Project Team
The CAFEH project team includes staff (oversight, management, field, clinic, research, graduate students and student interns), our steering committee and advisory board, and additional research collaborators.
Doug Brugge
University Connecticut School of Medicine
Doug Brugge is currently the chair for the Department of Community Medicine and Health Care at University of Connecticut School of Medicine.
His research has largely employed the model of community-based participatory research and methodologically has involved focus groups, oral histories, surveys, environmental sampling and clinical assessment.
He serves as the Principal Investigator for the original CAFEH study, Project 4 of the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study, and for the Kresge-funded work.
Ellin Reisner
Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership
Ellin Reisner is the President of the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership, an organization of community residents working to improve transportation and air quality for residents and workers in Somerville.
Ellin worked at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in a variety of training, workforce planning and community relations positions.
She is a sociologist who consults and conducts research on Human Resources, transportation, organizational, and work and family issues.
John Durant
Tufts University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
John Durant is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University.
Dr. Durant received his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been teaching at Tufts University since 2001.
His research interest areas include air pollution monitoring and modeling, effect-directed analysis of environmental samples, and chemical exchange between surface waters and aquatic sediments.
Lydia Lowe
Chinatown Community Land Trust
Lydia Lowe has 39 years of local organizing roots and is the Executive Director of the Chinatown Community Land Trust. Chinatown CLT works to stabilize the future of Chinatown as a neighborhood for working class families and a regional hub for the Chinese community through community control of the land, development without displacement, permanently affordable housing, and shared neighborhood spaces. Lydia has worked with residents, owners, and government agencies to preserve more than 1,000 units of low income housing. She is a co-founder of Friends of the Chinatown Library, the Chinatown Master Plan Committee, The Chinatown Coalition, and Right to the City Boston. She serves on Mayor Walsh's Housing Advisory Committee and the Community Advisory Board of UMass/Boston's Institute for Asian American Studies.
photo by Adam DeTour
Wig Zamore
Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership
Wig Zamore is a 1986 graduate of MIT’s DUSP who focuses much of his personal time on the continuum of issues that revolve around urban economic development, regional transportation, environmental quality, and local public health.
In Somerville MA, he has been an advocate for dense transit-oriented development and a leader in successful campaigns for a new Orange Line subway stop and dense mixed use development at Assembly Square as well as two new Green Line light rail branches.
Wig is currently Chair of Somerville’s Union Square Civic Advisory Committee. Regionally, Wig has been a longtime member of the MBTA Rider Oversight Committee and the Logan Airport Citizens Advisory Committee.
Barry Keppard
Metropolitan Area Planning Council
Barry Keppard is currently the Manager of the Public Health Division at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC). He supervises and provides technical assistance on MAPC’s chronic disease prevention and community wellness projects, including the Community Transformation Grant for Middlesex County.
Previously, he was a Senior Regional Planner with MAPC and lead work for the implementation of the MetroFuture Plan through a combination of public health, land use, environmental, and transportation planning projects.
Sharon Ron
Metropolitan Area Planning Council
Sharon Ron is currently a Public Health Planner on the Public Health team at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) where she works to promote healthy communities across the region. Sharon’s work at MAPC addresses the policy, systems, and environmental conditions which lead to health outcomes and disparities in the region. Her work includes needs assessments of social determinants, such as transportation and workforce development, health impact assessments, and integrating public health data, processes, and perspective into local planning and land use decision-making.
Areas of expertise include social determinants of health; public health and land use planning; facilitation and engagement; data management, analysis, and visualization; and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
Sharon received her Master’s in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University and her BA from Williams College.
Linda Martinez
Boston University
Linda Sprague Martinez, PhD is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Macro Social Work at the Boston University School of Social Work. Dr. Sprague Martinez employs participatory research approaches to partner with residents and to improve living environments and health. She is specifically interested in examining asset-based strategies to tackle health inequities; as such community engaged research (CEnR) approaches like community based participatory research (CBPR) and youth led participatory action research (YPAR) are central to her work. In 2017 she was a Boston Housing Authority, Center for Community Engagement and Civil Rights, Resident Empowerment Coalition, Resident Empowerment Honoree. Dr. Sprague Martinez has expertise in urban health; community, student and youth engaged research; photovoice; community assessment and mobilization; and qualitative research methods and analyses.
Sabrina Kurtz-Rossi
Tufts University Department of Public Health and Community Medicine
Sabrina Kurtz-Rossi, M.Ed., is Assistant Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and Director of the Health Literacy Leadership Institute, an advanced professional development program working to transform health and health care across the globe. Ms. Kurtz-Rossi is recognized for her work to improve health communication, develop easy-to-read health information, and promote health equity working across cultures. Her work is informed by adult education theory and practice, and is driven by her belief in education for transformational change. As a Health Literacy practitioner, she offers plain language writing, editing and audience-centered materials development services, and mentor health professionals how to communicate in ways people can understand and use to take action for their health.
Tufts University President Anthony Monaco at a recent meeting with a diverse group of collaborators on the CAFEH project (March 27, 2014)