Research Center Team

Nicole (she/her) is a Senior Research Project Manager at the Center. She is an applied, community-based, public health researcher and qualitative methodologist. Since 2010, she has worked on and managed research projects with diverse populations and on a range of topics including firearm violence prevention, homelessness, peer recovery mentors, public health education campaigns, and safety net programs. Her work products have been used as advocacy documents in the Oregon legislature and to inform program improvements in a variety of settings. Nicole received her MPH from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and her MA in Global Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Susan (she/her) is a Senior Research Project Manager at the Center. She has 40 years of experience as a public health researcher, practitioner, and educator with a focus on injury and violence prevention. She has extensive project coordination and implementation experience working on projects in both urban and rural environments with communities at high risk for injury. Susan’s work over the years has also focused on the development and implementation of injury prevention policies and the role of health professionals and community activists in health advocacy. Susan earned her law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law and her Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Susan (she/her) is a Senior Research Assistant at the Center. She is a licensed clinical social worker and certified alcohol and drug counselor currently pursuing a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. Her professional background includes 20 years of experience and focus on trauma-informed care in community behavioral health treatment in the Portland area. Susan has turned her focus from clinical work to research in behavioral health, health care delivery systems, and injury epidemiology. She is interested in the effectiveness of public health approaches to reducing risk of firearm injuries and associated trauma.

Rosol (she/her) is a Senior Research Assistant at the Center. She is an early-career public health professional with a background in research and health. She received her BS in Public Health Studies: Pre-clinical Health Sciences in 2022 and her MPH in Epidemiology in 2024 from the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. Her research interests include firearm injury prevention and trauma.

Dr. Rakshe (she/her) is a biostatistician at the Knight Cancer Institute Biostatistics Shared Resource (BSR). She holds a PhD in chemical engineering from Stanford University. Dr. Rakshe began collaborating with the Center while earning her MS in biostatistics from the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. Her research with the Center focuses on the use of Extreme Risk Protection Orders in Oregon. More broadly, she works on a wide variety of clinical, translational, and basic science studies.

Olivia (she/her) is a Research Assistant at the Portland VA Center for Improving Veteran Involved Care (CIVIC). She received her B.S. in Public Health from Portland State University in 2021, and her MPH in Epidemiology from the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health in 2023. Her interests include substance use disorder, treatment, and injury and violence prevention.

Alexis (he/him) received his MPH in Epidemiology from the Oregon Health and Science University – Portland State University School of Public Health. He has worked in research with a focus on cancer and the impact of nutrition on neurodegenerative disease in the community, leading to four co-authored publications. He developed the desire to serve his community as a public health professional while serving as a community leader for 4 years. Alexis is currently working as a Research Coordinator on Dr. Carlson’s team that aims to understand the issue of firearm injuries and provide effective solutions that will serve the community. He aims to continue serving the community in areas of public health research for the remainder of his career.

Gina (she/her) serves as a Research Associate at the Center. She received her MPH in Epidemiology in 2023 from the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. Before moving to Portland in 2018, she earned a BS in Health Promotion & Education from the University of Utah, and worked throughout Utah in community engagement, health education, and STI/HIV surveillance and prevention. Her current research interests include firearm injury and gun violence prevention in Portland, and across the state of Oregon.

Rebecca (she/her) is a Senior Research Assistant at the Center. She is an early-career public health professional who received her BA in Psychology from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR in 2022. She has a background in practice and research related to health psychology, behavioral health, and suicide prevention. Her current research interests include public health approaches for firearm injury prevention.

Rebecca (she/her) is a Research Project Coordinator at the Center. She is an early-career public health professional with a background in research and policy. She received her BA in Public Health from the University of Illinois – Chicago in 2022 and her Master of Science of Public Health (MSPH) in Health Policy and Management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2024. Rebecca’s research interests include the medicalization and criminalization of poverty and firearm violence prevention.

Will (he/him) is a statistician at the Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC) at the VA Portland Health Care System and a Center affiliate. He received his BS in Biology from the University of Portland and MS in Biostatistics from the Oregon Health and Science University – Portland State University School of Public Health. He serves as a statistician with expertise in data synthesis, probabilistic linkage, and predictive and causal modeling. Will has been working on Dr. Carlson’s team on the FASTER/AVERT projects and other research involving firearm-related injuries since 2020. His goal is to use data science and statistical techniques to improve the understanding of the causes and consequences of firearm injury in Oregon.

Tess (she/her) is a Health Services Researcher at the Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC) at the VA Portland Health Care System and a Center affiliate. Tess manages several epidemiologic and health services research projects focused on Veterans’ health, including firearm injury, traumatic brain injury, and suicide prevention. She has extensive experience in extracting and analyzing large electronic health record datasets and works on projects related to data dissemination. Tess earned her Master of Health Science in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Lafferty (she/her) serves as a Qualitative Methodologist at the Portland VA Research Foundation and Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC). Trained as an anthropologist at the University of Melbourne, she has conducted mixed-methods health services research since 2017, first for the University of Michigan School of Nursing, and subsequently for various VA-funded studies. She has expertise in qualitative research, from traditional ethnographic methods to the use of video reflexive ethnography with clinicians. Dr. Lafferty supports Dr. Carlson’s VA program of research on firearm injury prevention among Veterans and works with the Center on a DIPEx project documenting Veterans’ firearm injuries.

Dr. Maxim (she/her) is a researcher at the Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC) at the VA Portland Health Care System and a Center affiliate. She manages a multi-faceted project, funded by VA’s Office of Rural Health, to better understand the rates and context of firearm injuries among Veterans; identify and support implementation of culturally informed strategies to prevent firearm-related injuries and deaths among rural Veterans; and evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies in changing attitudes and behaviors to prevent firearm-related injuries and deaths. Prior to joining CIVIC, Dr. Maxim directed applied research and program evaluation studies focused on public health initiatives, behavioral health treatment, and educational programs. She completed her PhD at Emory University in the clinical psychology program.

Ayanna (she/her) is a current Clinical Psychology PhD student at OHSU under the mentorship of Dr. Kathleen Carlson, Dr. Jeni Johnstone, and Dr. Chris Stauffer. She was born in Hawai’i and raised in Georgia. She earned her B.S. in Neuroscience with a minor in Artificial Intelligence at Agnes Scott College. There she was an undergraduate research assistant in numerous labs exploring novel methods to treat neurological diseases and psychiatric disorders. Her research interests include providing culturally competent care to those seeking psychiatric treatment, sociobehavioral impacts on human health, innovative initiatives for health, mindfulness and meditation, the utilization of micronutrients to treat symptoms related to psychiatric disorders, and exploring psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

Dr. O’Neill (she/her) is an Associated Health Fellow at the Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC) at the Portland VA. She is formally mentored by Drs. Kathleen Carlson and Lauren Denneson and informally mentored by other wonderful researchers. Dr. O’Neill graduated from Portland State University in 2022 with a PhD in Applied Psychology. She is interested in understanding the modifiable risk factors of firearm injury and developing prevention strategies to be delivered from within the VA healthcare system. Her broader program of research has spanned a variety of topics such as examining how romantic partners shape one another’s health, evaluating the impact of supportive supervisor trainings on workers’ and their loved ones’ wellness, and determining what core competencies are needed for professionals working in sexual assault prevention. Her work is thematically unified by her interest in social determinants of health.

Adam (he/they) is a volunteer Research Assistant with the Gun Violence Prevention Research Center. He is a first year MPH student at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, planning to focus on public health policy with respect to the prevention of firearm injury and death. Adam has a background in journalism, and earned his BA in Journalism from the University of Kentucky. He currently works in primary care quality management in Hood River, OR. He is interested in how different policy approaches can be utilized to reduce firearm violence in Oregon and elsewhere in the US.