Class Notes

Keep up with your classmates from the College of Public Health. Submit your Class Note here and it will be included on our website and in InSight, our alumni magazine.

Kenni Sterns (19MPH)

is director of nursing at the Paul Rein Detention Facility with Wellpath in Broward County, Florida.

Brianne (Bri) Bakken (17MHA)

has received a promotion to health care administration associate professor at the University of Iowa College of Nursing in Iowa City, Iowa.

Hana Hinkle (09MPH)

was recognized by the de Beaumont Foundation as a 40 under 40 Public Health honoree for 2023 which recognizes and elevates leaders changing the face of public health in creative and innovative ways. Hinkle is currently assistant dean of rural health professions and director of the National Center for Rural Health Professions at University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford in Rockford, Illinois.

Kaley Wilkinson (05MHA)

is vice president of Enterprise Strategy, Marketing, and Corporate Development at WPS Health Solutions in Madison, Wisconsin.

Tasneem Ali (22BA)

is health equity program coordinator at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, Institute of Public Health Practice in Iowa City, Iowa.

Michelle Niermann (94MA)

is now Chief Operating Officer, East Division for UnityPoint Health and will provide leadership to UnityPoint Health hospitals in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, and Dubuque, Iowa, the Quad Cities, and Madison, Wisconsin.

Jim Skogsbergh (82MA)

has been named a co-recipient of the National Center for Healthcare Leadership's 2023 Gail L. Warden Leadership Excellence Award. Skogsbergh is the CEO of Advocate Health.

Jennifer Bernstein (09MPH)

is managing corporate counsel, privacy and technology at Domino's in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Leslie McClure (97MS)

has been named dean of the College for Public Health and Social Justice at Saint Louis University, effective November 15, 2023. McClure is currently associate dean for faculty affairs and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University.

Kelsey Feller (15MPH)

is chief of the Bureau of Data Sharing, Privacy and Open Records at the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services in Des Moines, Iowa.

Jim Skogsbergh (82MA)

received the 2023 Distinguished Service Award from the American Hospital Association in recognition of his career as a leader on industry transformation and innovation, health care reform and patient safety, population health and transition to value-based care, and his abiding commitment to the communities Advocate Health serves. Skogsbergh is co-CEO of Advocate Health, the fifth largest not-for-profit, integrated health system in the U.S.

Brianne Bakken (17MHA)

received the 2023 American Pharmacists Association Wiederholt Prize for Best Published Paper for Economic, Social, and Administrative Sciences for her paper titled “An Intersectional Review of Discrimination and Harassment Experiences in Pharmacy: Findings from the 2019 National Pharmacist Workforce Survey,” which was published in the Journal of the American Pharmacy Association.

Rebecca Villa (22MPH)

has been accepted into the University of Washington’s PhD program in Pathobiology beginning in Fall 2023 where she will conduct infectious disease research.

Hind Baydoun (09PhD)

recently joined the Veterans Health Administration as a health science specialist with the National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans in Washington, DC..

Francisco Olalde (22MHA)

Joined the Office of the Chief Medical Officer as a Vizient Analyst at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, Iowa.

Jennifer McDougle (21MPH)

has been invited to present her work on “The Necessity of Promoting Wildlife Health with Public Health Interventions and the Prevention of Zoonotic Disease Transmission to Wildlife Officials” at the World Organization for Animal Health Global Conference on Emergency Management in Paris in April 2023.

Leah Wentworth (16PhD)

is director of research, support, and education at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in Altamont, New York.

Jenni Talbott (04MHA)

is the chief operating officer for McFarland Clinic PC in central Iowa.

Eric Hawkins (09MS)

is state epidemiologist at Indiana Department of Health in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Jamie Weber (09MHA)

is an attorney at Tschetter and Adams P.C. in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.