BLDRC STAFF
BLDRC Staff
Robert Cohen, MD, FCCP
Director
Dr. Cohen is Clinical Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health. He is also Professor of Medicine and Director of the Occupational Lung Disease Program at Northwestern University.
His major research interests are occupational lung disease, particularly mineral dust exposed workers. He has served as a consultant to several agencies of the United States government in areas of mining related health issues including the Respiratory Health Division of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Mining Safety Health Administration, the Division of Coal Mine Workers Compensation of the US DOL. He is the Director of the Black Lung Data and Resource Center funded by the US Department of Health and Human Service Office of Rural Health Policy of the Health Resources and Services Administration. He also serves as the medical director for the National Coalition of Black Lung and Respiratory Disease, the organization of federally funded black lung clinics.
BLDRC Staff
Cecile Rose, MD, MPH
Co-Director
Dr. Rose is a Professor of Medicine (Pulmonary and Occupational Medicine) at National Jewish Health and the University of Colorado Denver and has a secondary appointment at the Colorado School of Public Health. Dr. Rose is board certified in Internal Medicine, Occupational Medicine, and Pulmonary Disease. She has been the Medical Director of the HRSA-funded Miners Clinic/Black Lung Clinics Program since 2003. She has a long-standing interest in occupational and environmental lung diseases, with a particular focus on hypersensitivity pneumonitis, pneumoconiosis, and military deployment-related lung injury, including diagnosis, causation, treatment, and prevention. Dr. Rose is Co-Director of the Black Lung Data and Resource Center and has been recognized as one of the Best Doctors in Denver and Best Doctors in America® for a number of years.
BLDRC Staff
Leonard Go, MD
Assistant Director
Assistant Director
Dr. Go is the Assistant Director of the Mining Education and Research (MinER) Center and Research Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health. He is also a faculty member in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a board-certified physician in Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine. He received his medical degree from the University of Illinois and performed his residency at the University of Texas at Southwestern Medical Center and his fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Northwestern University.
BLDRC Staff
Kirsten Almberg, PhD, MS
Assistant Director of Research Evaluation
Assistant Director of Research Evaluation
Kirsten is an epidemiologist and a Research Assistant Professor in the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health. As Assistant Director of Research and Evaluation, she is responsible for managing and executing epidemiologic studies of occupational lung diseases both nationally and internationally. Her work includes analyses of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, progressive massive fibrosis, and other coal mine dust lung diseases among coal miners regionally, nationally, and internationally. Specifically, her focus has been on linking state and national databases that contain health information on U.S. coal miners to more fully understand the development and progression of disease, including factors most associated with developing disease.
BLDRC Staff
Dolores Weems, MA
Project Manager
Project Manager
Dolores works closely with faculty and staff to support the Black Lung Data & Resource Center’s vision. She is responsible for planning and coordinating BLDRC activities, special events, and building and maintaining relationships throughout the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC).
Dolores joined the School of Public Health Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences as Project Manager for the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Health Resource Service Administration’s Black Lung Programs in 2014. Her primary responsibility is the management, outreach and collaborations with other Black Lung Clinics staff and the Black Lung Data and Resource Center.
She collaborates to strengthen existing relationships and forge new relationships with external medical and legal organizations, other Black Lung Clinics, and colleagues at UIC. Dolores brings a unique awareness, interpersonal skills and a sense of humor to create consensus during interactions with diverse populations and disparate organizations to advance the mission of the Black Lung Data and Resource Center.
BLDRC Staff
Lauren Zell-Baran, MPH
Epidemiologist
Lauren is an epidemiologist at National Jewish Health (NJH) in Denver, Colorado and a graduate student at the Colorado School of Public Health pursuing a Ph.D. in Epidemiology with a focus on environmental and occupational health. She is a spirometry technician and travels with her team at NJH to mining communities in Colorado, Arizona, and Wyoming as part of the Miners Clinic of Colorado outreach clinics. Her role in the Black Lung Data and Resource Center is database development and management as well as recruitment and interviewing of research participants.
BLDRC Staff
Michael Yen, MS
IT/AV/Distance Learning Coordinator
IT/AV/Distance Learning Coordinator
Mike Yen is the IT/AV/Distance Learning Coordinator for the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) School of Public Health’s Policy, Practice and Prevention Research Center (P3RC). He provides training and web support for the Black Lung Data and Resource Center. Mike has a Master of Science in Management Information Systems and brings over 15 years of technical experience to the Center.
BLDRC Staff
Guddi Kapadia, MPH, MS
Assistant Director of P3RC
Assistant Director of P3RC
Guddi Kapadia has been working in public health workforce education and development for over 15 years at the UIC School of Public Health. She led multiple training projects including the CDC funded Illinois Public Health Preparedness Center and the Illinois Preparedness and Emergency Response Learning Center (IPERLC). She provides oversight for web support for the Black Lung Data and Resource Center.
Currently, she supports training initiatives with the Center for Health Work Healthy Communities through Healthy Work project and the Policy, Practice and Prevention Research Center (P3RC). Recently, she has been working with the state, county and city focusing on addressing the COVID-19 pandemic through outreach and education and supporting contact-tracing and vaccination efforts at all levels. She believes that the successful translation of research to practice is key to build the public health workforce’s capacity. Guddi received her Master of Public Health from the University of Illinois Chicago, School of Public Health. She also completed a Master of Science from Roosevelt University in Biotechnology.
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