Advisory Board

Meri-K Appy is President of the Washington-based Home Safety Council (HSC), the only national organization solely dedicated to preventing unintentional home injuries. Since joining the Council in 2003, Appy has redefined the organization’s mission and strategic vision with a sharp focus on organizational partnerships to reduce home injuries and with a renewed commitment to investing in research. In addition to its watershed home injury prevention research report, The State of Home Safety in America™, HSC plans more home injury data analyses to be conducted with its research partner, the University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research Center.

A major focus of HSC’s current work is on creating home safety education programs for the 93 million adults in America who read at or below basic levels in English. With funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Health Resources and Services Administration, we have developed the Home Safety Literacy Project. This initiative pairs local first responders and adult literacy providers to deliver basic safety lessons and free devices to keep families safer from fires, natural disasters, and poisoning. Appy is often tapped as a national media safety spokesperson, translating home injury research findings into useful and practical prevention and protection methods that people can remember and easily apply in their own homes. She has appeared on many national television networks and programs, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, Dateline NBC, the Early Show, Good Morning America, HGTV, and the TODAY show.

Linda C. Degutis, DrPH, MSN
Associate Professor
Emergency Medicine
Yale University
Bio at Yale University

Linda C. Degutis, DrPH, MSN, is Associate Professor of Surgery (Emergency Medicine) and Public Health, and Associate Clinical Professor of Nursing at Yale University. She is Research Director for the Emergency Medicine and Director of the Yale Center for Public Health Preparedness (YCPHP). Dr. Degutis holds a Bachelor of Science degree from DePaul University, and MSN and DrPH from Yale. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, working in the office of Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN). Dr. Degutis’ research and practice interests center on issues related to alcohol and injury and public health preparedness, with a focus on interventions and policy. Dr. Degutis is former Chair of the APHA Executive Board and an active member of the Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section of APHA, as well as a member of the Connecticut affiliate.

Mary Ann Dutton, PhD, MA
Professor
Department of Psychiatry
Georgetown University Hospital
Bio at Georgetown University Hospital

Mary Ann Dutton, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist who specializes in the area of intimate partner violence and other forms of interpersonal violence. Dr. Dutton is active as a researcher, consultant, educator, and forensic expert. She is professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Georgetown University where she is currently involved in research focusing on interpersonal trauma and low-income and minority women's health and mental health issues. She is Principal Investigator on several federally-funded studies focusing on longitudinal patterns of coping, health outcomes, revictimization, and coercive control among women who have been in recent violent and abusive relationships. She is also involved in several other grants focused on the traumatic experiences of violence and abuse. Dr. Dutton is working to develop community-based, low-cost, accessible and culturally competent interventions for such traumatic experiences. Dr. Dutton has trained audiences of lawyers, judges, advocates, and health professionals concerning physical violence and sexual assault, both nationally and internationally. Her workshops and lectures have focused on understanding the dynamics, traumatic impact, and interventions. Dr. Dutton has published numerous articles, book chapters, and books.

Susan S. Gallagher, MPH
Assistant Professor and Director
Tufts MS Program is Health Communication
Tufts University School of Medicine
Bio at Tufts University

Susan S. Gallagher, is currently an Assistant Professor and Director of the Master’s degree program in Health Communication at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in the field of child and adolescent injury prevention, community-based intervention trials, and in building capacity for injury prevention in both the public and private sectors. Her expertise ranges from surveillance of injuries to program development, implementation and evaluation to policy analysis. She has co-authored more than 30 peer reviewed journal articles on injury prevention and is the co-author of the textbook: Injury Prevention and Public Health – Practical Knowledge, Skills and Strategies.

Ms. Gallagher received a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Simmons College and a Masters degree in Public Health from Boston University. Ms. Gallagher holds appointments in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, in the Department of Socio-Behavioral Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, and in the School of Communication at Emerson College. In 2003, she was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow and worked in the U.S. Congress in the office of Senator Dick Durbin, now the Majority Whip.

Allen W. Heinemann, PhD, ABPP
Professor, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Director, Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
Bio at Feinberg School of Medicine

Allen W. Heinemann, PhD, is the director of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago’s (RIC) Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research, a rehabilitation focused research unit which measures the impact of medical rehabilitation over the long term in patients with disabilities. U.S. News & World Report has ranked the Institute the ‘Best Rehabilitation Hospital in America’ every year since 1991. He is also a professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. Dr. Heinemann completed his doctoral degree in clinical psychology at the University of Kansas with a specialty focus in rehabilitation, and an internship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He is the author of more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Heineman is the editor of Substance Abuse and Physical Disability and serves on the editorial board of Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation as well as many other journals. He is the recipient of numerous research grants from the federal government and private foundations for his rehabilitation outcomes research. Dr. Heinemann was named a Fellow of The American Congress of Rehabilitation in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of rehabilitation medicine. Dr. Heineman is the recipient of the Roger Barker Distinguished Career Award from the American Psychological Association, Division 22, Rehabilitation Psychology.

John A. Morris, Jr., MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Director, Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care and
Director, Trauma, Burn & LifeFlight Patient Care
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Bio at Johns Hopkins Bloomber School of Public Health

John Morris is Professor of Surgery and Biomedical Informatics and Director of the Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, Department of Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He received his MD degree from the University of Kentucky School of Medicine. Following completion of a Trauma and Burn Fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco, he joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1984. Dr. Morris has been the director of Vanderbilt’s Trauma Center since its inception, as well as medical director of the LifeFlight Air Medical Transport Program and has also served as Medical Director, Division of Emergency Medical Services for the Tennessee Department of Health and Environment. Dr. Morris is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and is active in regional and national trauma organizations. His research interests include injury prevention, surgical critical care, and outcomes.

Modena H. Wilson, MD, MPH
Senior Vice President
Professional Standards
American Medical Association
Bio

Modena Wilson joined the American Medical Association as Senior Vice President for Professional Standards in 2004 where she oversees Medical Education; Ethics Standards; and Science, Quality, and Public Health. Prior to joining the AMA, Dr. Wilson was the Director of the Department of Committees and Sections for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Wilson received her MD from the University of Kansas and her residency training at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals in Madison. She received both an MPH degree and a certificate in Business of Medicine from Johns Hopkins University, where she was Professor of Pediatrics, and Director of the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. Dr. Wilson also was affiliated faculty with the Center for Injury Research and Policy, and her research focused on childhood injury prevention. She first authored with colleagues at the Center the textbook, Saving Children: A Guide to Injury Prevention. Dr. Wilson has served on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the Advisory Council of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and as President of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association, among many other national leadership positions.

What people are saying

Child Transportation Safety

On September 24, 2007 at 6:30pm, Nadra Robinson was driving home with her one-year-old son Antoine buckled into his car seat. A few minutes later, Nadra was standing on the sidewalk staring at her wrecked car. Another car running a red light had smashed into the passenger side of Nadra's car, right where Antoine was sitting in his rear-facing car safety seat.