Preschool & Me Research Team
Reshma Shah, MD, MPH, FAAP, Principal Investigator
Professor of Pediatrics
reshmamd@uic.edu
Dr. Shah is a physician-scientist, a Professor of Pediatrics, and a practicing developmental and behavioral pediatrician at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Dr. Shah's research aims to improve how young children with developmental delays and disabilities access the educational, healthcare, and community services they need to thrive. Her research develops, evaluates, and implements strategies that strengthen connections across pediatric healthcare, childhood education, and community systems to improve timely access to developmental and therapeutic services. She has particular interests in healthcare-community partnerships, family navigation, and early childhood service systems, with a focus on reducing barriers to care and promoting equitable access for children and families. Using implementation science, longitudinal cohort methods, mixed-methods research, and community-engaged partnerships, her work designs and evaluates scalable interventions that strengthen developmental service systems and improve outcomes for children and families. Read more
Kruti Acharya, MD, Co-Investigator
Dr. Acharya is Director of the Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) Program (illinoislend.org), an interdisciplinary graduate-level training program to develop leaders to care and advocate for individuals with disability, funded through the Maternal Child Health Bureau. Her research themes are 1) the role of childhood, family and community adversity in the health disparities experienced by individuals with disabilities and 2) the ethics of genetic testing for disability in various contexts. As a physician, Dr. Acharya cares for individuals with developmental disabilities using a lifespan perspective from childhood to adulthood. She is particularly interested in supporting adolescents and young adults with developmental disabilities as they transition to adult-systems of care and beyond. Read more
Sarai Coba-Rodriguez, PhD, CLFE, Co-Investigator
Dr. Coba-Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor in Human Development and Learning at the Department of Educational Psychology. Her research centers on presenting a more complex, dynamic, and resilient picture of how racially-linguistically diverse families with young children support their children’s successful transition to kindergarten. Her qualitative research emphasizes families’ strengths, cultural resources, and agency in promoting their children’s education. She is also the Co-PI on a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant that seeks to elevate the voices of parents whose children have been excluded from child care following a 2018 Illinois law barring the use of expulsion. To learn more about her work, please visit her lab page, The Diverse Families and School Readiness Lab, which Dr. Coba directs. Read more
Kathleen Diviak, PhD, Co-Investigator
Dr. Diviak, is a clinical health psychologist with over two decades experience in longitudinal health research. Dr. Diviak has expertise in clinical trial data collection and management, developing intervention protocols, training and supervising research staff, and assessing intervention fidelity. In addition, she has expertise in Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA), informed consent, and survey development. Dr. Diviak has specific interest in ensuring that our research protocols and processes support high quality science and fit into the lives of the people who engage in the health behaviors or live with the health conditions we are studying. Read more
Molly Martin, MD, MAPP, Co-Investigator
Dr. Martin is a Professor of Pediatrics and a Fellow in the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago. Dr. Martin is an established leader in the fields of implementation science and behavioral intervention design and testing, especially as they relate to community health workers. She is also active in local and national policy efforts that target health inequities. Her research focuses on community models to improve health. Dr. Martin is the Director of the UIC Center for Clinical and Translational Science Pilot Grant Program and an Associate Director in the UIC Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science. She is particularly interested in asthma, oral health and COVID-19 in children. Dr. Martin has been the principal investigator on multiple NIH-funded projects that test community-based interventions targeting these conditions. She served on the Board of the Chicago Asthma Consortium and held a position on the Executive Committee for Community Health Worker Section of the American Public Health Association. She currently is a member of the State of Illinois Community Health Worker Advisory Board which is formalizing community health worker workforce credentialling in Illinois. In 2023, she was honored with the Savithri and Samuel Raj Endowed Professorship in Pediatrics. As a complement to her research, Dr. Martin sees patients in the Mile Square Health Center and participates in resident and student education. Read more
Cashell Lewis, PhD, LMSW, Post Doctoral Research Associate
Dr. Lewis, born and raised in Chicago, is a social work researcher and health equity scholar whose work focuses on understanding and addressing disparities in access to health, educational, and social services across the life course. He earned his Bachelor of Social Work and Interdisciplinary Studies from Northeastern Illinois University. He has a Master’s in Social Work from Washington University in Saint Louis and a PhD in Social Work from the University of Chicago. He has worked across academic, clinical, and community-based settings. He is committed to research grounded in community partnerships and lived experiences that inform effective interventions, improve service delivery, and advance more just and equitable systems of care. Read more
Oksana Pugach, PhD, MS, Senior Biostatistician
Dr. Pugach is a senior biostatistician at the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She is a co-director of Methodology Research Core. She holds an MS in Computer Science from Kyiv Polytechnic University, Ukraine, and a PhD in Biostatistics from University of Illinois at Chicago and brings over 15 years of experience in health data management and statistical analysis. Her expertise includes mixed-effects models, multilevel models, modeling trajectories over time, intensive longitudinal (EMA) data using generalized mixed-effects modeling. Read more
Rishabh Jain, MS, Statistician
Rishabh Jain is a statistician within the Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois Chicago. He has 4+ years of experience in academic research, preceded by several years in technology consulting. He holds an MS in Public Policy and Data Analytics from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor's in computer science engineering from India. His expertise spans longitudinal analysis, causal inference, and survival analysis, complemented by machine learning. He has worked extensively with large-scale, high-dimensional data, including EMA, survey, EHR, economic, and medical claims data. His research has contributed to numerous peer-reviewed publications and conference abstracts. Read more
Meghan Fortune Donlon, BS, Research Specialist
Meghan is a Research Specialist with the Data Management Core (DMC) at the Institute for Health Research and Policy at UIC and has more than 15 years of experience working in clinical psychology research labs evaluating treatment outcomes. She has experience across many stages of the research process, including REDCap programming and survey development, ongoing data management support, conducting literature reviews, regulatory protocol writing, and clinical trial coordination. She especially enjoys finding practical and efficient ways to design and implement research studies while discovering new ways to visualize data and support evidence-based decision-making for collaborating research teams. Her research interests center on how behavioral health interventions can positively impact both mental and physical well-being for individuals experiencing anxiety and related emotional difficulties. Read more
Jason Scheer, Visiting Research Associate
Jason is a Visiting Research Associate in the Data Management Core of the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago. Over the past four years, he has supported a variety of NIH and PCORI-funded studies, specializing in data management and data safety. Read more
Hai M. Nguyen, Research Assistant
Hai is a Ph.D. candidate in Biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and serves as a Research Assistant at the Methodology Research Core - Institute for Health Research and Policy. Currently, he is an RA in the Preschool and Me project. His academic and research interests focus heavily on Causal Inference, Longitudinal and Latent Trait Modeling, Bayesian Methods, and Machine Learning. Outside of his formal studies and work, he is the author of "HaiBiostat," an active technical blog where he shares tutorials, deep dives, and practical applications related to biostatistics, social studies measurement, and statistical programming using tools like R, SAS, Mplus, JAGS, and Stan. Read more
Tina Schuh, MPH, Project Manager
Tina is a project manager with a passion for working on research projects that strive to achieve health equity and reduce health disparities in the city of Chicago and beyond. Tina received her Masters in Public Health, with a focus on Maternal and Child Health, from University of Illinois Chicago. She also was a fellow for the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program. Tina ensures our patient navigators and our families are supported and the project's operations and administration are running smoothly. Read more
Anna Whelan, MPH, Research Coordinator
Anna is a project coordinator with experience in research, community-based healthcare, and education. She recently obtained her master’s in public health with a concentration in Community Health Sciences from University of Illinois Chicago. Anna is passionate about working to promote health and social justice for underserved communities. She is excited that this role will allow her to make meaningful contributions to improve health equity in Chicago. Read more
Denise Carreto-Munoz, BA, Patient Navigator & Research Assistant
Denise is a recent UIC graduate, majoring in neuroscience. She plans to attend medical school to pursue surgery. Denise is very excited to be part of the team and help families receive the proper resources to be successful. Read more
Caroline Cotto, BA, Patient Navigator & Research Assistant
Caroline Cotto holds a BA in Applied Psychology with a minor in Sociology from the University of Illinois Chicago. She plans to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology, focusing on youth mental health, community-based care, and marginalized populations. Caroline is passionate about advocacy and equity in mental health, working to ensure that underserved families are supported and every child has access to the resources they need to thrive. Read more
Hanna Ghalyoun, Research Assistant
Hanna is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), hoping to become pediatric health psychologist. She earned her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from UIC in 2023 and is deeply committed to serving pediatric and child populations, particularly those from underserved communities. She has accrued three years of clinical experience providing evidence-based therapeutic interventions (e.g., CBT, CPT, ACT, CBT for Insomnia, the Unified Protocol (UP), and exposure therapy) as well as conducting comprehensive psychodiagnostic assessments. Her clinical work spans children, adolescents, and adults, addressing a wide range of learning, neurodevelopmental, mood, and anxiety disorders, such as Specific Learning Disorders, ADHD, and PTSD. Read more
Karis Gorak, MSc, MA, Graduate Student
Karis is an MD/PhD student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, currently pursuing a PhD in Neurobiology. Her career aspiration is to become a pediatrician, specializing in developmental delays and disabilities in children. Karis has received a Master’s in Bilingual Education and has experience teaching both in the United States and abroad. She is enthusiastic about supporting families in navigating the complex processes of accessing therapies for their children through the Preschool & Me project. Read more
Mariam Hassan, BSc, Research Assistant
Mariam holds a BSc (Hons) in Molecular, Cellular, and Organismal Biology from the University of Illinois Chicago and is currently an MD/PhD student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Mariam is passionate about global health equity, policy reform, and humanistic interventions that improve patient care and well-being. At Preschool and Me, she has the goal of expanding access to PreM services to provide long-term support for families in the Chicago area. Read more
Giovanna Savastano, MSOT, Research Assistant
Giovanna is an occupational therapist working in the preschool and acute care settings. She completed her occupational therapy degree at University of Illinois at Chicago, where she started working on the Preschool and Me pilot project as a graduate student in 2020. She is excited to continue and expand this work to support and empower many more children and families in Chicago to get the services they need to succeed! Read more
Avril De La Cruz, Research Assistant
Avril is pursuing a BS in Biological Sciences with minors in Public Health and Public Policy from the University of Illinois Chicago. She is on the pre-medicine track and plans to attend medical school. Avril's broad scope of research has solidified her passion for medicine, whilst reinforcing her values for lifelong learning, curiosity, and patient advocacy. She looks to advance health literacy and equity amongst underrepresented populations, serving as a voice for the community that raised her. Read more
Alina Patel, Research Assistant
Alina Patel is an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia pursuing an interdisciplinary major in Biology, Sociology, and African American Studies on the pre-med track. Her academic and research interests center on improving health outcomes and patient care, with a particular focus on health equity and the social factors that influence access to healthcare resources. She has contributed to research in pediatric allergy and is passionate about analyzing disparities in healthcare. At Preschool and Me, she contributes to our efforts of expanding programs that help families navigate educational healthcare systems in the Chicago area. Read more