education and Career Development at the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute in the Feinberg School of Medicine.
Paula’s graduate training in instructional design, academic leadership in teaching and learning with technology and previous funded research grants and contracts in technology, public health education are applied to this project. In addition, she is involved in developing distance education programs in medical education in a group of Nigerian universities. Paula is a native Chicagoan who grew up in Portage Park, attended Loyola University and now lives in Edgewater.

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Karina Vera
Karina Vera is a Research Study Coordinator in the Center for Healthcare Studies at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Karina is responsible for the financial administration, data collection and intervention administration processes, and data entry involved in the randomized controlled trial of the Infórmate website. She has had over five years of recruitment experience in the Hispanic/Latino community for different health research studies.

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Samie Martinez
Samie Martinez is a bilingual health researcher pursuing a degree in Public Health. Mr. Martinez has been heavily involved in the recruitment of study participants, data collection and intervention administration processes, and data entry involved in the randomized controlled trial of the Infórmate website. He was previously involved in community based participatory research projects and with prostate cancer research studies.

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Amy Disharoon, MPH
Amy Disharoon is a Research Study Coordinator in the Center for Healthcare Studies at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Amy is a health scientist with a Master's degree in public health, specializing in Community Health. Amy currently assists on projects designed to improve patients' and families' knowledge and informed consent for organ donation and transplantation. Amy has over 5 years of experience working at the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), where she facilitated the placement of organs between donors and patients.

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Liliana Aguayo, BA
Liliana Aguayo is a Research Study Coordinator in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Liliana is a survey researcher with particular expertise in the translation of survey instruments for public policy and health research. Liliana has over 5 years of experience in public policy research geared towards immigrant populations in the U.S. She has coordinated several bilingual public health studies with a variety of populations that include, toddlers, children, young mothers, teenagers, and seniors. Currently, she also volunteers in a community clinic in Chicago teaching a diabetes management and prevention class.

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Nicole Sisen, CHES, MPH
Nicole Sisen is the former Director of Community Health Education for the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois (NKFI).
In her role, Nicole led the KidneyMobile® Program. This is a custom mobile exhibit providing free prevention education and health screenings for high blood pressure, diabetes and chronic kidney disease throughout Illinois. Nicole worked collaboratively with donation and transplantation professionals, nurses and senior administrators in the planning, design, implementation, evaluation and maintenance of educational and quality assurance of more than 80 programs, professional conferences and events per year.
Nicole holds a bachelor's degree in Health and Sport Studies (Health Promotion) from the University of Iowa. She is a Certified Health Education Specialist as through the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, Inc. She completed a master’s degree in Health Education (Health Promotion) from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Nicole is now a Senior Manager for Primary Care Systems at American Cancer Society.

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James Brucker, MSLIS
Instructional Designer and Librarian at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Jim specializes in the design of online and electronic instructional content, including pedagogy, graphic design, programming, evaluation and user experience architecture. He has worked with multimedia-based instruction within the library and medical school curriculum for nine years, and is active in general assessment strategies and faculty development.

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Lanty O'Connor, BA
Program Manager, Northwestern Simulation; Co-Director of Medical Education, Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Mr. O'Connor's work focuses on performance improvement, mastery learning, and healthcare quality. He has contributed to research projects in medical education, e-learning, emergency medicine, and athletics.
Last Updated: 7/10/2015