About Us

Yhenneko Taylor, PhD
Co-Director
Assistant Vice President, Analytics and Outcomes Research
Adjunct Associate Professor, Social Sciences and Health Policy

Dr. Yhenneko Taylor is Assistant Vice President for Analytics and Outcomes Research at Atrium Health, Co-Director of the Center for Health System Sciences and Adjunct Associate Professor of Social Sciences and Health Policy at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She previously served as founding director of the health services research program within the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, where she led an interdisciplinary team that collaborated with clinicians and other stakeholders to improve care delivery and patient outcomes by conducting real-world studies leveraging quantitative and qualitative research methods. As a health equity researcher, she studies access to care and outcomes of pregnancy, social determinants of health and health care needs of people who are medically underserved and has published more than sixty peer-reviewed articles on these topics. Dr. Taylor received her Masters in Statistics from North Carolina State University and her PhD in Health Services Research from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she is associate graduate faculty and member of the Public Health Advisory Board.
Graduate School: PhD, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Graduate School: MStat, North Carolina State University

Explore Dr. Taylor's research:

• PubMed Bibliography

Nicholas M. Pajewski, PhD
Co-Director
Associate Professor, Biostatistics and Data Science
Director of Statistical Analytics, Center for Health Care Innovation
Associate Director, Center for Biomedical Informatics

Dr. Pajewski is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where he also serves as the Director of Statistical Analytics for the Center for Health Care Innovation and Associate Director for the Center for Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Pajewski’s research interests broadly span biostatistics, clinical informatics and the conduct of traditional and pragmatic clinical trials. He is a member of the National Institute on Aging AD/ADRD Health Care Systems (IMPACT) Collaboratory, the National Coordinating Center for the Pepper Older Americans Independence Centers and has over 10 years’ experience working as part of Data Coordinating Centers for large, multi-site randomized trials, largely focused on pharmacologic management of common chronic diseases.  
Graduate School: PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin 

Marc Kowalkowski, PhD
Associate Director            
Associate Professor, Internal Medicine 
Associate Chief for Research, Section of Hospital Medicine

Dr. Kowalkowski is an experienced health services researcher studying the development and implementation of complex care innovations to address health system-critical questions. His research applies epidemiology, pragmatic methods and care delivery sciences to improve health care quality and outcomes for patients hospitalized with sepsis and other acute conditions. He has received funding for his research from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institutes of Health, PCORI and the Duke Endowment. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has received research awards from AcademyHealth, Society of Critical Care Medicine and Society of Hospital Medicine.
Graduate School: PhD, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Graduate School: MS, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Explore Dr. Kowalkowski's research:

• PubMed Publication

Tara Eaton, PhD, MA
Associate Director and Lead Scientist for Qualitative Research 
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Implementation Science  

Dr. Eaton is an applied anthropologist and health services researcher. Her research interests include the design and evaluation of innovations, new care delivery models, telehealth, health information technology, implementation science, organizational change, health disparities and the advance of qualitative methodology in research. With more than 20 years conducting qualitative research in a wide range of settings and industries, Dr. Eaton has worked on numerous grants and projects. She holds multiple Diversity, Equity and Inclusion roles for the system and is a planning committee member of the newly formed Asian Heritage & Allies System Resource Group. Dr. Eaton is adjunct faculty in the Department of Implementation Science at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. 
Graduate School: PhD, Wayne State University
Graduate School: MA, Wayne State University

Explore Dr. Eaton's research:

• Google Scholar

C. Danielle Connor, MPH
Intermediate Health Services Researcher

Danielle Connor is an Intermediate Health Services Researcher for CHASSIS. She has contributed to qualitative and survey-based projects in multiple research areas including maternal health disparities and virtual care. Her research interests include health care access, patient education and technology in health care. Danielle received her Master of Public Health degree from UNC-Charlotte and is a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES®). 
Graduate School: MPH, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Explore C. Danielle's research:

• Google Scholar

Asha Ganesan
Project Manager II

Asha Ganesan joined The Center for Health System Sciences (CHASSIS) in January 2023. Asha obtained a PhD in immunology from University of Southampton, UK. She completed her postdoctoral research at Thomas Jefferson University and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania investigating the processing and presentation of MHC-II-restricted influenza derived viral epitopes. Prior to joining CHASSIS, she has grants management and lab operations management experience. With her research administration skills, she manages both federal and foundation sponsored projects focusing on patient outcomes improvement initiatives.  
Graduate School: PhD, University of Southampton, UK

Tim Hetherington
Data Team Manager

Before joining Atrium Health in 2017, Tim Hetherington began his career in the home improvement industry working on an omnichannel analytics team. Currently, he is responsible for leading the data management team, which provides services for research projects varying in scope. A notable contribution is his support for a project investigating a standardized care plan for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 
Graduate School: MS, North Carolina State University

Explore Tim's research:

• Google Scholar

McKenzie Isreal
Project Manager I

McKenzie joined CHASSIS at the beginning of 2023 as a project manager to support the center with grant submissions and management. Prior to joining Atrium, McKenzie worked as a program coordinator developing programming to promote safe sex education on a university campus as well as media development for public health care campaigns. She has also served as a program manager for a non-profit to support oncology patients find resources to improve their social determinants of health. Her research interests include maternal health outcomes, health disparities and population health management.
Graduate School: MPH, University of South Carolina 

Kristin M. Lenoir, MPH
Biostatistician IV 

Kristin Lenoir is a PhD candidate in Health Services Research and has spent her career working in the public health sector in a variety of capacities, which has provided a comprehensive understanding of both population health and research. She specializes in using electronic health record data for observational studies in collaboration with numerous internal and external investigators. Her own research focuses on how our experiences and exposures shape our health and health care utilization in older age (informatics, chronic disease, diabetes, frailty and social determinants of health.) 
Graduate School: PhD Candidate, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (expected graduation: May 2024)
Graduate School: MPH, University of Pittsburgh

Explore Kristin's research

Tsai-Ling (Ginger) Liu, PhD, MSPH
Data Scientist

Dr. Liu has been at Atrium Health since 2016. Her educational background is in health services research with an emphasis on quantitative outcomes research. Her experience includes analyzing survey data, claims data and electronic medical records via Atrium Health’s electronic data warehouse. Dr. Liu’s research interests include telehealth, health disparities and chronic disease management. In her current role at CHASSIS, she focuses on improving outcomes for older patients, particularly those living with dementia, aiming at providing the best health care services to these patients. Her most recent work involves mixed methods research to evaluate the effectiveness of a navigator program for patients with dementia, including those in a rural setting.
Graduate School: PhD, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
Graduate School: MSPH, National Yang-Ming University

Explore Dr. Liu's research:

• PubMed Publication
• Google Scholar

Rohan Mahabaleshwarkar, PhD
Senior Data Scientist

Dr. Mahabaleshwarkar joined Atrium Health in 2014. He has a background and interest in public health research, specifically the evaluation and implementation of interventions to improve primary care delivery for patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. He is also interested in conducting research on outcomes and receipt of guideline-concordant care in patients with chronic diseases, to identify groups at risk of not receiving recommended care and experiencing suboptimal outcomes and understand where the need of interventions is and what type of interventions are needed. 
Graduate School: PhD, University of Mississippi
Graduate School: MS, St. John’s University

Explore Dr. Mahabaleshwarkar's research:

• Google Scholar

Hieu Nguyen, MS
Senior Statistician  

Before joining CHASSIS in 2020, Hieu Nguyen started his career as a data scientist in the computer hardware industry. Now at CHASSIS, he provides support with statistical design and analysis for a range of studies. He also contributes to data science-related initiatives including forecasting the COVID-19 hospital census, predicting hypertension risks and text-mining unstructured EHRs. 
Graduate School: Colorado State University, Fort Collins 

Dawn Parks
Administrative Assistant 

Before joining Atrium Health in 2019, Dawn spent much of her career in the telecommunications and manufacturing industries as an executive assistant, manager and corporate trainer. At CHASSIS, she organizes the team by scheduling multi-team meetings, candidate and internship candidates and CHASSIS Grand Rounds. Dawn also runs business reports, processes financial documents and assists the project management team with critical documentation tasks, including the creation of electronic forms to streamline team communications.

Jason Roberge, PhD, MPH
Senior Data Scientist

Dr. Roberge has been designing, managing and analyzing epidemiologic studies for more than 17 years. He has worked at Atrium Health for 11 years and his current role as senior data scientist focuses on assessing initiatives that seek to improve outcomes for patients in the department of psychiatry. He is the PI on two clinical trials which are assessing virtual care services for patients discharged from a behavioral health hospital and for patients seen in primary care with severe depression/anxiety.  
Graduate School: PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin 
Graduate School: MPH, Emory University

Explore Roberge's research:

• PubMed Publication

Timothy Rogers
Senior Data Developer

Prior to joining CHASSIS in 2023, Tim Rogers was Lead Systems Operations Engineer with Wells Fargo where he was an application manager and supported metrics reporting for CCIBT (Commercial and Corporate & Investment Banking Technology). Prior to this Tim worked as an Implementation Engineer with Mckesson installing and configuring Health Information Systems for large health care organizations. Currently, at CHASSIS, he provides data management support for a range of projects.  

Casey Stephens, MPH
Intermediate Health Services Researcher 

Casey Stephens joined Atrium Health in January 2017. She has developed and managed databases, collaborated/designed psychometric surveys and has performed statistical analyses on numerous projects. Casey also co-leads the CHASSIS Summer Internship program, which takes the interns from orientation to successfully publishing manuscripts. She continues to collaborate with physicians across the health care system and is excited to be a part of the CHASSIS research group. Casey will be graduating with her PhD in Health Services Research in May 2024.
Graduate School: MPH, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Explore Casey's research:

• Google Scholar