Our Team
Deborah L. Crabbe, MD, FACC, FAHA
Dr. Crabbe is a Professor of Medicine and a member of the Temple Heart and Vascular Institute at Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. She is a graduate of Howard University College of Medicine where she received a Doctor of Medicine degree. She is a practicing cardiologist with over 20 years of experience in caring for patients who are high risk for cardiovascular disease. She is a recipient of research awards given through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for the training of minority scientists. She has devoted her career toward advancing the knowledge and understanding of the importance of heart disease in the everyday lives of women and to reduce racial disparities in cardiovascular disease. To this end, she has worked within her institution and her local community in the development of programs, which help bridge the gap in cardiac health care for women through research, patient care, education, and advocacy. She has championed an agenda to develop effective programs focused on increasing awareness of CVD as a major health concern among at risk minority women in North Philadelphia, to educate health care providers on CVD prevention strategies for at risk minority women, and to increase access to clinical trials that study cardiovascular conditions that disproportionately effect African Americans and women. She serves as the Director for Womenheart, Philadelphia and serves as the Project Lead on the PCORI funded project: Building Capacity for a PCOR Agenda on Racial and Sex-Specific Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease in COVID-19.
Heather Gardiner, PhD
Dr. Gardiner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. She holds Directorships for both the Health Disparities Research Lab and the Office of Community Engaged Research and Practice in Temple University’s College of Public Health. She leads the growth of engagement efforts across the College of Public Health. Her research interests lie at the intersections of interpersonal health communication, chronic kidney disease, and organ donation and transplantation. She also serves as Co-Investigator on multiple federally funded research studies to evaluate hospital development and behavioral communication interventions to increase solid organ donation and examine the ethical, legal, and social issues of organ and tissue donation for transplantation and medical research/biobanking purposes. She serves as the Co-lead on the PCORI funded project: Building Capacity for a PCOR Agenda on Racial and Sex-Specific Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease in COVID-19.
Alice Hausman, PhD, MPH
Alice J. Hausman, PhD (Anthropology, Binghamton University), MPH (Population Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Health Services Research and Policy, Temple University College of Public Health. Throughout her career at Temple, she taught in the area of public health practice, including program planning and evaluation. She held several leadership roles, including department Chair, founding Senior Director of the Office of Practice and Engagement (now called the Office of Clinical Practice and Field Education), and founder of the North Philadelphia Health Improvement Collaborative (NPHIC, an academic-community partnership forged to address obesity and health literacy. Her research is centered in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) principles and techniques. Her research has translated to practice through the development of methods that aim to add community voice into the science of community public health. Now in her retirement, she continues to be an advocate for integrating community voice into the science and policies of creating healthy communities through ongoing research, board leadership in a collective philanthropy, and working with individual grassroots community organizations.
Briana Richardson, MPH
Ms. Richardson serves as the research associate for the Office of Community Engaged Research and Practice and program coordinator for PCORI funded project: Building Capacity for a PCOR Agenda on Racial and Sex-Specific Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease in COVID-19 initiative. She serves an integral role in data collection and analysis, community engagement, and project coordination. Ms. Richardson earned a Bachelor of Science degree in anthropology and human biology from Emory University, where she also developed a diverse skillset in neurology biomedical research. Briana also holds a master’s degree in Public Health with a major in Global Health from the Keck School of Medicine at USC. She has a background in community engagement through her work as the research and training specialist at Jumpstart, a non-profit organization providing early childhood education to underserved communities. Briana also has a strong background in health promotion and public health research through her work with the Champions for Change program based out of the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Briana’s research interests lie at the intersection of health disparities, mental health, and global health. She demonstrated her passion and competence in these areas as an Anderson Fellow in USC’s Institute of Inequalities in Global Health and through her work for the Ministry of Health in Corredores, Costa Rica, who are currently using her work to intervene on adolescent suicide in the region.
Amy R. Confair, MPH
Amy Confair joined the Temple University College of Public Health in July 2020 as Assistant Director of the office of Community Engaged Research & Practice (CERP). Amy completed her Master of Public Health with a graduate certificate in Community Based Public Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Lehigh University where she completed an honors thesis on narrative memory and well-being. Amy has 15 years of public health research experience (mostly in Philadelphia). She was most recently the Outreach and Training Manager at Drexel’s Dornsife School of Public Health. In that role she supported the Urban Health Collaborative and the school’s Research Office. She is dedicated to increasing the relevancy and usefulness of research, policy, and practice by connecting the community (the intended beneficiaries of research) with researchers and decision makers and bridging the gap between academia and practice.
As the Assistant Director of CERP, Amy engages with community partners and various stakeholder groups; builds capacity for community engaged research among CPH faculty and staff, local community-based organizations, and lay community members; provides technical assistance; and helps identify funding opportunities and contributes to grant applications.
Elyse Castillo
Elyse Castillo serves as the Department Coordinator for the Office of Community-Engaged Research and Practice. She has served in various leadership roles in the non-profit community and business community. She brings a wide range of skills to the collaborative. Her expertise includes skills working with neighborhood civic organizations and individuals to create fundraisers, participate in decision-making, and managing the social media accounts for various community initiatives. She has extensive experience in using social media platforms to engage and connect with wider community audiences. She has used these skills to advance community engagement and support capacity building with North Philadelphia community stakeholders facilitating partnerships for the office.