Our Team
Investigators
L. Brooke Keli‘ikoa, Associate Specialist. Dr. Keli‘ikoa serves as the Principal Investigator and co-lead for the Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team. Her evaluation work spans health promotion and chronic disease prevention topic areas, but she has a special interest in evaluating built environment interventions to promote walkability and evaluating the efforts of cross-sector community coalitions. She has over 15 years of evaluation experience with the Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team.
lehuac@hawaii.edu
(808) 956-6226
Meghan McGurk, Junior Specialist. Meghan serves as Co-Investigator of the Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team. Her work focuses on the evaluation of statewide policy and systems-change efforts and nutrition interventions to reduce obesity and other chronic diseases. She has been part of the Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team since 2013.
mcgurkm@hawaii.edu
(808) 956-3401
Project Managers
Becky Rodericks, Junior Specialist. Her evaluation work focuses primarily on school health and youth-related evaluation projects. She has worked closely with DOH to evaluate programs that promote physical activity, nutrition, and tobacco-free lifestyles. She also serves as PI for the CDC 2001 tobacco evaluation project as well as a lead investigator for the Hawai‘i Health Data Warehouse. She has been an evaluator with the Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team since 2010.
rebekah7@hawaii.edu
(808) 956-0434
Kara Saiki, Junior Specialist. Kara currently works on evaluation projects focusing on chronic diseases including diabetes and asthma, as well as providing technical assistance on an early childhood education project to provide children (0-5 years) access to healthy foods. Her research interests include postpartum health, health disparities, reducing underage access to tobacco, and promoting healthy behaviors and lifestyle changes in different communities. She joined the team in 2020.
knsaiki@hawaii.edu
(808) 956-5505
Whitney Watts, Junior Specialist. Whitney’s current evaluation work focuses on physical activity, nutrition, tobacco policy, and cancer screening. Her primary research interests include improving opportunities for physical activity in communities, specifically policy and built environment interventions to promote safe and accessible multimodal transportation. She joined the Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team in 2023.
wnwatts@hawaii.edu
(808) 956-8894
Claire Huang, Junior Specialist. Claire’s current evaluation projects focus on partnerships to build COVID-19 preparedness and community resilience through funding for community health workers; emergency services data integration with hospital stroke registry records; and a community health needs assessment of locally focused physical activity and health projects. Her research interests include social epidemiology and infectious diseases, health disparities, public health law, survey data collection methods, and public health training and program evaluation. She has been an evaluator with the Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team since February 2024.
clairehu@hawaii.edu
(808) 956-7277
Graduate and Undergraduate Research Assistants
Banyar Aung, Research Assistant and PhD candidate in Public Health. Banyar's PhD dissertation is the development of a Facebook-based intervention to improve contraceptive practices and sexual and reproductive health knowledge of young people in Myanmar. He joined the team in August 2024.
Riana Kawasaki, Research Assistant, joined the team in August 2024. Her research interests include birth control, STI prevention, racial/ethnic health disparities, and program evaluation and management.
Sophia Kop, Research Assistant and undergraduate student majoring in public health and minoring in mathematics, joined the team in February 2023. Her research interests include infectious diseases, racial/ethnic health disparities, and health services.
Taylor Wilson, Research Assistant, joined the team in August 2024. Taylor is an Anishinaabe/Ininew/Filipina woman from Fisher River Cree Nation (Ochekwi Sipi) with connections to Fairford First Nation (Pinaymootang), Peguis First Nation, and the Ilocano region of the Philippines. She holds a Bachelor's in Cultural Anthropology and Conflict Resolution, a Master's in Development Practice: Indigenous Development, a Higher Education Teaching Certificate, and a Public Health Certificate. She is currently a Public Health Ph.D. student at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. She holds knowledge and skills in research ethics, evaluation, and Indigenous health and well-being through her work with various academic and community organizations in Canada, Australia, and the US.