OCAHP Leadership and Staff

Leah Berger, MPH Executive Director
lberger@tulane.edu

Leah Berger is the Executive Director for Tulane School of Medicine's Office of Community Affairs and Health Policy.  In addition to leading the Office towards its mission of healing communities, her role has included empowering communities and increasing access to health in the New Orleans area, through program planning, fundraising and capacity building. She works with a variety of neighborhood leaders and fosters these partnerships in order to address health needs in a sustainable, effective manner. Ms. Berger also serves as the Co-Executive Director of two neighborhood health clinics -- Tulane Community Health Center at Covenant House and Tulane Community Health On the Road, a mobile medical unit. She chairs the Greater New Orleans Mobile Medical Unit Consortium, a resource sharing collaborative and received the “Mobile Health Leadership Award” in 2010 given by the national organization Mobile Health Clinics Network. She also serves on the board of Broad Street Community Connections. Ms. Berger was selected as part of the 2010-2011 class for NORLI (New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute).  Prior to joining Tulane, she was a Research Manager at Ochsner Health System investigating diabetes and clinical outcomes and published in "Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice" in 2008.  Ms. Berger received her Bachelor of Arts from Connecticut College in both Cultural Anthropology and Gender and Women Studies. She received her Master of Public Health from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in 2004 with a focus in International Health and Development and has worked and studied in Ghana, Kenya and Thailand.  She has been recognized as New Orleans' Top 40 Under 40, an honor which recognizes New Orleans' outstanding achievers.
 

Eboni Price-Haywood, MD, MPH Chief Medical Officer
eprice@tulane.edu 

Eboni Price-Haywood, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine, Co-Executive Director of the Tulane Community Health Centers, and Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for the Office of Community Affairs and Health Policy. Dr. Price-Haywood received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Notre Dame in 1995, Medical Degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1999 and Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2004. She also completed a 3-year fellowship in medical education and research at Johns Hopkins in 2005. She joined the Tulane faculty as the Associate Program Director for Ambulatory Training in Internal Medicine in 2005. In that role, she helped restructure outpatient training in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and is the leader in making a paradigm shift from hospital-based to community-based training for the residency program. She has also led six of Tulane's community-based clinics through the NCQA patient-centered medical home recognition process of which two are Tier 3. Key PCMH principles initiated under her leadership at the Tulane Community Health Centers include implementation of service delivery that is culturally and linguistically appropriate, multi-disciplinary team-based, driven by scientific evidence, and coordinated via electronic health records to enhance patient access to timely high quality care. She is also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Harold Amos Faculty Development Program Scholar (2008-2012) and is now developing her research program on minority health disparities, cancer prevention, cancer risk communication and shared decision making. Dr. Price-Haywood’s research focuses on strategies to reduce cancer disparities among ethnic minorities and low literacy patients using effective provider-patient communication and cultural competence. She has received local and national recognition including New Orleans City Business Healthcare Hero (2008), the American Cancer Society Spirit Award (2008), Levanthal Professorship in Community Health (2010-2012), and Southern Society of General Internal Medicine Clinician Educator Award (2010).

Angie Alley, MBA Chief Financial Officer
aalley@tulane.edu

Angie Alley is a Senior Administrator at Tulane University School of Medicine and is responsible for financial and grant management for the Office of Community Affairs, Section of General Internal Medicine & Geriatrics and the Tulane Community Health Centers.  She has managed over $10 million in grants, donations and private gifts. Alley serves as the Chief Financial Officer for the Tulane Community Health Center sites at Covenant House, On the Road and New Orleans East.  She is responsible for all aspects of financial management including budgets, revenue, practice management, and forecasting. Prior to her current position, she worked as a Research Associate at The University of Mississippi’s Gulf South Economic Research Center.  In her role, she assisted with preparing proposals for economic development.  She also designed a directory of socio-economic groups to be used by the local United Way to assist area residents with their needs. Alley received her Bachelor of Science from Mississippi State University in Business Management.  She received her Masters in Business Administration from The University of Southern Mississippi in 2002.

Ashley Wennerstrom, MPH
awenners@tulane.edu

Ashley Wennerstrom is co-director of the Tulane RAND Community Health Worker Training Institute. From 2008-2010, Wennerstrom served as associate director of the REACH NOLA Mental Health Infrastructure and Training Project, a two-year, community-academic partnered mental health quality improvement initiative.  She is a section councilor for the Community Health Planning and Policy Development section of the American Public Health Association, and she is a member of the New Orleans Food Policy Advisory Committee. Wennerstrom received a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs and Spanish from the University of Colorado.  She served as an AmeriCorps Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA) at New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity prior to earning an MPH in Maternal and Child Health from the University of Arizona.  She is currently pursuing a PhD in Community Health Science at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

Jeff Malfatti, JD, MHA

Jeff Malfatti is a Business Analyst in the Office of Community Affairs and Health Policy. Jeff provides support to Director of Community Health Programs, Planning & Development and the Tulane Community Health Centers in clinic operations and efficiency. In 2009, as an Administrative Resident at Louisiana Public Health Institute, Jeff worked on a variety of projects related to the funding and operation of community health centers in Greater New Orleans. He received his Master of Health Administration degree from Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in 2010, where he researched the costs of maintaining a medical home in post-Katrina New Orleans. Jeff received his J.D. from Tulane Law School in 2010 as well, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Tulane Journal of Law & Sexuality. Jeff earned his B.A. in English at U.C.L.A.

Puja Cuddapah, MPH Program Coordinator
pcuddapa@tulane.edu

Puja Cuddapah is the Program Coordinator for the Office of Community Affairs and Health Policy. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Loyola University New Orleans in May 2009. Soon after this, Puja co-founded a student-run organization called Voices for Healthy Choices, which seeks to create a relationship between the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the underserved population of New Orleans through the promotion and dissemination of public health education. She has also conducted research on water and sanitation practices and its implications on health while working in rural India. Puja earned her Master of Public Health degree in 2011 in International Health and Development from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

Jewel Harden-Barrios, MEd Project Assistant
jharden@tulane.edu

Jewel Harden-Barrios is a Project Assistant in the Office of Community Affairs and Health Policy (OCAHP).  She began her research career at Tulane in 2005 in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine working on population interventions designed to reduce the prevalence of obesity and promote healthy eating and physical activity behaviors. She joined the OCAHP staff in 2010 to coordinate community health research programs related to reducing health disparities among ethnic minority populations in Greater New Orleans.  Harden-Barrios received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Dayton (Ohio) and pursued her exercise science research interests at University of New Orleans, where she received a Master of Education in Exercise Physiology.  She aspires to earn a Master of Health Administration and lead health care programs that promote disease prevention and improve quality care and access.  Aside from her professional pursuits, she enjoys the New Orleans Latin music scene as a dancer of salsa, bachata, and merengue.

School Health Program Leaders

Sue Ellen Abdalian, MD
sabdali@tulane.edu

Dr. Abdalian has been with the Tulane School of Medicine since 1987.  She is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics who board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Adolescent Medicine.  Dr. Abdalian is also a researcher and has numerous federal, state and city grants and contracts.  Her areas of interest include reproductive health care, youth with eating disorders, adolescents living with HIV and HIV/AIDS Interventions.  She is primary investigator of the New Orleans Adolescent Medicine Trials Unit, one of 15 in the US that targets youth for research of behavioral and therapeutic HIV intervention and prevention strategies. In addition to teaching, community care, mobilization and research with at-risk adolescent populations is the focus of her work.

Edward Bonin, MN, FNP-BC Instructor, Clinical Pediatrics
ebonin@tulane.edu

Mr. Bonin is the Director of the Drop-In Center and Clinic in the Department of Pediatrics, Section of Adolescent Medicine where he is an Instructor of Clinical Pediatrics.  Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the Drop-In provided general healthcare, mental healthcare, behavioral healthcare and supportive services to homeless youth and youth at risk for homelessness.   Post Katrina, the Drop-In Clinic provides primary health care, as well as behavioral and mental healthcare to all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults less than 24 years of age regardless of housing status and ability to pay. The Drop-In Center continues to provide services to homeless youth and youth at risk for homelessness.  Mr. Bonin is active in the National Health Care for the Homeless Council having served as President of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Clinicians' Network.

Julie Finger, MD, MPH Assistant Professor
jfinger@tulane.edu

Dr. Finger was raised in Houston, Texas. She attended Rice University and graduated with a B.A. in Psychology, and she then went to the University of Texas-Houston for medical school. She completed her pediatrics residency at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio and then stayed on for a year of additional training in adolescent medicine. She then earned her Master of Public Health degree from Tulane University. She is now an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Tulane and a member of the Division of Adolescent Medicine. She works in several different adolescent clinics around New Orleans, does research, and teaches.  She loves working with teenagers and is passionate about providing them with quality healthcare

Alina Olteanu, MD, Ph.D. Assistant Professor
aolteanu@tulane.edu

Dr. Olteanu is an assistant Professor for the section of General Academic Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, Tulane Hospital for Children, New Orleans Children's Health Project. Her specialty is General Pediatrics. She attended medical school at the University of Medicine, Cluj, Romania in 1998.  She attended graduate school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and received her Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry in 2004. Dr. Olteanu completed her Pediatric Residency at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX in 2007. In 2008, she was a part of the Pediatric AIDS Corps in Lesotho, Africa. Her clinical interests are Community Pediatrics, Obesity and International Adoptions.

Stephen Weimer, MD Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics
sweimer@tulane.edu

Dr. Weimer is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Section of General Academic Pediatrics at Tulane School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1988 with a B.S. in Zoology.  Then, he graduated from LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans in 1992, where he stayed to complete a pediatric residency in 1995.  In 1995 he was hired as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Tulane School of Medicine, being promoted to Associate Professor in 2001.  A general academic pediatrician, his practice involves the prevention and treatment of illnesses in infants, children, and adolescents.  He also has a special interest in:  Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Pediatric Abdominal Transplant, Co-sleeping/bed sharing of Parents and Children, Community Pediatrics, Influences of Media on Children, and Continuing Medical Education.

Pamela Wiseman, MD Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine
pwisema@tulane.edu

Dr. Wiseman is a Family Physician who has been involved in school health since 1999, when she assisted in planning and became the medical director for the first school-based health center to be opened in Jefferson Parish at Butler Elementary School.  Dr. Wiseman is a graduate of Loyola University New Orleans, University of Virginia Medical School, and completed her residency training at University of Missouri-Columbia.  She is the Clerkship Director for Family Medicine at the Tulane School of Medicine, and also has an active practice at the Tulane Uptown Multispecialty Clinic.