Presenters

Jonathan L. Temte, M.D., Ph.D., is Associate Dean for Public Health and Community Engagement at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health where he also serves as professor of Family Medicine and Community Health. He works directly with the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health and the Wisconsin Area Health Education Centers. He practices and teaches at Wingra Family Medical Center, a federally qualified health center with a very diverse patient population. Dr. Temte has a long history of building bridges between public health and clinical medicine. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, he has been involved with responses at campus, community, state, and national levels. He is the principal investigator of the Wisconsin Influenza Incidence Surveillance Project and the Oregon Child Absenteeism due to Respiratory Disease Study (ORCHARDS). He is also a founder and board member of Health Climate Wisconsin.

Briana Krewson, D.O., M.P.H., (she/her) is a family medicine academic fellow at the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine and Community Health in Madison, WI. She completed her medical degree at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, and residency training in family medicine at UW-Madison. Briana developed her passion for family medicine when she started vegetable gardening, rooting her interests in the connection between the earth and human health. Prior to medical school, she had experiences across the globe that shaped her, including completing her Fulbright Fellowship in Poland, and medical research in subarctic Canada and Alaska. Today, she has multiple areas of interest, including humanism in medicine, lifestyle medicine, osteopathic manipulative treatment, narrative-based medicine, and academic medicine. In her time outside of medicine, she is an enthusiastic vegetable gardener, loves baking desserts, and stays active with yoga and hiking trips with her husband David and dog Jake.

Liz Bush is the Statewide Director of the Wisconsin Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) and faculty in the Master of Public Health Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She provides executive leadership for Wisconsin AHEC’s seven regional centers, guiding statewide initiatives that strengthen community-based health professions training and expand access to primary care in rural and underserved communities. Liz brings more than 20 years of experience in education, community health, and grants management, with previous leadership roles at the University of Wisconsin Online Collaboratives, a national education nonprofit, and the University of New Mexico–Gallup. She began her career as a middle and high school science teacher in rural New Mexico before transitioning to higher education to lead and develop health career pathway programs. Liz serves on several statewide health workforce advisory groups including the Wisconsin Council on Medical Education and Workforce. An AmeriCorps alumna committed to advancing health equity and education, she holds degrees in Psychobiology, Biomedical Anthropology, and Secondary Education.

Dr. Caitlin Carroll is an assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. She is a health economist and specializes in quasi-experimental methods for policy analysis. Her work leverages expertise in statistical analysis of administrative health care data. Dr. Carroll’s research focuses on rural health care markets, including hospital and service line closures, payment reform for rural health care providers and system acquisition of rural hospitals. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Dr. Carroll worked as a research associate at the Urban Institute, specializing in health insurance policy simulation modeling. She completed her Ph.D. at Harvard University and received a B.S. from Tufts University

Carrie Henning-Smith, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.S.W., is an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Co-Director of the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center, and Co-Director of the University of Minnesota Rural Health Program. She is also the Principal Investigator of the NIA-funded Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging (INRPHA). She is the current President of the National Rural Health Association and serves on the Board of Directors for CentraCare, a large, integrated health system serving central Minnesota. Dr. Henning-Smith holds a BA in international relations and gender studies from Claremont McKenna College; master’s degrees in public health and social work, along with a certificate in gerontology from the University of Michigan; and a PhD in health services research with a minor in demography from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Henning-Smith has published extensively in peer-reviewed manuscripts, commentaries, book chapters, and policy briefs, and her work has been widely cited in federal and state policy documents, as well as in national and international media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio, NBC News, AP, CBS, CNN, ProPublica, and Politico. Her research focuses on rural population health and health policy, with a particular emphasis on aging, social well-being, and mental health.

Margarita Northrop (she/her), M.P.H., M.I.P.A., is the policy lead and State Health Plan Coordinator at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Office of Policy and Practice Alignment. Her role includes overall leadership, vision, and policy initiatives for the State Health Improvement Plan and Assessment. In this capacity, she also serves as faculty member for the University of Wisconsin (UW) Population Health Service Fellowship. Margarita earned her Master of Public Health degree at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and Master of International Public Affairs at the UW LaFollette School of Public Affairs. Her background is in social, economic, and public health policy as well as community engagement and data-driven decision making. Margarita’s areas of focus are social and structural determinants of health; health equity; systems and environmental change; and bridging social, economic, and public health policy with community experiences.

Lilli Minor (Meyers) is a Public Health Strategist in the Office of Policy and Practice Alignment (OPPA) in the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (Division of Public Health). In this role, Lilli provides training and technical assistance to local and Tribal health department partners around a wide variety of topics, to include but not limited to strategic planning, community health assessments and improvement planning, data, capacity building, equity, narrative, and more. After graduating with an undergraduate degree in Public Health and Community Health Education from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse (UWL), Lilli worked in non-profit mental health, had the opportunity to work for UWL in a student support role, and worked the COVID-19 response. She credits all these opportunities for providing her with new skills and nourishing her strengths to support her current work. She is joining from her home in Milwaukee, WI, where she enjoys her time with her (new) husband and dog, Lemon.

Kirsten Gundersen works as a Health Equity Strategist in the Office of Policy and Practice Alignment in the Wisconsin Division of Public Health. As a part of her role, she provides health equity-related technical assistance to local and Tribal health departments throughout the state, specializing in building narrative and community organizing skills among the public health workforce. Before beginning a career in public health, she worked as a community organizer for 10 years across the U.S. and Central America, focused on systems change in areas such as healthcare, criminal justice, and immigration. She currently lives with her family in Milwaukee.