Faculty, Staff and Graduate Assistants

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Dr. Kimberley Shoaf is Professor in the Division of Public Health and Associate Chief for Community Engaged Scholarship. She has more than 30 years of experience in public health practice including experience as a health educator, trainer, and researcher. She has particular expertise in program planning and evaluation applicable to both general public health practice and emergency public health. She has worked with more than 50 local health departments in preparing for responding to disasters through training, assessments, and exercises as well as in writing of plans. She has both a research and an educational focus on workforce development within public health and primary care. Dr. Shoaf received her Master of Public Health degree in Population and Family Health and a DrPH in Community Health Sciences from the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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As both a social and behavioral scientist and a seasoned public health practitioner, my research tends to focus on the implementation of public health interventions in the real world. I spent 12 years at the Utah Department of Health in maternal and child health and in public health preparedness as an analyst, program director, and administrator. After transitioning to academia in 2010, I was a PI and co-investigator on several community-based research projects in India and Africa in the areas of gender and health, violence against women, child nutrition, and water sanitation and hygiene. I conducted a demographic and health surveys in India and Bolivia and a community-based household survey on violence against women in India. I have strong research partners in India and Ghana, and served at the Ensign College of Public Health. I teach graduate courses in Global Health, Program Planning and Evaluation, and Capstone Research. As researcher, my strengths are in survey design, qualitative methods, community health assessment, and participatory appraisals.

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Jennifer Coombs, PA-C, PhD focuses her practice on refugee and migrant health. Her particular interest has been working as a Physician Assistant (PA) at the Community Health Centers for 14 years with Vietnamese Refugees. She works with the Migrant Farm Worker Health program each summer doing Head Start Physicals in conjunction with PA students throughout the state of Utah. She volunteers at the Maliheh Free Clinic and the Student Run Clinic. She is board certified by the National Commission on Certification of PAs (NCCPA). She received her PA degree from the University of Utah and her PhD in Public Health from the University of Utah Public Health Division. Her teaching interests are women's health and evidenced based practice.