Dr. Hoffman is a professor and former dean of the College of Social Work, University of Kentucky. She has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator of fourteen state grants resulting in five million dollars in training and evaluation awarded through the College of Social Work Training Resource Center. In addition Dr. Hoffman has served as a curriculum consultant with more than 25 colleges and universities throughout the country all of which require an assessment component. Dr. Hoffman has written two books and is the author or co/author of numerous peer reviewed articles. She has presented nationally and internationally on social work education, building research infrastructures and curriculum development. Earlier in her career she was an evaluator for community based programs, a mental health social worker and a child welfare worker.

Ms. Adi-Brown has worked in the field of child welfare/ family issues for over 30 years. She has worked in a variety of settings including direct service, state level administrator and in the non- profit private arena. She has been a contributor, co-author/producer and participant in many initiatives at the federal, state and community levels. She has presented at state, national and international conferences on the topics of child abuse and neglect and family violence.

Dr. Shannon received her PhD in Social Work from the University of Kentucky. She also earned a Masters in Social Work and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Kentucky. At present, Dr. Shannon is assisting CHES on an evaluation for a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention project funded to enhance and expand asthma care in Kentucky utilizing the EXHALE strategies. Dr. Shannon has over 20 years of research and evaluation experience. She has worked as a faculty member at the University of Kentucky Department for Behavioral Science/Center on Drug and Alcohol Research as well as Morehead State University. She has been involved in federal and state-funded projects examining: outcomes associated with Kentucky Specialty Court participation, outcomes associated with involvement in various community-based treatment/rehabilitative opportunities, and violence against women. Most recently she has been the Principal Investigator for multiple evaluation projects examining outcomes associated with participation in community-based substance abuse treatment services funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Bureau of Justice Administration. Her interests are in the areas of evaluation/outcomes, substance use/abuse, victimization, criminal justice system involvement, and treatment-seeking behaviors.

Maggie joined CHES in 2019 as the Projects Manager.  Now serving as the Director of Programs. She facilitates and conducts data gathering and analysis initiatives, along with providing support and collaborative research assistance across all CHES projects. Maggie assists in project planning, implementation and facilitation. Serving as a research and evaluation assistant for each principal investigator, and as project manager for all CHES projects. Maggie has experience in data analysis in public health and child welfare initiatives, along with promoting public health practices and policy within programs. With a background in legal and professional writing Maggie actively participates in grant writing initiatives and public health research. Her primary areas of interest are promoting public health and healthcare access in lesser privileged regions, along with promoting patient focused maternal and child healthcare. Maggie spends most of her free time somewhere between finishing her Masters degree and traveling to new places with her two pups.  

Melissa Kondor joined CHES in 2020 as a Project Evaluator.  She provides rigorous full project evaluation services, including needs assessment, strategic planning, evaluation design, implementation science, data analysis and reporting.  Her evaluations support data-informed decision-making, internal and external accountability, and determinations of program effectiveness.  She specializes in federally funded public health projects.  

Melissa holds a master’s degree in health education and behavior from the University of Florida.  She has accumulated over 15 years of experience in the fields of public health and health promotion.  Her program planning and evaluation experience ranges from managing strategic campus well-being initiatives at the University of Kentucky, teaching public health program development and evaluation strategies at Florida Atlantic University, launching a non-profit girls’ leadership development program in Eastern Europe, and developing a nation-wide adolescent health education curriculum in the country of Moldova.  The latter of which occurred while she was serving as an international development consultant with the United States Peace Corps. 

Currently with CHES, she is providing implementation and evaluation support in the areas of Integrated HIV Planning, Pediatric Mental Health Care Access, Community Health Worker Training and Engagement, and Environmental Public Health Tracking.

Dr. Hoffman received her PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her Master’s in Education from the University of Maryland at College Park and her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from James Madison College at

Michigan State University. Dr. Hoffman brings her expertise in implementation science, in applied research and evaluation methodologies, and in teaching and learning process to her current role as Project Evaluator for CHES. Currently, she is providing implementation and evaluation support to Kentucky Diabetes Prevention and Control Programs as part of two Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants to the Kentucky Department for Public Health. Dr. Hoffman has over 15 years of implementation and prevention research and evaluation experience. She has worked as an intervention and research specialist on numerous federally funded grants. In addition, Dr. Hoffman has worked as an adjunct professor at the School of Education at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for the Education Department at Meredith College. Dr. Hoffman’s research and evaluation interests include examining, supporting, and integrating evidence-based practices into daily program routines within the public health and public education sectors.

Karen Elizabeth Waddle-Cinnamond, PhD, MSW, has more than 25 years of grant writing and program planning and evaluation experience to the CHES Solutions. She works with the Kentucky Department for Public Health Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Program and the Diabetes Prevention and Control Program on several of their grants from the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC). In her career she has been awarded more than 2.75 million in grants and contracts, including awards from the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Justice, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She completed her PhD in Social Work in 2016 at the University of Kentucky. Her dissertation work was inspired by more than ten years of working with immigrant and farmworker communities with chronic diseases and disabilities in central Kentucky. In her most recent immigrant focused program, she led a team that applied a Community Health Worker/Promotoras de Salud model in the non-traditional environment of Vocational Rehabilitation with a U.S. Department of Education demonstration grant. With this project a team of Promotoras and Vocational Rehabilitation professionals
provided outreach, education, and job training services to farmworkers with disabilities or family members with disabilities in central Kentucky. Two of her proudest accomplishments are earning a BA in Spanish in 2014 and completing an internship at an outpatient mental health clinic in 2010 in Michoacán, Mexico. When returning to the U.S. from this internship, she and her
Promotora team partnered with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Lexington Chapter and provided the evidence-based peer support program Family to Family in Spanish (De
Familia a Familia de NAMI). Currently, she specializes in developing and integrating data collection, management and reporting systems with program planning and evaluation to assist programs to make data-driven decisions that improve program implementation and impact.

As an independent contractor with CHES since 2013, Kellie has worked on curricula development, training, meeting facilitation, strategic planning, and grant writing.   Her primary project involves work with the Appalachian Kentucky Healthcare Access Network (AKHCAN) and Community Health Worker (CHW) programming.  Kellie has over 30 years of experience working in child welfare.   She spent many years working for the Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) as a child protection investigator, ongoing worker, protection specialist and team supervisor.  Kellie has expertise around internet safety and bullying prevention and has delivered training, workshops and plenary presentations on these issues throughout Kentucky and other states for nearly a decade.

Charles is an accounting and financial specialist with over 20 years of experience helping companies achieve financial success through accurate practices. Charles is a founding member of CB Consulting and plays a lead role in the preparation of financial statements, payroll and grant related reports and schedules. Charles has worked in accounting with multiple industries including hotels, landscaping, restaurants, hospitals and various industrial businesses. His expertise is helping small businesses achieve financial success through accurate accounting, forecasting, cash flow analysis, budgeting as well as short and long-term projecting.

Rakel holds a master’s of Public Health degree from the University of West Florida. She has 15 years experience in the fields of corporate wellness, public health and health promotion.Her program planning and evaluation experience was developed as part of her role overseeing state grants for maternal and reproductive health and tobacco cessation and control. She has worked in the private and public sector in a leadership capacity for the Florida Department of Health, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, and HORAN Associates.

Currently with CHES, she is providing implementation and evaluation support in the areas of Maternal Health.

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