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Partner with ICHS
ICHS faculty and staff are collaborating with many community partners and government agencies. We are also actively seeking opportunities to join public/private research and evaluation partnerships. The ICHS team is uniquely positioned to support community organizations in developing programs, evaluations and research platforms. ICHS can help strategize at any of the following stages:
- Strategy Development- ICHS can brainstorm with organizations and community partners to design a program, intervention or evaluation to address an identified health-related concern.
- Outreach and Collaboration- ICHS can leverage university and statewide partnerships to build or expand a network of support for new or ongoing projects.
- Funding opportunities- Faculty can support community partners in seeking and applying to new grant opportunities.
- Project Implementation- ICHS faculty can help design staffing structures, budgets and clear deliverables to achieve the intended goals of a project.
- Evaluation and Learning- Faculty will work closely with community organizations to design an evaluation strategy that meets grant guidelines as well explore potential publishing opportunities.
Students
ICHS faculty welcome the opportunity to work with students at the undergraduate and graduate level. Students can expect to contribute to all levels of research activities, from grant submission and data collection to drafting reports and manuscripts. Research studies vary from community based participatory research (human subjects) to environmental assessments which may include fieldwork. Please reach out directly to faculty for more information.
Meet Our Researchers
Lauren Lessard
Dr. Lauren Lessard is an assistant professor of Health Sciences at ICHS. She is a trained maternal and child health epidemiologist and specializes in community based participatory research, implementation studies and program evaluations. She often employs mixed method research designs to address health disparities in underserved populations.
Micah Hahn
Dr. Micah Hahn is an assistant professor of Environmental Health at ICHS. She is trained as an epidemiologist and incorporates epidemiological study designs, spatiotemporal exposure assessment, GIS analysis, weather and climate data, ecological predictive modeling, and mixed-methods to answer interdisciplinary, applied questions around climate-related exposures and human-animal-environment interactions.
Ruby Fried
Dr. Ruby Fried is an assistant professor of Health Science within the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies. Her work focuses on identifying the drivers of health outcomes in terms of both risk and resilience. Dr. Fried's research includes examining the health impacts of traditional foods among Alaska Native people, traditional food security, and other mixed methods projects related to food environments and health disparities with a commitment to active and meaningful community-driven research.
Rebecca Van Wyck
Rebecca has more than 10 years of experience in the environmental sciences, including work at the U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources Division and in private environmental consulting. She most enjoys working with data sets and interpreting the story within the numbers. Her investigations include the subjects of water quality and air quality, but now she enjoys the opportunity at ICHS to match observations within our physical environment with health implications.
David Parker
Dr. David Parker is a full professor at ICHS and holds a doctorate in epidemiology
with a focus in biostatistics. He has served as PI on projects in the areas of HIV, STIs, viral hepatitis, homelessness,
injection drug use, substance use disorders, and connections to care. His research areas include the integration of information technology into healthcare to
improve health outcomes and reduce costs, international security and information assurance,
remote healthcare, and use of AI/algorithms to identify vulnerable populations using
large data.
Mariah Seater
Mariah Seater, born and raised in Alaska, holds a B.S. and M.S. from the University
of Nevada, Las Vegas and an MPH and graduate certificate in children's mental health
from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Prior to joining ICHS in 2019, she held positions in the education, government and
non-profit sectors focused on areas such as health communications, outdoor education,
senior and disability healthcare access, and youth development.