Presenters

John Eich joined the Office of Rural Health in 2005 as a Program Manager of the Rural Community Initiatives, and was appointed Director in 2006. His experience and skills are primarily in community development, program planning, systems analysis and design.

John came to the Office of Rural Health from southern New Mexico, where he directed a county Health Council—a public/private partnership that assessed community health and wellness needs, established priorities, then built and maintained coalitions to strategically plan and implement projects. They also served as a resource to and advocate for the county on a regional and statewide basis.

John grew up in rural Wisconsin, dividing his spare time between doing chores and hiding from them with a good book.

Diane M. Hall, Ph.D., M.S.Ed., is the Director of the Office of Rural Health in CDC’s National Center for STLT Public Health Infrastructure and Workforce.

Before joining the Public Health Infrastructure Center, Dr. Hall was a senior health scientist in the CDC’s Office of the Associate Director for Policy and Strategy (OADPS), where she led the office’s Strategic Engagement and Capacity Building work. She served as CDC’s rural health lead, led the agency’s public-private partnerships work, and oversaw training activities focused on using policy to improve the population’s health. As a recognized expert in knowledge synthesis and translation, Dr. Hall led the development of the office’s policy portal, POLARIS (Policy Analysis and Research Information System). Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Hall held several leadership positions within CDC’s response.

Previously, Dr. Hall held several positions in the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, where she worked on research related to the prevention of teen dating violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and youth violence. She also served as the lead of several translation products on Veto Violence.

Prior to coming to the CDC, Diane held an academic appointment at the University of Pennsylvania, serving as the lead coordinator for a master’s program in psychology. She taught courses on theories of psychotherapy and counseling, the psychology of women, and adolescent development.

Diane earned her B.A. in Psychology from Hollins College (now Hollins University) and earned her M.S.Ed. in psychological services and her Ph.D. in school, community, and child clinical psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Michael Meit serves as Director of the East Tennessee State University Center for Rural Health Research, located in the Appalachian Highlands of Northeast Tennessee. Michael also retains a role as a Senior Fellow in NORC at the University of Chicago’s Public Health Research Department and serves as Deputy Director for ETSU’s HRSA-funded rural health research center, the ETSU/NORC Rural Health Equity Research Center. Michael currently leads studies focused on the evaluation of rural health programs, health equity, opioid misuse, and food insecurity, among others.

Michael has experience working at both the state and national levels, first with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and then with the National Association of County and City Health Officials. He served as the founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Rural Health Practice, and as Co-Director of NORC’s Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis. He has served on the Boards of Directors of the National Rural Health Association, the Pennsylvania Public Health Association, and the Maryland Rural Health Association. He currently serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, the Journal of Appalachian Health, and Public Health Reports. In 2019 Michael was named the National Rural Health Association’s Outstanding Researcher.

James Small is a 30-year veteran emergency responder. James took a curiosity of how teams and organizations functioned and applied this during his 11 years as a municipal public safety administrator where he served as Fire Chief and Police Chief before retiring in 2023. James presently works at the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health developing solutions to Wisconsin's EMS crisis.

 In 2020, his team won the Wisconsin Policy Forum's Salute to Local Government Award which recognized a response system with high employee retention, exceptional street-level outcomes, and conservative financial costs.  James was recognized as one of 10 Innovative Police Leaders of 2022 by a national publication and was named Wisconsin Fire Chief of the Year in 2023 recognizing his work at the inclusion of females in public safety roles. 

James served on the Wisconsin Legislative Council Study Committee on Fire and EMS volunteers.  He presently serves under gubernatorial appointment to the Wisconsin EMS Board and is chairperson of the EMS Board's Rural EMS Sub-committee.

Danielle Yancey serves as the Native American Center for Health Professions’s Director. She is a descendant of the Menominee and Santee Sioux Nations and was raised on the Menominee Indian reservation in north-central Wisconsin. Yancey has many years of experience serving tribal communities in college readiness, intergovernmental affairs, and community and economic development.

She is a graduate of UW–Madison where her studies included a Bachelor of Arts degree in social welfare and women’s studies and a master of science in urban and regional planning. She earned a graduate certificate in sustainability leadership from Edgewood College

Christa Cupp, M.P.H., MCHES, is a Public Health Educator for the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, Office of Policy and Practice Alignment. She serves as the Western Region Director in the Wisconsin Division of Public Health. Her current role includes providing technical assistance to local and tribal health departments in the Western Region such as supporting community health assessment and improvement plans, promoting the National Public Health Performance Standards, and building public health system capacity. Christa is a 2010 B.S.-CHE graduate from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and an M.P.H. graduate from the Medical College of Wisconsin. She became MCHES-certified in 2016.

Kaleen Kahl, M.S., CLC, is the Public Health Strategist for the Southern Region Office of Policy and Practice Alignment (OPPA) within the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Public Health. Kaleen holds a B.S. in Kinesiology and a M.S. in Exercise & Wellness, both from Arizona State University. Before returning to Wisconsin and joining OPPA in 2021, Kaleen worked in public and private health in Arizona for over 15 years.  She held positions with the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, the Arizona Department of Health Services, the March of Dimes, and other non-profit and private healthcare organizations. In her role within OPPA, Kaleen enjoys building relationships with local and tribal health departments and strives to reduce health disparities through her work.

Gabrielle (Brie) Lentz is a Public Health Strategist with the Northeast Region Office of Policy and Practice Alignment (OPPA) at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Public Health. In her role, Brie provides technical assistance to local and tribal health department staff on a variety of tasks such as strategic planning, community health assessments, community health improvement plans, and capacity building. She also serves on the OPPA workforce development team and has completed her Community Health Worker certification. Before joining OPPA, Brie worked for a local public health department on the Western side of the state.

Ryan McKelley, Ph.D., LP, HSPRyan A. McKelley has a reputation for being able to translate research and academic concepts into practical information that audiences can implement in their own lives. A licensed psychologist and full professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, McKelley teaches courses on health psychology, behavior modification, abnormal psychology, group counseling, and men and masculinities. He also maintains a small private practice consisting of individual therapy and clinical supervision of trainees.

McKelley is a former President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinities and a member of the Society for Health Psychology, both divisions of the American Psychological Association. Specific research and presentation topics include men’s help-seeking, alternative treatment models, nontraditional work and family roles, fatherhood, men and depression, marketing mental health and various areas of health psychology.

McKelley has been interviewed extensively in the area of mental health and changing gender roles. In the last few years, he has been quoted in print outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and local papers in both the United States and Australia. McKelley has also appeared on several radio stations and podcasts such as National Public Radio and ABC Radio News. McKelley’s TEDx talk, “Unmasking Masculinity: Helping Boys Become Connected Men,” has been viewed over 200,000 times.

Margarita Northrop (she/her), M.P.H., MIPA, is the State Health Plan Coordinator at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS), Office of Policy and Practice Alignment (OPPA). Much of her role revolves around facilitating the implementation of the State Health Improvement Plan and supporting partner engagement in the State Health Assessment. She earned her Master of Public Health degree at the University of Wisconsin (UW) School of Medicine and Public Health and Master of International Public Affairs at the UW LaFollette School of Public Affairs. Margarita has a background in social, economic, and public health policy as well as community engagement and data-driven decision-making. She also served as a University of Wisconsin Population Health Fellow before permanently joining the DHS team. Margarita’s areas of focus are social determinants of health; health equity; systems and environmental change; and bridging social, economic, and public health policy with community experiences.

Paula Tran, M.P.H. serves as the State Health Officer and Administrator of the Division of Public Health at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. In this role, she leads the vision for statewide public health and health equity strategies. The Division of Public Health includes the following eight Bureaus and Offices: Aging and Disability Resources, Communicable Diseases, Community Health Promotion, Environmental and Occupational Health, Health Informatics, Operations, Policy and Practice Alignment, Preparedness, and Emergency Health Care. Her public health experience has focused on exploring and strategizing ways to embed health equity and empowerment concepts into public health practice, policies, and scholarship.

Before joining the Department of Health Services, Paula served in a variety of roles with government, nonprofits, and academic organizations. Through her tenure at these organizations, she has led and developed community-engaged research projects, statewide health equity efforts, and cross-sector alliances, and provided training and technical assistance to affect the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health to advance health equity. Paula has her Master of Public Health degree and Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Emily Wievel graduated in 2011 from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with a bachelor’s degree in gender studies and a Spanish minor. She made her way into Public Health shortly after graduating. She has worked as a Harm Reduction Prevention Specialist for a nonprofit, an Adolescent Health Educator for a county health department, and is currently a Public Health Strategist for the Office of Policy and Practice Alignment with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.