Institute Director:
Maria Isabel Roldós, DrPH
mariaisabel.roldos@lehman.cuny.edu
Associate Professor
Department of Health Sciences
Lehman College
Dr. Maria-Isabel Roldós is an Associate Professor with the Department of Health Services Administration at the School of Health Sciences, Human Services & Nursing at Lehman College. Prior joining Lehman in 2020, she served in various U.S. federal institutions including NIH and CDC, as well as held high leadership positions in the implementation of population-based projects including: country director of a USAID project related to capacity building of civil society organization (CSOs); Associate Dean of the School of Public Health and co-founder of the Schools of Medicine and Public Health’s Global Health program; and as Health Commissioner of the capital of Ecuador-Quito (2014-2016). As Health Commissioner, supervised over 450 people, with a network of primary health care clinics, 3 hospitals, and an array of health promotion and disease prevention projects and an annual budget of over USD $30 million.
Scientific Research Associate Director:
Judith Aponte, PhD, RN, CDE, CCM, APHN-BC, FAAN
jap@hunter.cuny.edu
Associate Professor
Department of Nursing
Hunter College
Dr. Judith Aponte is a tenured Associate Professor and Specialization Coordinator of the Community/Public Health Nursing (MS) Graduate Program at Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, Hunter College. Her research has been on: prediabetes, diabetes and its risk-factors among Hispanics and Hispanic subgroups. Dr. Aponte has also conducted research on health disparities among vulnerable, monolingual (Spanish-speaking only or English-speaking only) and/or bilingual (English/Spanish) Hispanic populations. Her experience is in community-based participatory research and chronic disease management, using quantitative and qualitative methods. Dr. Aponte's publications, presentations, and research have allowed her to educate students, clinicians, scholars, and educators about prediabetes, diabetes and its risk-factors. In her research, she has collaborated with faculty members from nursing and other disciplines. Dr. Aponte has also included undergraduate and graduate nursing and non-nursing students in her different quantitative and qualitative studies; and have been key members of her research team and have co-authored articles with her resulting from the research.
Capacity Building Associate Director:
Jaye Jones, PhD
jaye.jones@lehman.cuny.edu
Interim Associate Dean
School of Health Sciences, Human Services and Nursing
Lehman College
Dr. Jaye Jones is currently the Interim Associate Dean of the School of Health Sciences, Human Services & Nursing at Lehman College. Prior to coming to Lehman 9 years ago, Dr. Jones held leadership positions in the non-profit sector; at Lehman she was Executive Director of the Institute for Literacy Studies and director of the Adult Learning Center. In these various roles, Dr. Jones has gained experience creating and coordinating inclusive community networks that embrace collaboration and nurture potential.
Data Analytics & Knowledge-Transfer Associate Director:
John Orazem, PhD
john.orazem@lehman.cuny.edu
Adjunct Professor and Biostatistician
Department of Health Sciences
Lehman College
Dr. John Orazem is an adjunct professor with the Department of Health Sciences and serves as a statistical consultant within the School of Health Sciences, Human Services and Nursing at Lehman College. He received an MS and PhD in Biostatistics at Columbia University, and has worked for 30 years as a statistical scientist in the pharmaceutical industry and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Orazem has contributed to clinical drug development in diverse therapeutic areas, incorporating specialized adaptive designs that permit early termination, innovative simulation-based approaches to sample size determination, and novel methods to assess the robustness of analyses in the presence of missing data. He also designed complex models to investigate medical record databases and to assess causality within observational studies. His current work is focused on analyzing complex secondary data sources (e.g., NHANES) within the public health and exercise science domains.
