David Bell
Table 7
Genesee and Orleans County Health Departments (GO Health)
Emergency Preparedness Coordinator
David Bell is a medical anthropologist who specializes in public health emergency preparedness and disaster response. His interests also include global health, syndromic epidemiology, politics of health, and community concerns for environmental contamination. He received his MPH with attention to epidemiology and international health, and his MA in medical anthropology, both from Case Western Reserve University, and his PhD in cultural anthropology from SUNY University at Buffalo. For over 12 years he has worked as an assistant or visiting professor in both public health and anthropology, as well as an active public health practitioner.

Gabrielle Mayfield
Table 21
HRI
Fellowship Placement Coordinator, North Country
Gabrielle Mayfield, MS, BS, (she/her/hers), has her Master’s degree in Nutrition from Meredith College and she received her Bachelor of Science in Community Health from the State University of New York at Potsdam. She is currently the Fellowship Placement Coordinator for the North Country Region with the New York State Public Health Corps. She has over 16 years of public health experience focusing on nutrition, chronic diseases, and workplace wellness. In her role as the Fellowship Placement Coordinator, she is currently focusing on workforce development and data and reporting initiatives for the New York State Public Health Corps team.

Bryon Backenson
Table 19
New York State Department of Health, Bureau of Communicable Disease
Director of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control
Bryon Backenson is currently the director of Bureau of Communicable Disease Control at NYSDOH. He has spent all of his career working on various aspects of infectious disease, including field ecology, pathology, and epidemiology. He is also a professor at the University at Albany School of Public Health, where he organizes and teaches the infectious disease epidemiology course every fall.

Ms. Laura Trolio
Table 24
New York State Department of Health, Office of Public Health
Deputy Director, Office of Public Health
Laura Trolio, BSW, Deputy Director, Office of Public Health, New York State Department of Health, has over 20 years of experience in program design, planning, implementation, management, evaluation, quality improvement, policy formulation, strategic planning, and executive leadership with a focus on innovative solutions to address health disparities and promote public health practice and policy implementation in New York State and nationally. Ms. Trolio has worked in the fields of HIV/AIDS, sexual health, drug user health, Hepatitis C, and LGBTQ Health, and has experience in leading initiatives in public health strategic planning, workforce development, professional development, and workplace well-being.

Ashley Tate
Table 23
New York State Department of Health, Office of Public Health Practice
Assistant Director, New York State Public Health Corps Fellowship Program
Ashley Tate, MPH, (she/her/hers) has over 10 years of experience working at the New York State Department of Health. She is currently the Assistant Director of the New York State Public Health Corps Fellowship Program where she oversees program planning and implementation in addition to directing the program’s monitoring and evaluation. She was previously the New York State Public Health Corps Program Manager. In addition to program planning and implementation, she has several years of experience in epidemiology. She previously was the Project Director for New York State’s National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System, where she directed the implementation and evaluation of a field-based health survey that offered HIV and HCV testing. She also was a Research Scientist in the New York State Cancer Registry where she managed two epidemiologic research studies. She enjoys using data to inform public health practice and programming. She holds a Master of Public Health from the State University of New York at Albany.

Erin Knoerl
Table 31
New York State Department of Health, Office of Public Health Practice
Director, New York State Public Health Corps Fellowship Program
Erin Knoerl, MPH, (she/her/hers) is the Director of the New York State Public Health Corps Fellowship Program at the New York State Department of Health. In this role, she is responsible for formulating optimal strategies for planning and prioritizing program development, implementation, and dissemination; providing direction, leadership, guidance, and expertise to program staff; directing programmatic and fiscal functions for the Fellowship Program; and engaging and maintaining relationships with key program partners including local health departments and educational institutions. Before this role, Erin served as the New York State Public Health Corps Assistant Director (2021-2023), and the Oral Health Unit Manager in the New York State Department of Health’s Bureau of Child Health (2018-2021). Ms. Knoerl has been with the New York State Department of Health since 2010 and has a Master of Public Health from the State University of New York at Albany.

Aletha Sprague
Table 22
New York Department of Health, Office of Public Health Practice
Fellowship Placement Coordinator - Mohawk Valley
Aletha Sprague is the Fellowship Placement Coordinator responsible for coordinating all aspects of program implementation associated with the placement of New York State Public Health Corps Fellows within Onondaga and Madison Counties, and the Mohawk Valley Region which includes Fulton, Herkimer, Montgomery, Oneida, Otsego and Schoharie counties. Prior to joining New York State Public Health Corps, Ms. Sprague had 14 years of public health experience working for the Bassett Research Institute. Ms. Sprague has experience bringing diverse stakeholders together to provide a neutral forum on population health issues with a particular focus on health and health care disparities and providing data and evidence-based solutions to community, county, and regional leadership.

David Carpenter
Table 2
University at Albany
University at Albany Professor and Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment
Dr. Carpenter is a public health physician and the former Dean of the School of Public Health at UAlbany. His research interests are environmental causes of human disease.

Tracy Fricano Chalmers
Table 6
Niagara County Department of Health
Director, Public Health Planning and Emergency Preparedness
Tracy Fricano Chalmers, MS, (she/her/hers) is the Director of Public Health Planning and Emergency Preparedness and the Public Information Officer for the Niagara County Department of Health. Ms. Chalmers began her career in public health emergency preparedness in 2001 with the inception of the program in Erie County and has been with the Niagara County Department of Health in her current role since 2021. Ms. Chalmers’ day-to-day responsibilities include all-hazards planning and response for all public health emergency functions in Niagara County, department-wide strategic planning, quality assurance and quality improvement, and communications. Tracy chairs the Niagara County Core Advisory Group (for Disabilities and Access and Functional Needs), the Niagara County Emergency Support Function 6 (Mass Care) and 8 (Public Health/Medical) Committee, and is a member of many other local, state, and national workgroups and committees. Ms. Chalmers has assumed a lead role in the response to COVID-19 and several other public health emergencies in Western New York and works collaboratively with partners in Emergency Services to respond to natural disasters and large-scale planned events. Ms. Chalmers has a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Ithaca College and a master's degree in Epidemiology from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Christopher Crawford
Table 3
Cattaraugus County Health Department
Local Coordinator and Senior Fellow
Christopher Crawford, PhD, MUP, (he/him/his) has had a non-linear career path. With an education in environmental science, law, and planning, he has spent much of his professional career working to integrate technology and systems-thinking into various organizations and agencies at local, state, and national scales, picking up a variety of technology and programming skills along the way. He has worked in the Kingdom of Tonga, on Cape Cod, in the US Virgin Islands, Cattaraugus County, New York City, and remotely at home in Batavia, New York. Working at the intersection of science and policy, Dr. Crawford is grateful for the opportunities he has had to learn from those people he has worked with and is truly humbled by the dedication and commitment to service he has seen. In some ways new to public health, he currently finds himself working as the Local Coordinator for the Cattaraugus County Health Department, using his skills, experience, and knowledge to help build the foundation for systematic change across the local health system.

Emily D'Angelo
Table 17
New York State Association of County Health Officials (NYSACHO)
Senior Program Manager, New York State Association of County Health Officials
Emily D’Angelo, MPH, (she/her/hers) is a Senior Program Manager at the New York State Association of County Health Officials. In her role, she provides technical assistance and support to local health departments across the state of New York for their climate and health adaptation activities, as well as their overdose prevention and response efforts. Emily has been at the New York State Association of County Health Officials since February 2022. Prior to joining, she spent two years at the National Association of County and City Health Officials, where she worked on their environmental health team as a Program Analyst on activities pertaining to climate change; water, sanitation, and hygiene; wastewater surveillance; and aquatic health. Emily obtained her Master of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences from the State University of New York at Albany, and her Bachelor of Science in Public Health Education from James Madison University.

Andrew Evans
Table 16
Dutchess County Department of Behavioral and Community Health
Director of Public Health and Disease Prevention
Andrew Evans, MPH, (he/him/his) is the Director of Public Health and Disease Prevention at the Dutchess County Department of Behavioral and Community Health. In his role, he has oversight over the communicable disease control division, public health nursing, and some environmental health programs, including the Adolescent Tobacco Use Prevention Program and the Childhood Lead Poisoning Primary Prevention Program. He has also served nearly 33 years as an epidemiologist for the Dutchess County Department of Behavioral and Community Health. Some of his honors include the 2009 Commissioner’s Award Recipient and New York State Public Health Honor Roll for the Collaborative Outbreak Response Team, the 2007 Dutchess County Commissioner’s Award Recipient for Development of Sexually Transmitted Disease Reporting System, and the 2001 Dutchess County Commissioner’s Award Recipient for Arthropod-Borne Disease Program. He has been published in epidemiological and medical journals and presented at the National Sexually Transmitted Disease Conference in 2007. He also served on the Dutchess County LGBTQ Task Force, the Legislative Tick-Borne Disease Task Force in Dutchess County, served two years on the Dutchess County Human Rights Commission and was recently appointed to Governor Cuomo’s New York Tick/Lyme Workgroup. He is a certified Clinical Education Initiative Trainer: LGBT Cultural Sensitivity for Providers. Andrew is currently the President of the Board of Hudson Valley Community Services (formerly known as AIDS-Related Community Services), where he has been a member of the Board for seven years. A lifetime resident of the Hudson Valley, Andrew has earned his Master of Public Health at the State University of New York at Albany.