Staff Bios
Sumedha Chhatre, PhD
Dr. Chhatre is a health services researcher in the Department of Psychiatry. She has been involved in various health services research projects ranging from mental health, cancer, aging and HIV. She has a proven track record of grants and peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Chhatre has had primary oversight and responsibility for data management and statistical analysis for many prospective, retrospective and randomized control studies. She is the principal investigator and collaborating investigator on several federally funded grants and have published more than 25 peer reviewed articles.
Dr. Chhatre has extensive experience with the management and analysis of secondary data bases. She is an expert in: (1) Statistical and econometric analysis, cost and cost-effectiveness analysis, patient reported outcomes analysis, methodology and research design, data linkage, report writing, manuscript writing and grant preparation; (b) Design, quality control and management of databases, and (c) restructuring/extracting large databases. She has worked extensively with Medicaid claims data (health, behavioral health and pharmacy claims); Medicare claims data; Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data; State cancer registries data, State mental health programs consumer and services data and is an expert in the sue of statistical packages/ software such as SAS, SPSS, Excel and Access.
Margaret Mary Downey
Maggie is a research specialist for projects in consultation with Autism Support teachers and the implementation of evidence-based practices for children with ASD in the School District of Philadelphia. She is currently a part of the Philadelphia Autism Instructional Methods Study (Philly AIMS), the Autism Intervention Research Network for Behavioral Health (AIR-B) under Dr. David Mandell, as well as a social skills intervention under Dr. Jill Locke. Maggie also supports Dr. Rinad Beidas' work in development of interventions to support community mental health providers interested in implementing evidence-based practices. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Temple University and has completed post-baccalaureate studies in medical anthropology, urban studies, health communication, and politics of women’s health at the University of Pennsylvania in preparation for graduate studies in social policy and practice. Maggie is a volunteer doula and meeting coordinator with the Philadelphia Alliance for Labor Support and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Amber Erhart, M.Ed
Amber Erhart is a PhD candidate at Temple University and has been working part-time with Philly AIMS since 2009. Amber possesses many interests within the field of school psychology including consultation, early intervention and positive behavior support. Most recently, Amber served as a school psychologist for several parochial and charter schools located in Northeast Philadelphia. While in this role, she worked closely with her administrators/teachers to create a streamlined process for conducting functional behavioral assessments and implementing evidence-based behavioral interventions.
Adam Kahn
Adam is a research assistant who works on a variety of tasks. He comes to Penn CMHPSR after eight months volunteering/interning at CAR where he primarily performed database entry. He earned his Bachelor’s in Political Science from Arcadia University in 2010. One unique skill of Adam’s is that he’s a good proofreader! He is thrilled to join the CMHPSR team.
Bridget Keogh
Bridget Keogh is a Research Coordinator in the Department of Psychiatry’s Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Bridget is a Philadelphia area native and studied Biobehavioral Health at Pennsylvania State University. Prior to coming to Penn, she worked in public health conducting community outreach and health education with children and adults in South and West Philadelphia. She is interested in preventive medicine and working with underserved populations. After witnessing firsthand how often mental health is overlooked in these vulnerable populations, Bridget came to the Center eager to learn more about the field of mental health and substance use. Bridget is a member of Dr. Cynthia Zubritsky’s research team at the Center. Dr. Zubritsky’s work includes management and organizational issues in behavioral healthcare systems on the state and national level, trauma-informed care implementation, older adults and behavioral health and consumer health issues.
Megan McCarthy, MS
Megan McCarthy is a research coordinator working on a study examining healthcare utilization among children with autism using Medicaid claims data, and various projects for the ASERT. Megan received a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Saint Joseph’s University in 2006, and a master’s degree in Experimental Psychology from Saint Joseph’s University in 2007, where she evaluated the quality of preschool programs across the Philadelphia region.
Elizabeth Noll, MS
Elizabeth Noll is a data manager and data analyst in the Department of Psychiatry, Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Noll has twenty years of professional experience coordinating and monitoring data collection and statistical analysis activities for population-based research projects in both university and private research environments. Much of her work has involved maintaining, utilizing and integrating large public and private health and mental health survey and services databases; writing programs (SAS/SPSS/STATA) to perform statistical computations for descriptive and inferential data analysis; and creating tables, graphs and reports of findings. Ms. Noll also provides consultation to investigators on suitable data elements needed to answer specific research questions of interest. Her research interests include the health and welfare of low-income populations and evaluating behavioral health interventions and her work has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Preventive Medicine, and Evaluation Review among others.
Zinnia Pitrowski, MsED, BCBA
Zinnia has been involved with Philly AIMS since 2008 when she was a teacher in the School District of Philadelphia. She has a Master's degree from the Temple University and has completed coursework toward her BCBA certification through Penn State. Zinnia was a teacher for 6 years (3 in the SDP) and taught K-2 and 6-8 Autism Support. Since 2010, Zinnia has worked as a behavior analyst, providing ABA services in home and school settings for children with autism.
Erica Reisinger, MSed
Erica Reisinger has worked for Dr. David Mandell since 2008 and currently manages the Center's portfolio of school-based intervention research projects and consultation contracts. Erica has a Master's of Science Degree in Education from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor's of Science degree from Temple University. She is certified in early childhood and elementary education with a focus on multicultural and urban education. Erica is interested in ways to improve how the family, school, and community work collaboratively to improve opportunities for traditionally underserved populations. Before joining the Center, Erica was involved in other educational research initiatives with the University of Pennsylvania, St. Joseph's University, and The Free Library of Philadelphia.
Rukiya Wideman
Rukiya has been a research specialist for projects involving consultation with Autism Support teachers and the implementation of evidence-based practices for children with ASD in the School District of Philadelphia since 2010. She is currently a part of the Philadelphia Autism Instructional Methods Study (Philly AIMS) and the Autism Intervention Research Network for Behavioral Health (AIR-B), among other projects under Dr. David Mandell.
Rukiya also support a social skills intervention under Dr. Jill Locke.
Currently, she is a post-baccalaureate student at Penn taking classes in the biological basis of behavior, and human development, with particular interest in minority youth development. Prior to Penn, Rukiya graduated with bachelor’s degrees in psychology, linguistics, and Spanish from the University of Michigan. Rukiya plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and loves to cook (and eat!) great vegetarian food.
Ming Xie, MS
Ming Xie has over 5 years of experience quarrying, cleaning and coding Medicaid and other health claims data. She is currently responsible for cleaning and structuring the state policy, Medicaid, education and county-level data for analysis. She also runs validity checks on data elements and manages the integrity and security of the data for the studies. She received her master's degree in Applied Statistics from Villanova University in 2004.
Christina Kang-Yi, PhD
Dr. Kang-Yi is a Clinical Associate at the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research. She has extensive experience in the evaluation of publicly funded programs to improve the health of children with psychiatric disabilities. She is currently the PI for studies including Development of System-Level Intervention to Improve Outcomes for Transition-Age Youth and Persons with Mental Illness and their Re-entry to Jail, and the Co-PI for a study titled Effect of School Therapeutic Services Program on Children’s Behavioral Well-Being and School Achievement. Dr. Kang-Yi received her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice and Ph.D. from the Columbia University School of Social Work, and did her postdoctoral fellowship at the Penn Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research.
Chelsea Zimmerman
Chelsea Zimmerman is a research specialist working on a study investigating the prevalence of autism in adults and how to improve diagnosis and treatment of autism in an adult population. She also works on several projects for the Autism Services, Education, Resources, and Training (ASERT) Collaborative and assists with a study examining healthcare utilization among children with autism using Medicaid claims data. She graduated in 2010 with a dual bachelor's degree in psychology and writing from the University of Pittsburgh, where she worked as a student research assistant investigating the visual and spatial processing systems in children with autism.
