Kimberley I. Shoaf, DrPH
Project Principal Investigator

Kim Shoaf is an Associate Professor In-Residence in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA School of Public Health, where she teaches a number of courses in emergency public health. She serves as the Associate Director of the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters, where she has overall responsibility for the Center’s scientific research and training activities.

Kim received her BS degree in Community Health Education from the University of Utah. She received her Master of Public Health degree in Population and Family Health, and her DrPH in Community Health Sciences from UCLA. Her expertise is in the combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies for studying the social and health impacts of disasters as well as the public health response to emergencies.

Dr. Shoaf has published numerous scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and professional publications, specifically in the areas of disasters and emergency public health. Currently, she is an Ad Hoc Reviewer for several publications including Earthquake Spectra, Environmental Hazards, and Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. She recently served as a member of the National Research Council Committee on Disaster Research in the Social Sciences.

Jesse Bliss , MPH

Jesse Bliss is the Director of the Office of Public Health Practice & Workforce Development at the Loma Linda University School of Public Health. He is also the Native American Health Liaison. Mr. Bliss holds a BA in Psychology from La Sierra University and is an alumnus of LLU School of Public Health where he received his MPH in Global Health and graduate certificates in health geoinformatics (GIS for public health) as well as humanitarian assistance. Since the mid 1990s, Jesse has been involved in international service delivery and development work in the Pacific Islands, Central America, and East Africa. As a faculty member in both the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and in Global Health at LLU, his commitment to culturally cognizant public health practice is evident in both his local and internationally focused activities.

One of Jesse’s areas of expertise is Native American health and tribal preparedness. He works directly with tribes as well as through partnerships with NGOs and local county health departments to further disaster preparedness and enhance the environmental health capacity of native tribes. Other areas of expertise include Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and emergency preparedness and response--he has completed the development of a graduate certificate in this field. Areas of interest include cultural and language studies, infectious and communicable disease surveillance and prevention, and international food security/nutrition issues.

Jeffrey S. Oxendine, MPH MBA

Jeff Oxendine is Associate Dean for Public Health Practice at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. He is also a Lecturer and Field Supervisor with the Health Policy and Management Program, and has been an executive, educator, and consultant in healthcare for 23 years.

Prior to joining UC Berkeley, Jeff held senior administrative positions in leading hospitals and medical groups including Partners Healthcare System, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Bay Imaging Consultants Medical Group, and Alta Bates Medical Center. He also started and operates his own consulting practice. Mr. Oxendine holds faculty appointments at the UC Berkeley and Harvard Schools of Public Health, where he teaches healthcare strategy and organization, leadership, practicum, and a capstone seminar.

Jeff is Founder and President of Health Career Connection, a nonprofit organization that assists undergraduate students to discover and pursue health careers. He also founded the Healthcare Change Institute, which is devoted to assisting practitioners to more effectively implement organizational change.

Mr. Oxendine obtained his masters degrees in Business and Public Health from UC Berkeley. He has served as President of the Berkeley Health Management Alumni Association and President of Healthcare Executives of Northern California. Jeff is a board member of the Kaiser Permanente National Institute for Culturally Competent Care and also the Community Health Academy in Oakland. He is an advisory board member of the UCSF Center for Health Professions Grant "LEADing Organizational Change: Advancing Quality Through Culturally Responsive Care,” and is a steering committee member of the Alameda County Coalition on Language Access in Healthcare. 

Robert L. Seidman, PhD

Rob Seidman is an Associate Professor in the Health Services Administration Division of the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University.

Prior to joining the SDSU faculty, Dr. Seidman was an economist with the Office of Research, Health Care Financing Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He spent two years as a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at the School of Hygiene and Public Health, John Hopkins University, and was Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Health Economics, University of York (England).

His scholarly interests and research focuses on public health workforce training and development, health information technology, health data analysis, and economic aspects of hospital and physician reimbursement and performance. Dr. Seidman has been the Principal Investigator and Director on a number of federally funded projects. He teaches graduate classes in Health Economics, Public Issues in Financing Health Care, and Quantitative Methods and Data Analysis.

Valerie Yontz, RN, MPH, PhD

Valerie Yontz is Associate Specialist and Practice Coordinator at the University of Hawaii (UH) Manoa Office of Public Health Studies, Department of Public Health Sciences. Through her experience in the Hawaii community, Dr. Yontz helps make linkages and placements for the university's MPH students' field practica. Valerie's teaching areas include health services, administration, planning, cultural competency, health policy, and gerontology. Valerie has participated in research on aging issues, health disparities, community-based participatory research, public health workforce training, and end-of-life decision making.

Prior to UH, Dr. Yontz worked 10 years at Kokua Kalihi Valley (KKV) Family Comprehensive Services, a federally funded community health center that served low-income public housing residents on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Valerie was the Quality Assurance Officer for this health center and created many major components of KKV’s quality improvement system. As a gerontologist, Valerie’s primary focus was the development of the health center’s highly successful community-based elderly service program. The program became well-known to aging agencies for demonstrating that elders can exercise, eat right, improve their health, and age more successfully while staying longer in their own homes. Valerie has also served as Health Services Director for an assisted living facility and as Hospice Hawaii’s Patient Care Coordinator before joining UH faculty.

Dr. Yontz has worked as an emergency room nurse, home health nurse, tuberculosis monitoring nurse, and nursing consultant. With her transcultural nursing background, she has worked overseas in Liberia, West Africa, training village health workers as a Peace Corps volunteer, and in Thailand, Malaysia, and throughout Southeast Asia, teaching and training Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees about health education topics and healthy behavior practices.