We are pleased to announce that Insight Policy Research was acquired by Westat, effective June 15, 2022. Branded as “Westat Insight,” we are currently operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of Westat and continue to provide our clients with the best-in-class services they have come to expect. Our combined experience now offers expanded expertise in health, education, and social policy as well as deeper methodological skills in survey research, evaluation, data analytics, and technical assistance. Learn more here.

Our Staff

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It’s not just professionalism and expertise that distinguish our staff; we offer a strong and tested commitment to our public service mission, the quality of our work, and our clients.

Our team of statisticians, policy analysts, sociologists, survey methodologists, economists, and technical experts offer decades of experience in public and private sector health, social service, and education programs and quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Educated at the nation’s leading research institutions, our staff hold doctorate or master’s degrees in policy or the social sciences. Insight also collaborates with an extensive network of expert consultants—built over the past 20 years.

Customer satisfaction surveys consistently rate Insight staff with the highest marks in professionalism and collaboration.

Executive Leadership

Bryan Johnson

COO

As a co-founder of Insight Policy Research in 2001 and current COO of Westat Insight, Bryan Johnson brings more than 30 years of experience as a highly respected business leader and researcher. He has led national studies for agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, and other federal and state agencies and nonprofit organizations. His topic areas of expertise include health services delivery, access to care, health workforce development, healthcare delivery, health education and training, food and nutrition (including studies of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children), and care for populations in need.

Bryan currently provides strategic leadership, corporate oversight, and contractual and regulatory compliance and provides capture leadership as COO. He also serves as the Officer-in-Charge for the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, a federal advisory committee assessing matters and policies relating to the recruitment and retention, treatment, employment, integration, and well-being of women in the Armed Forces. He leads our work as a significant subcontractor on the Survey of Healthcare Experience of Patients for the Veterans Administration. He is well known for his work in performance measurement and key performance indicators, having led the development of performance monitoring frameworks for government agencies and performance measurement development and assessments for multiple agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education. Earlier, Bryan held senior-level positions in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the U.S. Senate. He holds an M.B.A. from Loyola and a J.D. from the University of Maryland.

Anne Peterson

CEO

As cofounder of Insight Policy Research (Insight) and current CEO of Westat Insight, Anne is a highly strategic, inclusive, and entrepreneurial leader with a demonstrated history of success within the behavioral and social sciences and a strong track record of leading large teams and complex operations. Beginning in 2001, Anne developed and grew Insight to one of the leading small businesses in the federal contracting arena, with projects in the areas of health, education, military, labor, family support, and food and nutrition.

Anne’s expertise spans strategic planning, cultivating new clients, engaging contributors, developing partnerships, and developing effective marketing and communications strategies. She is skilled in fostering an equity-related agenda and engagement, curiosity, and excellence in staff. Anne has demonstrated acumen in managing through change and brings a keen eye toward internal culture and operations. She is skilled at hiring, developing, retaining, and leading a diverse and results-oriented team.

Anne’s passion is helping government agencies, organizations, institutions, and communities generate and use evidence to address issues of inequity, improve outcomes, and achieve results. Her expertise includes the design and implementation of evaluations and probability-based surveys and experimental designs, with a focus on formative evaluations, process evaluations, impact evaluations, and evaluations of demonstrations. She has extensive experience in complex data analysis and microsimulations.

Anne has led numerous national studies on critical issues in healthcare (such as maternal and child health, workforce shortages, and health disparities) and important studies on improving the food safety net and reducing hunger. For federal safety net programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, she has led projects designed to improve data quality, increase program integrity and reduce payment error, and assess the feasibility of various policy changes.

Earlier, Anne gained more than 10 years of federal experience, serving at both the U.S. Census Bureau and the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. She is an expert in synthesizing data from multiple sources into high-level reports and policy and issue briefs. Anne is an active member of the American Statistical Association and the Washington Statistical Society.

Terry Moore

Senior Vice President

Terry has more than two decades of experience in Medicare and Medicaid program research, policy, and operations. She is a national expert in long-term and postacute care quality measurement. Her research experience includes a range of data collection activities in healthcare settings (e.g., observations, staff and patient interviews), provider recruitment, stakeholder engagement, analysis of postacute care clinical datasets (e.g., Minimum Data Set, Outcome and Assessment Information Set), data quality assessment and validation studies, and direction of database construction activities.

As senior vice president at Westat Insight, Terry directs business development and strategy. She also directs health services research projects for various federal agencies, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). She manages and mentors staff and serves as senior advisor and quality reviewer. She directs Insight’s CMS-funded Maternal Opioid Misuse Model evaluation, a multiyear mixed-methods Medicaid payment policy evaluation.

Terry has extensive experience in both the public and private sector, having served as vice president of domestic health policy at Abt Associates and as a nurse consultant and health insurance specialist for the Health Care Financing Administration (now CMS). Terry is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She holds a bachelor’s in nursing from the University of Vermont and an M.P.H. from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health.

Vice Presidents and Directors

Laurie Coots Daras

Director, Health

Laurie Coots Daras is a senior health services researcher and project director with 20 years of research experience. Laurie’s primary expertise is in health policy—specifically, national quality and payment policy for postacute and long-term care. She is a quantitative researcher with experience using Medicare claims and other national datasets to measure hospitalizations and readmissions among Medicare beneficiaries for quality reporting and value-based purchasing programs.

As Insight’s health director, Laurie leads business development and strategic planning activities for the health practice area. She supports a variety of projects for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other agencies in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She supports several projects related to nursing home quality, including issues related to the public health emergency and COVID-19.

Prior to joining Insight, Laurie worked at RTI International for 12 years and earlier in academic-based research centers at the University of Michigan, Dartmouth College, and Harvard Medical School. She holds a Ph.D. in social policy from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, where she was an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality fellow. She earned a master of science in health policy from Dartmouth College. Laurie’s work has been published in Health Affairs, the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, INQUIRY, and other health services research journals.

Dominick Esposito

Vice President, Health

For 20 years, Dominick has led studies with the federal government, state governments, and other clients on projects that improve care for disadvantaged populations. His expertise includes mixed-methods evaluation, Medicaid policy and program assessment, patient-centered outcomes research, dissemination and implementation of health care evidence within health systems, and evaluation of complex health care delivery system innovations.

For the Center on Health Care Strategies, he directed evaluations of the Business Case for Quality, Phase II, Rethinking Care Program, and Reducing Disparities at the Practice Site projects. He also led a randomized controlled trial for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to evaluate the LifeMasters Disease Management Program and its effects on care and costs of dual eligible beneficiaries in Florida. As deputy director of a project for the Office of the Assistant Secretary on Planning and Evaluation, he directed an inventory of the 426 comparative effectiveness research projects funded by the Recovery Act.

Earlier, Dominick worked at Mathematica Policy Research as a senior researcher and deputy director of the Center on Health Care Effectiveness. An active member of AcademyHealth, he has served as a student mentor at annual meetings. Dominick has published in many journals on a wide range of topics such as comparative effectiveness research, Medicaid policy, and mixed-methods research. He is the editor of Reliability and Validity of Data Sources for Outcomes Research & Disease Management and Health Management Programs. Dominick holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Kelsey Gray

Director, Data Science and Analytics

Kelsey brings 13 years of experience assessing social programs and policies, with a focus on advanced data analytic methods and data visualization techniques. Her expertise is in presenting technical concepts in easy-to-understand reports, dashboards, and presentations. Kelsey is experienced with a variety of machine learning techniques and is an experienced user of R, Python, Tableau, and Power BI.

At Westat Insight, Kelsey works across practice areas, providing expertise in data management, data analytics, and data visualization. She currently directs Westat Insight projects deploying interactive Tableau and Power BI dashboards for clients, creates machine learning algorithms to classify unstructured data, and leads studies generating automated reports in R and Python. She supports projects for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS), the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Science Foundation, and other foundation and state clients.

Earlier, Kelsey was a senior analyst and engineer at Project Evident, where she led work with national nonprofit service providers in the areas of employment and training, child welfare, education, and health to develop and implement technical solutions for data management, data visualization, and data analytic initiatives. Kelsey also worked as a program analyst at Mathematica Policy Research, where she employed sophisticated simulation models to estimate the impact of policy changes on social programs for USDA FNS. Kelsey holds an M.S. in business analytics from New York University and a B.A. in public policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a certified Tableau Specialist.

Allison Hyra

Senior Fellow

Allison Hyra, Ph.D., is a researcher, evaluator, and technical assistance provider with more than 17 years of experience. She focuses on multisystemic approaches to improving the well-being of American children, families, and adults. Her work spans child welfare, domestic violence, parenting, adolescent pregnancy prevention, noncustodial parents, workforce systems, education, community colleges, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

As a senior fellow at Westat Insight, Dr. Hyra leads the evaluation of the Administration for Children and Families’ Diaper Distribution Demonstration and Research Pilot initiative. As the first federally funded evaluation of diaper distribution efforts, this project will document how grantees distribute diapers to families in need and connect them with antipoverty programs and prepare the federal government to conduct an impact evaluation of the initiative.

She serves as the quality advisor on the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation’s (OPRE) innovative REFRAME project, which will develop evidence-based recommendations for Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood programs to provide culturally relevant, strengths-based services to Black fathers, mothers, couples, families, and youth. Dr. Hyra also directs a project with the Department of Labor to promote better understanding of various programmatic data sources. She recently directed an evaluation technical assistance project for OPRE, including revamping and updating their seminal Program Manager’s Guide to Evaluation and creating or revising nine other resources.

Dr. Hyra holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in sociology and women’s studies from Cornell University. Earlier, she worked at Abt Associates, ICF, and the Lewin Group and as an independent consultant. She recently completed her term as a member of the National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families’ Technical Working Group on Fatherhood, Family Structure, and Family Dynamics.

Betsy Thorn

Director, Food and Nutrition Research

Betsy Thorn is an experienced researcher and project director with expertise in food and nutrition assistance programs and policy. As a director for food and nutrition research, Betsy leads business development and strategic planning for Westat Insight’s food and nutrition portfolio. This portfolio focuses on research, evaluation, and technical assistance for federal assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and other clients.

Betsy serves as project director for the Update to Feasibility Study on Implementing SNAP in Puerto Rico for FNS, which entails identifying the changes that would be needed to convert Puerto Rico’s Nutrition Assistance Program to SNAP and estimating a timeline and costs for such a conversion. Betsy also directs the Reasons for Underredemption of the WIC Cash-Value Benefit study for FNS. This project uses interviews with state agency staff and WIC participants in combination with electronic benefit transfer data to identify policies and other factors related to participants’ use of the cash-value benefit to purchase fruits and vegetables.

Betsy has expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research. She has designed and administered surveys, collected quantitative administrative data, and analyzed secondary datasets. She has also developed qualitative data collection protocols and collected and analyzed qualitative data. Betsy earned her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Maryland.

Claire Wilson

Director, Human Services

Claire Wilson is a project director and business development leader with more than two decades of experience conducting research related to health services and food and nutrition. During her 17 years at Insight and Westat Insight, she has designed and implemented large-scale research studies for federal agencies, such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS). She offers expertise in program evaluation, mixed-methods research, and data collection modalities, with a particular focus on traditional and emerging qualitative methods.

In her role as project director, Claire develops a technical approach and workplan, manages project workstreams, schedules and tracks expenditures, maintains communication with clients and partners, and reports on project work and results. She currently directs the Puerto Rico Food Security study for USDA FNS. This 5-year contract includes a representative survey of Puerto Rico households, in-depth interviews with participants and nonparticipants of the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, and development of a concept map of Puerto Rico’s food system to help identify policies and knowledge gaps that may influence the delivery and effectiveness of the Nutrition Assistance Program. She also serves as the subcontract lead on the Evaluation of the Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies Program for HRSA. As a corporate leader, Claire conducts surveillance and targets business opportunities, contributes to bid decisions, and leads proposal response teams.

Earlier, Claire worked as a survey researcher for Mathematica Policy Research. She earned her Ph.D. in applied social psychology from George Washington University.

Debra Wright

Director, Data Collection Services

Debra brings 30 years of experience in research methods, measurement, data collection, and project management. She specializes in designing and implementing studies for groups that have been historically underserved and economically disadvantaged, such as families with low incomes, foster children, recipients of school and summer meals, Medicaid beneficiaries, and individuals with disabilities. Her expertise is in the design and implementation of multimode surveys, including telephone/face-to-face, mail/telephone, and web/telephone, as well as qualitative data collection methods, such as cognitive testing, focus groups, and in-depth interviews.

An experienced project director, Debra leads large, complex projects and manages Westat Insight’s survey and family support work. She has supported projects for clients such as the U.S. departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, and Education, and the Social Security Administration. Debra currently directs Westat Insight’s work on a large-scale survey for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: the Monitoring and Evaluation of Medicare Part C and D Plan Sponsors’ Customer Service and Pharmacy Call Centers, a telephone survey designed to measure the responsiveness of customer service call centers for Medicare sponsors.

Earlier, Debra was an associate director at Mathematica Policy Research. She has written several papers on collecting data using multimode methodologies and the impact of survey mode on responses to sensitive questions. She holds a Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Associate Directors

Jarle Crocker

Associate Director for Learning and Improvement

Jarle Crocker brings 15 years of experience providing training, technical assistance, and management support for federal grants and other funders to improve human services for children and families. He has extensive technical knowledge of performance measurement, outcomes-based planning, organizational change processes, service integration strategies, data analysis, and leadership development. He has a strong project management background in the design and facilitation of strategic planning processes, engagement, and project budgeting. Highly skilled in the development of trainings, presentations, and toolkits to support capacity building and sustainability of community-based initiatives, Jarle has a broad academic and applied background in qualitative research methods.

At Westat Insight, Jarle supports contracts across practices areas. He supports the Department of Education’s National Student Attendance, Engagement, and Success Center; he conducts value stream mapping for the National Science Foundation’s Merit Review process; and he helps the Food and Nutrition Service’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and SNAP Education programs with a variety of performance improvement activities.

Earlier, Jarle worked with public agencies, nonprofits, coalitions of community-based stakeholders, and others to support human service systems reform initiatives, design governance structures to manage collaborative initiatives, and facilitate complex planning processes. He holds a Ph.D. in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University.

Key Staff

Holly Alexander

Senior Editor

Holly brings 14 years of experience editing reports, articles, books, and other publications. She ensures compliance with style guides and government standards for reports, proposals, study plans, slide decks, articles, and other materials. Holly supports projects for clients such as the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Earlier, Holly was a senior copy editor at NWEA, an education research and assessment organization. As editorial lead in the professional learning division, she edited and proofread workshop materials for K–12 educators, coordinated team deadlines, and trained editors. Previously, Holly provided contract editing support for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Council on Social Work Education, the Society for Human Resource Management, and other organizations.

Holly’s first career was as a librarian, initially at a small liberal arts university and later at a United Way 211 helpline, where she managed the database of government and nonprofit programs in disaster relief, education, employment, and health and human services. Holly holds a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Texas at Austin and a professional sequence in editing certificate from the University of California at Berkeley.

Marietta Bowman

Senior Study Director, Data Collection

Marietta brings more than 20 years of experience to her role as senior study director, designing and implementing nationwide studies that inform policy and practice. Her expertise is in the design and management of survey data collection operations that incorporate individualized protocols to work with diverse target populations. She has developed sample management tools and activities, questionnaire design and testing, sample member outreach and prompting strategies, and interviewer training programs. Marietta has supported projects for a range of federal clients, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Marietta leads data collection activities for several Westat Insight projects, providing expertise on survey development, recruitment strategies, and data collection methodologies. Currently, she serves as project director for the NSF Merit Review project, overseeing numerous survey and analytic support activities, including the design and data collection, analysis, and reporting activities for the biennial merit review web survey. She also serves as project director for the Federal Facilities Research and Development Survey, also for NSF, which has numerous qualitative data collection tasks. She oversees data collection for the Monitoring and Evaluation of Medicare Part C and Part D Sponsors’ Customer Service and Pharmacy Centers for CMS. She also serves as data collection task leader for the Puerto Rico Health & Well-Being Survey, a household survey to assess food security of residents throughout Puerto Rico.

Earlier, Marietta was a senior research director at NORC at the University of Chicago, where she managed national, multimode studies with individuals, families, and institutions. She holds an M.S.W. from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Carla Bozzolo

Senior Researcher

Carla is an experienced researcher supporting federal and state government agencies’ qualitative research design and analysis. She has particular expertise in public health, behavior change, food and nutrition services, and measuring customer and employee satisfaction through survey research, usability testing, materials testing, and interviews. She is a skilled and experienced moderator and interviewer and has conducted many focus groups and interviews with a variety of audiences.

Carla’s current projects include an evaluation of the End-Stage Renal Disease Quality Incentive Program for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the evaluation of the Autism CARES Act Initiative for the Health Resources and Services Administration. She also recently directed the Modernizing Channels of Communication with SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] Participants for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS). For each project, she designs the data collection strategy; analyzes data from various sources, including stakeholder interviews, administrative data, and environmental scans; and develops reports and presentations for information dissemination.

Earlier, Carla was with ICF International (formerly Macro International) and Optimal Solutions group, where she worked on a variety of qualitative and quantitative mixed-method communications, research, and evaluation projects for federal and state agencies. Clients included USDA FNS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Florida Department of Health. Carla earned her M.P.H. from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Diana Cassar-Uhl

Researcher

Diana has 15 years of experience in public health as a clinician, educator, and researcher, with extensive expertise in maternal health and infant feeding. Her quantitative skills in nutrition and chronic disease epidemiology compliment and support her passionate interest in programs and interventions that improve the nutrition and health of families. At Insight, she supports projects for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, including Job Search as a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training Component and WIC Participant Characteristics 2020: Effects of COVID-19 on WIC Enrollment. She also supports the U.S. Department of Defense’s Gender Integration of Marine Corps Recruit Training study and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Exploring Experiences of Medicare Advantage Beneficiaries study.

Prior to her work at Insight, Diana served on active duty in the U.S. Army for nearly 17 years as a musician in the West Point Band. She has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant for over a decade, and she completed a fellowship in communications at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. Diana has authored many publications on breastfeeding for both general and scientific audiences and is an accomplished presenter and speaker. She has an M.P.H. in behavioral science and health promotion and a graduate certificate in health education from New York Medical College in Valhalla. She earned her Ph.D. in maternal and child health from the University of Maryland School of Public Health in College Park.

Shannon Griffin

Senior Researcher

Shannon is a skilled researcher and analyst in the field of health policy with more than 12 years of experience in mixed-methods analysis. She has co-authored more than a dozen published analytic briefs, reports, and interactives. At Westat Insight, she focuses on health policy contracts and supports numerous quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research and analysis teams. Shannon brings particular expertise in presenting analyses, policy implications, and action items in clear, understandable formats to diverse audiences.

Shannon is the quantitative task lead for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) evaluation of the End-Stage Renal Disease Quality Incentive Program, a task lead for CMS’s Integrated Care for Kids, and a task lead for the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education, and Support Act evaluations. She has also supported projects for the Administration for Community Living (ACL), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Science Foundation, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Shannon recently led a task order focused on the development and visualization of a health research topic matrix for PCORI and an ACL study on the impact of programs funded by the Older Americans Act on social determinants of health.

Earlier, Shannon was a policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation, where she studied Medicare payment and delivery system reform, end-of-life issues, and demographics and characteristics of the Medicare population. She also worked for the federal government as a human networks analyst, where she provided mixed-methods analysis and recommendations to customers across global combatant commands. Shannon earned her M.P.P. at The George Washington University and her B.A. in political science and French from the University at Buffalo, SUNY, with a certificate in French studies from the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, France.

Richard Griffiths

Senior Statistician

Richard has more than 30 years of experience as a practicing statistician with the federal government and in auditing and litigation consulting, media and marketing research, and education. He is an expert in conducting technical research, applying sound statistical methods to business problems, and directing teams in the application of statistical theory. He is regularly called on to provide advice and consultation on survey research methods, sample design, statistical analysis, modeling and data analytics, and SAS and R coding.

At Westat Insight, Richard directs the company’s statistical work with Deloitte to estimate Part C Medicare payment error for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Earlier, Richard was principal statistician at Nielsen Audio. He served as the company’s statistical methods expert and was responsible for ensuring the soundness of the company’s statistical methods and procedures for measuring media audiences. He was also a statistical consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, leading teams of statisticians in the design and analysis of samples for federal government audits and health care litigation cases. For more than a decade, Richard was a mathematical statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau. At Census, he coordinated several areas of sample design research for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program Survey, researched and evaluated models to improve Current Population Survey state variance estimates, and researched models to improve school district estimates of children in poverty for the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimation Program. He has taught statistics at levels ranging from elementary school to college. Richard holds an M.S. in statistics from Iowa State University and a B.A. in mathematics from Boston University.

Lila Gutuskey

Senior Researcher

Lila Gutuskey brings 13 years of experience in research design, evaluation-focused training, and technical assistance. She has a passion for translating findings into meaningful actions for funders, implementers, and communities. In addition to leading research projects, Lila enjoys developing capacity-building opportunities for grantees and implementers related to data collection, program evaluation, and dissemination of findings. Her work has focused on nutrition education programs, social marketing campaigns, empowerment approaches to programs and evaluation, and the use of equitable evaluation in public health.

Lila currently supports several projects for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. She has also supported the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods program; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation; and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ project Research to Enhance Targeting Information for Medicare Audiences.

Earlier, Lila was an evaluation specialist and director of the Public Health Fellow Program at the Michigan Fitness Foundation. She was also a research assistant with the Wayne State University Center for Community Health and Impact where she contributed to community and school-based health interventions and evaluations and served as adjunct professor. She holds a B.A. from the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University and an M.Ed. and Ph.D. from the Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies Division within the College of Education at Wayne State University.

Courtenay Kessler

Researcher

Courtenay is a researcher with over 13 years of experience in public health, nutrition, and human development. She has extensive training and experience in quantitative methods, including multilevel modeling, latent profile analysis, and quasi-experimental designs. She has a strong background in qualitative methods, including interview, focus group, and observational designs.

At Westat Insight, Courtenay supports several projects in the food and nutrition practice area, including those related to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). She serves as deputy project director for the WIC Eligibility Estimates report, manages and leads quantitative analysis for Robotic Process Automation in SNAP, and leads the quantitative analysis for the Reasons for Underredemptions of the WIC Cash-Value Benefit project.

Earlier, Courtenay was an associate researcher at the Center for Urban Population Health at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She supported the evaluation of a statewide initiative to improve health and development for children from birth to age 5. She also helped develop and evaluate several nutrition education programs. Courtenay has a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in human development and social policy. She earned her M.A. from Northwestern University in human development and social policy and her M.S. from the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health in society, human development, and health.

Sidra Montgomery

Senior Researcher

Sidra is a dynamic researcher with over 10 years of experience leading qualitative and quantitative research on sensitive, high-profile policy issues for military leaders and decisionmakers. Her areas of expertise include women in the military, gender integration, recruit training, sexual assault in the military, veterans’ health and employment outcomes, military families, wounded veterans, and personnel issues related to diversity. Sidra directs projects for the Department of Defense, the Naval Health Research Center, and Department of Labor, and she contributes to business development for Westat Insight’s military and veteran support practice area.

Sidra serves as the project director for Westat Insight’s support to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS). DACOWITS is a federal advisory committee providing annual recommendations and advice to the Secretary of Defense on matters and policies relating to the recruitment, retention, employment, integration, well-being and treatment of women in the Armed Forces. She was a leading researcher on the recent University of Pittsburgh study for the Marine Corps Training and Education Command, in which she developed alternate models and recommendations for increasing gender integration at Marine Corps recruit training.

Sidra previously worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Census Bureau, and University of Maryland at College Park. Her work has been featured in national news outlets such as NPR, and her research has contributed to recent changes in policy and practice for military personnel. She earned her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Maryland.

Miles Patrie

Senior Technical Advisor

Miles brings more than 14 years of experience in policy development and technical assistance for poverty reduction, nutrition assistance, and agriculture programs. He has developed legislation and budget oversight for social safety net programs in the U.S. Senate, crafted regulations and policy guidance for federal agencies, and worked with local and state agencies to identify practical strategies to improve program implementation.

As a program analyst and acting branch chief with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), Miles served as a subject matter expert on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) work requirements and certification policy. He authored a major SNAP final rule, provided technical assistance to and oversight of state SNAP agencies, and coordinated Disaster-SNAP communications with SNAP stakeholders about Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. As a budget analyst on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, Miles oversaw the budget for a host of income security programs and negotiated provisions in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. As a legislative assistant for Senator Conrad, he was a lead negotiator of the 2008 Farm Bill Nutrition Title. As the confidential assistant to the Administrator of the USDA Risk Management Agency, Miles advised senior USDA officials on potential impacts of emerging policy issues.

At Insight, Miles serves as project director, project manager, and key staff for numerous policy support projects and research studies as part of Insight’s Data and Improvement Group and Food and Nutrition research teams. His current work focuses on SNAP employment and training, disaster assistance, certification, and performance reporting. He has worked with FNS and state human services agencies to conduct compliance reviews and develop policy guidance, electronic assessment tools, and trainings. Miles holds a master’s in public affairs from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Paul Reischmann

Research Assistant

Paul Reischmann is a skilled research assistant with experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis, project management, and report writing. He currently supports projects with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation.

At Westat Insight, Paul supports the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children Participant and Program Characteristics Survey, communicating with state program officials and conducting SAS- and Excel-based quantitative data analysis tasks. He also provides evaluation support for CMS’s Maternal Opioid Misuse Model, assisting with report writing and the cleaning, coding, and analysis of qualitative interview data. Paul also serves in data analysis, report writing, and project management roles for various other projects focused on health, nutrition, and education.

Prior to joining Westat Insight, Paul worked as a lead laboratory technician at Mother’s Milk Bank Northeast, helping to provide safe and nutritious milk to mothers and babies in need. He has also worked as a researcher in physical chemistry, reproductive biology, and organic synthesis at Macalester College, the Free University of Brussels, and 3M Company. Paul graduated with high honors from Macalester College with a B.A. in chemistry and double minors in biology and French.

Anne Roubal

Senior Researcher

Anne Roubal is an epidemiologist with over 10 years of experience in quantitative data analysis. She has expertise in research design, spatial analysis, and health equity research across diverse health topics evidenced by her list of peer-reviewed publications and issue briefs. She has a strong background in understanding how place impacts health.

At Westat Insight, Anne has supported projects for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Labor (DOL), the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). She currently supports CMS’s End-Stage Renal Disease Quality Incentive Program team, leads peer-reviewed research for the Military Families Research project from the Naval Health Research Center, and supports analytic work for AHRQ’s Long-Term Care Survey Process and DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration tasks. She previously supported FNS’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children 2020 Eligibility Estimates and the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Evaluation. For DoD, she supported Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office tasks, and for Veterans Affairs, she performed quantitative analyses for Differences in Veteran Experience by Race and Ethnicity,

Earlier, Anne was a public health analyst at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, where she supported the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program. She was also a researcher at the University of Arizona working on U.S.–Mexico Border Health and the Affordable Care Act. Anne holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in population health sciences with a concentration in urban and regional planning from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Josh Rozen

Senior Programmer

Josh brings more than 30 years of experience in information technology (IT) support for economic, health, and social policy research for U.S. and international organizations. He has managed strategic deployment of IT resources to support and enhance corporate mandates and provided programming support on projects for federal government clients such as the Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Internal Revenue Service. He is a SAS Certified Advanced Programmer for SAS 9 with many years of experience programming and directly supporting data analysis.

At Insight, Josh supports advanced programming requirements on projects such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children Participant and Program Characteristics 2018 for FNS and the State Performance Standards Evaluation and Subject Matter Expertise project for CMS. The second project includes developing a weekly public use file and reports on COVID-19 cases and deaths in nursing homes across the United States. He also assists with IT infrastructure design and information security.

Prior to joining Insight, Josh was a vice president at Mathematica Policy Research, where he led the IT Services department for 20 years. During that time, he ensured corporate information security, managed the IT cost center, handled vendor relations, and oversaw the corporate IT department with emphasis on innovative solutions, quality service, cost-effectiveness, and staff development. Josh holds a B.S. in computer science and a B.A. in history from Pennsylvania State University.

Meg Tucker

Senior Study Director

Meg is an experienced researcher and project director specializing in health program evaluation in government, community, and clinical settings. She is a skilled qualitative researcher with extensive experience facilitating focus groups and semistructured interviews. Meg brings substantive experience in program design and implementation, with a focus on healthcare quality and access to care.

Meg currently plays a leading role in the management of Westat Insight’s patient-centered outcomes research, where she specializes in methodologies that incorporate patient and other relevant stakeholder perspectives in the design, implementation, and dissemination of research and research findings. She currently directs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation for the Maternal Opioid Misuse Model, focusing on innovative approaches to capturing policy leader, clinician, and patient perspectives on comprehensive treatment for opioid use disorder for pregnant and postpartum women.

Earlier, Meg was a senior research project manager at the Johns Hopkins University, where she developed, implemented, and evaluated public health programs for diverse populations and areas. Her work has included projects focused on substance abuse, chronic trauma, and anxiety and depressive disorders. Meg has expertise in curriculum development. She developed a life-skills curriculum and a trauma-based curriculum contextualized for African-American adolescents to help participants develop coping skills to reduce depressive and anxiety symptoms. Meg has published extensively in leading scientific journals and has served as a peer reviewer for leading journals, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s journal Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice, and Policy. She frequently presents her research on program evaluation methodologies, findings, and outcomes at national conferences. Meg holds an M.S. in public health from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Rikki Welch

Senior Researcher

Rikki has more than 24 years of experience in research and communications on domestic and international topics, particularly those related to health. She is a skilled qualitative researcher with experience in designing, implementing, and analyzing formative and evaluative research, cognitive testing, and usability studies. As a senior researcher at Westat Insight, she has worked with clients such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s Innovation Center (CMMI), the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, the U.S. Department of Education, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

For CMMI, Rikki is leading the Westat Insight team’s mixed-methods evaluation of the Integrated Care for Kids Model, a child-centered local service delivery and state payment model that aims to reduce expenditures and improve the quality of care for children under 21 covered by Medicaid through prevention, early identification, and treatment of behavioral and physical health needs. For HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau evaluation of the Autism CARES portfolio, she is managing the evaluation of the State Innovations in Care program and the State Public Health Coordinating Center for Autism.

Earlier, Rikki was a researcher and communications specialist at ICF International (formerly Macro International), where she managed or supported projects for the National Cancer Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agency for International Development, the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Rikki holds an M.A. in international communications from American University.

Our Staff

Executive Leadership

Bryan Johnson

COO

Bryan Johnson

COO

Anne Peterson

CEO

Anne Peterson

CEO

Terry Moore

Senior Vice President

Terry Moore

Senior Vice President

Vice Presidents and Directors

Laurie Coots Daras

Director, Health

Laurie Coots Daras

Director, Health

Jennifer Edwards

Senior Fellow

Jennifer Edwards

Senior Fellow

Dominick Esposito

Vice President, Health

Dominick Esposito

Vice President, Health

Stacy Gleason

Director, Food and Nutrition Research

Stacy Gleason

Director, Food and Nutrition Research

Kelsey Gray

Director, Data Science and Analytics

Kelsey Gray

Director, Data Science and Analytics

Allison Hyra

Senior Fellow

Allison Hyra

Senior Fellow

Albert Liu

Director, Education

Albert Liu

Director, Education

Lashawn Richburg-Hayes

Vice President, Education

Lashawn Richburg-Hayes

Vice President, Education

Betsy Thorn

Director, Food and Nutrition Research

Betsy Thorn

Director, Food and Nutrition Research

Liz Weber

Director, Policy and Program Development

Liz Weber

Director, Policy and Program Development

Claire Wilson

Director, Human Services

Claire Wilson

Director, Human Services

Debra Wright

Director, Data Collection Services

Debra Wright

Director, Data Collection Services

Associate Directors

Jarle Crocker

Associate Director for Learning and Improvement

Jarle Crocker

Associate Director for Learning and Improvement

Sonya Streeter

Associate Director of Health

Sonya Streeter

Associate Director of Health

Amanda Hare

Associate Director, Education

Amanda Hare

Associate Director, Education

Key Staff

Sade Akinbayo

Research Analyst

Sade Akinbayo