OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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The following Oregon State University faculty and staff have expertise related to the COVID-19 global pandemic and are willing to speak with journalists. Their specific expertise, and contact information, is listed below. For help with other OSU faculty experts, contact Sean Nealon, 541-737-0787, [email protected].
Steve Clark, 541-737-3808, [email protected]
Clark is the vice president of university relations and marketing and the OSU spokesperson. He has been working closely with university and public health leaders to develop OSU’s plans for university health and safety regarding the potential spread of the virus. He can speak to:
Chunhuei Chi, 541-737-3836, [email protected]
Chunhuei ("Choon-hweh") Chi is the director of the Center for Global Health at OSU, and a professor of health management and policy within the College of Public Health and Human Sciences. He studies comparative health systems and universal health care around the world, global health development and policy, and health system finance and assessment. His areas of expertise include:
Chi has been featured in the LA Times, the Oregonian, the Washington Post, The Independent (UK), The Associated Press, Al Jazeera and many others.
Melissa Haendel, [email protected], @ontowonka on Twitter
Haendel is OSU's director of translational data science, as well as the director of the Center for Data to Health at Oregon Health & Science University. She heads the new NIH-funded National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) program, a broad partnership that’s working to make it easier to share COVID-19 clinical data to better analyze the disease and its impact. She leads several other initiatives focused on leveraging basic research data, clinical data and patient-generated data, specifically in the fields of rare disease and cancer, and works in data modeling and management needs in biomedical areas. Her areas of expertise include:
Haendel has been featured in the Salem Reporter and the Corvallis Gazette-Times.
Gaurav Sahay, 402-216-9713, [email protected]
Sahay is an Associate Professor in the College of Pharmacy working on nanotechnology-based platforms for gene therapy, including the platform behind the coronavirus vaccine under Emergency Authorization from Moderna Inc and Pfizer-Biontech. He is a principal investigator on awards funded through the National Institutes of Health and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. His areas of expertise include:
Joseph K. Agor, 541-737-1202, [email protected]
Joseph Agor is an assistant professor of industrial engineering in the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. He specializes in data-driven optimization with emphasis on analyzing health care data to model the complexities of health systems. More specifically, he is interested in using linear, integer, and multilevel optimization techniques to develop data-driven decision support tools for decision-makers in health care at both a system and patient level. He can speak to:
Courtney Campbell, [email protected]
Courtney Campbell, Ph.D. is the Hundere Professor in Religion and Culture and the director for the OSU Program in Medical Humanities. His research focuses on professional duties to treat and perform risk evaluations, crisis care standards (such as lack of ventilators in the ICU), COVID-19 and social justice for racial or ethnic minorities, and vaccine research ethics. His areas of specialization include medical ethics, death and dying, non-violence and just war, and religious liberty and civil rights. He can speak to:
Elizabeth Marino, [email protected]
Elizabeth Marino, Ph.D., is an associate professor of anthropology at OSU-Cascades and co-director of the Laboratory for the American Conversation where her research focuses on community and culture-based perceptions and articulations of risk. She has recently been working with Central Oregon residents and public health entities to understand why public health messaging around COVID-19 does not resonate equally among all groups. She can speak to:
Regan A.R. Gurung, 541-737-1371, [email protected]
Regan (pronounced ree-gan) Gurung is a professor of psychological science and interim director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Oregon State.
He has spent many years researching social support and conflict in relationships, and can speak to:
He also has expertise in effective teaching practices and systematic changes to pedagogy. He addressed the shift to remote teaching at many universities in a recent blog post: https://beav.es/4T2.
He can speak to:
Gurung has been featured in the Atlantic, the Portland Monthly, USA Today, the Teaching Professor and many others.
Ryan Reese, 541-322-2021, [email protected]
Reese is an assistant professor in the Master of Counseling program at OSU-Cascades in Bend. His research focuses on how connections with nature can increase emotional wellness, a study area referred to as ecowellness. His areas of expertise include:
Reese has been featured in the Mercury News, the Bend Bulletin and OPB.
Christiane Löhr, 541-737-9673, [email protected]
Löhr is a veterinary pathologist and professor of anatomic pathology in the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine. She studies animal diseases and their causes, and how they develop and spread. Her areas of expertise include:
Löhr has been featured on OPB's Think Out Loud and in the Los Angeles Times.
Alexander Michels, 541-737-8730, [email protected]
Michels is a research associate and communications officer for the Linus Pauling Institute at OSU. His areas of expertise include:
Michels has been featured in KPTV and Portland Monthly.
Heather Broughton, 541-322-3133, [email protected]
Broughton is an anatomy and physiology instructor in the biology program at OSU-Cascades in Bend. She has a doctorate in veterinary medicine (DVM) and a Ph.D. in integrative biology - infectious disease ecology. As a veterinarian, she has worked directly with coronaviruses in other species. As a disease ecologist, she researches zoonotic diseases (diseases that move between humans and animals), the concept of "One Health" (connectedness of human, animal, and environmental health), coinfections, and ecoimmunology (how host and population level factors impact a host’s immune system and ability to fight infections). Her areas of expertise include:
Broughton has been featured in The Bend Bulletin.
Juyun Lim, 541-737-6507, [email protected]
Lim, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology, focuses primarily on sensory mechanisms underlying human taste and smell. She recently joined the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research, which was formed to better understand how COVID-19 affects taste and smell. She can speak to:
Kenny Maes, 541-737-7870, [email protected]
Maes is an associate professor and director of the Applied Anthropology Graduate Program at OSU. He is a medical and biocultural anthropologist who studies health systems from cross-cultural perspectives, and the roles of socioeconomic inequalities in driving health inequalities. His areas of expertise include:
Daniel López-Cevallos, 541-737-3850, [email protected]
López-Cevallos is an associate professor of ethnic studies and assistant vice provost of undergraduate education at Oregon State. His research focuses on the intersections of race/ethnicity, gender, class, and other socioeconomic and sociocultural constructs, and their relationship to health and health care issues. He can address health disparities/inequalities issues arising from COVID-19, particularly among Latinx communities. El Dr. López-Cevallos puede responder a sus preguntas en español. His areas of expertise include:
López-Cevallos has been featured in the New York Times, Telemundo and USA Today.
Kathleen Bogart, [email protected]
Bogart is an associate professor of psychology and the director of the Disability and Social Interaction Lab. Her research focuses on stigma and quality of life with disability. She is currently studying health care access, health care discrimination, and mental health among people with disability and rare disorders. She has been working with the American Psychological Association to develop guidance for supporting people with disabilities during COVID-19. Her areas of expertise include:
Bill Smart, 541-737-0670, [email protected]
Smart’s work centers around how robots and people interact in health care and other settings and how we can get robots to do useful work for long periods of time. He can answer questions about:
Smart has been featured in the LA Times.
Christopher McKnight Nichols, 541-737-3530, [email protected]
Nichols is the director of the Center for the Humanities at OSU and an associate professor of history in the school of history, philosophy, and religion, within the College of Liberal Arts. Nichols' expertise centers on U.S. political history and U.S. foreign policy, Oregon and U.S. politics, international relations, and the historical dimensions of contemporary issues. His areas of expertise include:
Nichols has been featured in Buzzfeed, The New York Times, the International Business Times, the Associated Press, OPB, the Oregonian and many others.
Aimee Huff, 541-737-3688, [email protected]
Huff is an assistant professor of marketing in the College of Business. Her research explores consumer culture in contexts that are socially contentious, including gun culture and consumer relationships with guns. Her areas of expertise include:
Huff has been featured in The New York Times.
Todd Montgomery, 541-322-2086, [email protected]
Montgomery is the executive-in-residence, an instructor, and the lead of the Hospitality Management program at OSU-Cascades in Bend. He has 23 years of experience in the travel industry in sectors including airline, cruise, rental car, restaurants and gaming. His areas of expertise include:
Montgomery has been featured in the Portland Business Journal, The Bend Bulletin and the Astorian.
Dina Ribbink, 541-706-2180, [email protected]
Ribbink is an assistant professor of business administration at OSU-Cascades who teaches and conducts research on supply chain management. She can address supply chain issues and business impacts related to coronavirus, including:
Ribbink has been featured in the Register-Guard.
James Sterns, 541-737-1406, [email protected]
Sterns is an associate professor of applied economics in the College of Agricultural Sciences. His research focuses on agribusiness economics and management, agricultural marketing and institutional economics. His areas of expertise include:
Lauren Gwin, 541-737-1569, [email protected]
Gwin is an associate professor, OSU Extension community food systems specialist, and associate director of the Center for Small Farms & Community Food Systems in the College of Agricultural Sciences. She co-founded and directs the national Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network. Her areas of expertise include:
Nadia A. Streletskaya, 541-737-9285, [email protected]
Streletskaya is an assistant professor of applied economics in the College of Agricultural Sciences, director of the Applied Experimental Economics Lab and a fellow at the Center for Behavioral and Experimental Agri-Environmental Research (CBEAR) at University of Delaware and Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on consumer demand for, and behavior around, food and food choice. Her areas of expertise include: