Deborah Tapler, RN, PhD
Dr. Tapler is currently retired from the nursing profession and serves as Chair of the Medical Advisory Committee of Health Futures of Texas. She has participated with NTARUPT for many years as a board member and advisor. She had a long career as a nurse educator with 20 years of experience as a tenured Professor at Texas Woman’s University, College of Nursing, Dallas. She has designed and implemented many health-related, women-focused research studies and created innovative process to enhance nursing education. She was the undergraduate nursing coordinator for many years in an administrative position while continuing to teach nursing students in the classroom and in the hospital.
Eesha Farooqi, MD
Dr. Eesha Farooqi is a board-certified pediatrician, currently in fellowship for adolescent medicine at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She discovered her passion for teens and youth while living in the small town of Killeen, finding her way through College Station, Houston, Las Vegas and San Antonio to build her career in medicine. She enjoys health education and outreach and is a part of various committees.
Katharine H Smith MD
Dr. Smith is a retired physician living in Dallas, TX, earned a BA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MD from UTMB in Galveston. Board certified in Emergency Medicine from 1990 to 2010, she practiced in various fields including Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Occupational Medicine, and Urgent Care/Wellness and Preventative Medicine. She volunteered with Planned Parenthood, CASA in Dallas and Washington, DC, and NTARUPT before merging with Healthy Futures of Texas.
Nicholas Westers MD
Dr. Nicholas Westers is a Clinical Psychologist at Children’s Health and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He is board certified in Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology and is President-Elect of the International Society for the Study of Self-Injury (ISSS). He also currently serves as Chair of the Media &; Communications Committee for ISSS and is newly elected to the Nominations Committee for the Society for Adolescent Health & Medicine (SAHM). His clinical and research interests focus on adolescent non-suicidal self-injury, depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior, and he is the host and producer of The Psychology of Self-Injury podcast, a resource for parents, professionals, and people with lived experience of self-injury.
Nora Gimpel MD
For over 20 years, Dr. Gimpel has been consistently involved in community service, as an educator, a clinician, a researcher, and a leader. Community-based approaches and access to under-represented populations not only enrich the experience of well-established physicians, but it also offers an invaluable opportunity to expose medical and non-medical trainees to a population health approach to healthcare, building upon the traditional approach to medical education and training. Community health training programs aim to address issues of population-based health and interdisciplinary teamwork while providing students with community-based experiences and a broader understanding of the social and cultural background of health and disease. In the past 15 years, she has developed an infrastructure that can provide trainees the. opportunity to learn the principles of population medicine, community-based disease prevention, care of the underserved, and culturally appropriate approaches to health problems. She mentored pre and postdoctoral students in Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) using my expertise in Preventive Medicine, Family Medicine, and Public Health. She is currently directing the four components (Community Action Research Track (CART), Community Health Fellowship Program (CHFP), Community Action Research Experience (CARE), Community Medicine Fellowship) of the community action research training pipeline developed at the Division of Community Medicine in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) Dallas. In addition, she has developed very strong collaborative relationships throughout the academic and surrounding Dallas community. More than thirty community partners have participated in service-learning opportunities with UTSW medical students, residents, and fellows. She strongly believes that collaborative practice across disciplines improve the quality of care provided and bring an opportunity to creatively address health disparities.
Rhonda Friedman ScD
Dr. Rhonda Friedman spent her professional career in health public policy and outcomes research. After receiving her Doctor of Science degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Population Dynamics, she worked in the Congress on various health-related committees and Members’ offices following and promoting policy that would improve the public health. Her research interests have included evaluating interventions that could improve health delivery and healthcare status. She has investigated utilizing nurse practitioners for delivery of women’s health care, especially for adolescents, in several Latin American countries; the quality-of-life improvement with medications aimed at improving chronic conditions; and the safety and effectiveness of various diagnostics, devices, and drugs now used in the public sector. She is also on multiple Institutional Review Boards to examine research for initiation at several health care organizations.
Mandy Golman PhD, MS, RN, BSN, IBCLC, MCHES
Associate Professor in the School of Health Promotion and Kinesiology at Texas Woman’s University (TWU), Dr. Mandy Golman is also Co-Director of the TWU Institute of Women’s Health, a collaborative hub dedicated to changing the landscape of women’s health research and improving the lives of women around the world. In addition to guiding students and teaching her TWU courses, Dr. Golman is also an RN and Certified Lactation Consultant. A frequent, in-demand speaker, she is known for delivering engaging and accessible workshops on female wellness, lactation, eating disorders, teen pregnancy, parenting, adolescent sexuality, and positive body image. Dr. Golman has served as the Principal Investigator and Evaluator on several grants, totaling over $8M in funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Chinwe Efuribe MD, MPH
Dr. Chinwe Efuribe is a Nigerian American Pediatrician with over 16 years of clinical care experience across the globe in various clinical settings. Beyond the United States, her time spent caring for patients in the United Kingdom, Africa, and Canada allowed her to develop a cross-cultural approach to pediatric health care and promotion. After working in group practice and community health centers, she founded Centered Youth Clinic and Consulting (CYCC) to create more youth-friendly health spaces and coach adolescents to take charge of their health. The clinic provides direct primary and specialty care services to youth (newborn to 25yrs) and builds community partnerships for positive youth development. She has expertise integrating youth engagement into the infrastructure of youth-serving organizations. As a former church youth ministries director, she established processes for youth engagement in programs promoting wellness of the mind, body, and soul for adolescents. She has also developed youth engagement initiatives for the Society for Adolescent Health Medicine, Austin Black Physicians Association, Texas Youth Friendly Initiative, Adolescent Health Initiative, and American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Efuribe is board-certified in Pediatrics & Lifestyle Medicine, fellowship-trained in Adolescent Medicine, and obtained a Master of Public Health in Community Health Promotion.