Two collaborative groups guide the pursuit and achievement of the Center for Advancing Rural Health Equity's (CARHE) goals:
In addition, the following teams have helped us shape CARHE and provide day-to-day oversight and management of its work:
The Leadership Council
The Leadership Council for the Center was convened in August 2022. The Leadership Council is the primary governing body of CARHE. It provides strategic direction and ensure our activities remain consistent with our mission, vision and values.
Jacqui Baker
Family Treatment Court Coordinator, New Hampshire Judicial Family Treatment Court
Jacqui Baker works as the Family Treatment Court Coordinator for the NH Judicial Branch. She currently leads the implementation of the first Family Treatment Court (FTC) in New Hampshire, which is located in Sullivan County. Parents with abuse and neglect cases can choose to participate in FTC when substance use is part of the case. The program uses a supportive, team approach to increase the family’s access to supports and services, and likelihood of recovery and reunification. Jacqui has a certification in substance misuse prevention and a background in public health. She grew up in New Hampshire, where she still lives. She loves learning how communication styles and personality affect how people experience and show up in the world and enjoys being active in the outdoors with her husband and dog.
Kristen van Bergen-Buteau, CPHQ
Director, Workforce Development & Public Health Programs, North Country Health Consortium
Kristen van Bergen-Buteau, CPHQ, is the Director of Workforce Development & Public Health Programs at the North Country Health Consortium. In her professional role, she serves as the Center Director for the Northern NH Area Health Education Center and the Director of the North Country Public Health Network. Ms. van Bergen is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality, and, as such, brings almost 2 decades of experience in the areas of leadership development, quality improvement, the application of evidence-based practice in a variety of healthcare settings, population health management and regulatory compliance to her work. She lives with her husband and their 2 children in a Lancaster home that has sheltered six generations of her family, is an advocate for multiple family members living with disabilities and chronic illnesses, and serves as a community practitioner, knitting together resources to elevate the community connections across the rural region in which she lives. She also serves as a member of a public cooperative school district Board of Education, providing strategic guidance to a 5-town, 3-school district serving students in grades pre-K through 12.
Rudy Fedrizzi, MD
Public Health Services District Director, Vermont Department of Health
Rudolph (Rudy) Fedrizzi is the Public Health Services District Director for the White River Junction Office of Local Health in the Vermont Department of Health. Prior to his career in public health, Dr. Fedrizzi practiced Obstetrics and Gynecology for 16 years. His past administrative and clinical experience includes Chief of OB-GYN Services and training as a flight surgeon at Luke Air Force Base Hospital in Glendale, Arizona, Medical Director of the Northern New Mexico Women’s Health and Birth Center in Taos, NM, and Director of Surgical Services at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, New York. Currently, he is Chair of the Upper Valley Medical Reserve Corps Advisory Board, President of the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley Board, Vice President of the Southern NH Area Health Education Network (AHEC) Board, member of the Twin Pines Housing Board, and member of the Rotary Club of Lebanon, New Hampshire. He has 3 children scattered in 3 states (Washington, Colorado and New Hampshire). When not working he enjoys reading, travel, building whimsical birdhouses and height rulers, and is a pretty consistent, though pretty slow, runner.
Tina Foster, MD, MPH, MS
Staff Physician, Professor, Dartmouth Health
Tina Foster is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Community and Family Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine. She practices at general OB/GYN at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and serves as Vice-Chair for Education in the Department of OB/GYN. She is board certified in OB/GYN and Preventive Medicine. A graduate of UC San Francisco medical school, she obtained her MPH (1998) at the Harvard School of Public Health and MS (2001) at Dartmouth’s Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences while she was a fellow in the VA Quality Scholars national fellowship program in White River Junction, Vermont. She is Associate Program Director for the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Leadership Preventive Medicine Residency, a unique residency focused on the improvement of health and healthcare services. She teaches in the MPH programs at The Dartmouth Institute. She is also part of the leadership team of the International Coproduction of Health Network, focusing her work on building Communities of Practice. A Californian by birth, she lives in Post Mills, Vermont, where she tends the Post Mills Airport and Museum of Rusty Dusty Stuff and enjoys her cats and chickens, gardening, cooking, knitting and writing.
Ann Fournier, PhD, MS, RN, AHN-BC, CNE, CCE
Associate Professor, School of Nursing & Health Sciences,Colby Sawyer College
Dr. Fournier is a deeply committed holistic educator who trusts in the process and product of the mutual work of engaged pedagogy. Her teaching and learning, research and practice occur in academic, community, and clinical settings. The focus of her teaching extends from nursing into liberal education and lifelong learning spaces. She appreciates opportunities to collaborate with colleagues and community groups. Most recently, collaborations have included: planning a spring break alternative trip to Appalachia, exploring medical humanities and narrative medicine, storytelling, contributing to the implementation of interprofessional microaggression and bias trainings and participating as a member of the leadership team for Dartmouth Health’s Center for Advancing Rural Health Equity. She is a lover of flowers, the water, the color blue, flamenco guitar, shared gatherings, and is a mother of 7 (6 boys and 1 girl) who wishes she had time to learn to sew.
Helen Hong
Executive Director, COVER Home Repair
Helen is excited to further COVER Home Repair’s mission to build community and foster hope through cooperation and fellowship among home repair and reuse participants. As a former attorney, Helen excels at bringing her creativity and analytical skills to solve problems. She enjoys finding ways to collaborate, to build trust and to work towards a common goal. Helen spent six years on the COVER board, serving as the Board Chair in 2015-2016. Helen has also volunteered on home repair projects and in the COVER store and she spent a week in Louisiana as part of COVER’s volunteer team helping to rebuild homes after Hurricane Katrina. Helen first arrived in the Upper Valley in 2005. Over a 13-year tenure at Twin Pines Housing, she helped over 25 low- to moderate-income households access down payment grants to become homeowners. In exchange for the grants, homeowners agreed to keep their homes perpetually affordable. She also helped homeowners make energy-efficient improvements to their homes and funded three net-zero homes through creative initiatives with local investors and state entities. Helen quickly realized that reducing energy costs was critical to keeping homes affordable to limited-income homeowners. She is passionate about making homes safer and more efficient while also building a sense of community.
Janet Hunt, MA
New Futures
Janet’s career parallels the growth of New Hampshire’s community-based service system, starting with a commitment to the deinstitutionalization process of Laconia State School. In addition, Janet co-founded People First of New Hampshire, where she was awarded the One Sky Leadership Award. Janet then worked for the Partnership for Public Health as the Director of ServiceLink Aging and Disability Resources, Executive Director of the Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging (V4A), and is now Community Engagement Coordinator for New Futures. Janet holds an Associate degree in Occupational Therapy and a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Human Service Administration from Southern NH University.
Sally Kraft, MD
Vice President, Population Health, Dartmouth Health
Sally Kraft is Vice President of Population Health at Dartmouth Health, where she leads a multi-disciplinary team dedicated to improving the health of populations and communities across the region served by Dartmouth Health faculty and affiliates. Dr. Kraft served as the Medical Director of Quality, Safety and Innovation at the University of Wisconsin Health system from 2007-2014, where she led system-wide initiatives to redesign ambulatory care. She received her MD and MPH degrees from the University of Michigan, completed a residency in internal medicine at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and fellowships in Pulmonary and Critical Care medicine at Stanford University. She has practiced pulmonary and critical care medicine in Stanford, California, and Madison, Wisconsin.
Terri Lewinson, PhD, MSW
Associate Professor, The Dartmouth Institute
Dr. Lewinson is an Associate Professor at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and the Department of Epidemiology at the Geisel School of Medicine. Her research focuses on housing-health experiences for marginalized people in various community contexts. This work includes exploring factors involved in residential mobility, or why people transition into and out of different home environments. As her research has evolved, Dr. Lewinson’s focus has broadened to include determining the impacts of environmental factors—such as toxic exposures in homes and forced evictions—on health and well-being. Her most recent projects have looked at tobacco exposure and housing pathways among extended-stay hotel residents, medical social workers’ scope of practice during the pandemic, and the role of payment and delivery system reform in combating the opioid epidemic.
Andrew Loehrer, MD, MPH
Staff Physician, Dartmouth Health
Andrew Loehrer is a surgical oncologist and health services researcher at Dartmouth Health, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. His clinical practice includes care for patients with cancers of the skin, soft tissue, liver and gastrointestinal tract. Dr. Loehrer currently serves as the Cancer Liaison Physician for the Dartmouth Cancer Center and as an academic mentor to trainees across Dartmouth. Dr. Loehrer received his medical degree from Loyola University Chicago, Stritch School of Medicine before completing a residency general surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a clinical fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center. He also holds a Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in health policy, received from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Outside interests include professional football and baseball, hiking, landscaping and gardening.
Andy Lowe
Executive Director,New England Rural Health Association
Andy Lowe is the Executive Director of the New England Rural Health Association, the Rural Health Association of the six New England states. Before becoming Executive Director, he was a member of the NERHA Board of Directors, serving as President from 2020-2021. Before joining NERHA, Andy served as Chief Strategy Officer at Outer Cape Health Services, a community health center serving the rural Outer Cape Cod region. While there, Andy also served as Director of the Cape and Islands Area Health Education Center (AHEC). Previous work includes positions at the University of Vermont, where he worked on community-based research programs for rural veterans, and the State of Vermont, where he served in a number of roles culminating in Associate CIO for the Agency of Human Services. Andy holds a community faculty appointment at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and has worked with many advisees from the Medical School and Graduate School of Nursing on community-based rural projects. Andy and his wife Jayne, who met as undergraduates at Norwich University, live in rural Vermont. A lifelong resident of New England who has lived in rural areas of Vermont, Connecticut and Cape Cod, Andy enjoys fishing, primitive arms hunting, hiking, biking, snowshoeing, gardening, boating, swimming, maple sugaring, cross country skiing and anything else outdoors. Andy is a competitive endurance athlete who has trained and raced as a runner, cross country skier, triathlete and rower.
Lisa McBride, PhD
Associate Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,Giesel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College
Dr. McBride, a Ferguson, Missouri, native has an extensive career and is distinguished by her commitment to equity and justice, both in education and in the wider public arena. As the newly appointed Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. She is responsible for leveraging diversity, inclusion and belonging to drive the school’s mission of excellence in medical education, delivery of care and scholarship. She previously served as Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion at Texas Christian University (TCU) School of Medicine while maintaining her appointment as Professor of Medical Education. Dr. McBride began her career as a police officer in her hometown of Ferguson, Missouri. She then transitioned to a federal criminal investigator position for eight years where she worked in various countries as an undercover operative with the US Department of Justice.
Elisabeth Wilson, MD, MPH, MS-HPEd
Chair and Professor of the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Health
Elisabeth Wilson is Chair of Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth Health and Geisel School of Medicine. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing the clinical, academic and social mission of the department. Prior to coming to Dartmouth, Dr. Wilson served as Chair of Family Medicine at Maine Medical Center where she also served as the Executive Director of the Preble Street Learning Collaborative. Dr. Wilson completed her MD and MPH at Tufts University and received a master’s in education from the MGH Institute of Health Professions. After residency and a three-year research fellowship at UCSF, she joined the faculty as the Director of “PRIME-US”, an innovative program for students interested in working with urban underserved communities. Dr. Wilson is committed to advancing primary care and health equity through clinical care, education, research, and community engagement. She loves hiking and biking, has a huge dog named Charlie, and spends a lot of time on the road going to visit her partner and family living beyond the Upper Valley.
The Community Advisory Council
The Community Advisory Council brings the voice of the community to the Center for Advancing Rural Health Equity and serves as a resource for Center activities. Community Advisory Council members are representative of diverse communities in rural northern New England.
Aiyana Banks
Community Member from Lebanon, New Hampshire
Aiyana has worked in a variety of settings, giving her a broad perspective on individuals from all types of backgrounds. She has managed people, worked in service roles, provided care for seniors, and worked as a nursing assistant, massage therapist and Native American Special Emphasis Program Manager. Aiyana has strong interests in natural and traditional medicine, community/lay midwifery, and sustainable living. She loves working on her van named "Buggy" and renovating her trailer named "The She Shack." She is always willing to learn new things. She has 5 children and 3 grandchildren.
Lindsey Boisvert
Community Health Worker, New London Hospital
Lindsey Boisvert is a Community Health Worker by training. Lindsey has worked as a Community Health Worker in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center as well as Primary Care and Pediatrics at New London Hospital. In addition to her work addressing Social Drivers of Health, Lindsey is the Co-Chair for the New Hampshire CHW Coalition and The Chair for the Greater Sullivan County Public Health Advisory Council. Lindsey lives in Sunapee, New Hampshire, with her Husband Jacob and their rescue dog, Reggie.
Cheri Bryer
Recovery Coach, Moms in Recovery, Dartmouth Health
Cheri Bryer is the Recovery Coach at the Moms in Recovery Program at Dartmouth Health, where she provides peer support recovery services and advocacy to pregnant and parenting women. She is a member of the interdisciplinary pediatric and OB teams at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, working with women and families who have substance misuse disorders. In her inpatient and outpatient role she provides individualized advocacy, support and referrals to community recovery resources. As a person in long-term recovery herself, she often accompanies individuals to medical appointments, recovery meetings, court hearings and treatment. Cheri is a certified recovery coach and Ethics trainer, leading many trainings in the Upper Valley. She is certified to supervise recovery coaches and social workers and has been an integral part of mentoring and teaching medical providers and care givers throughout New Hampshire. She has appeared in documentaries and speaks at public forums on behalf of herself and people with substance misuse disorder. She is inspired to speak out and uses her own personal story of addiction to help reduce stigma and bring a voice to those who have been silenced. Her experiences and recovery are proof that people can change.
Laura Byrne
Executive Director, HIV and Hepatitis C Resource Center
Laura Byrne is Executive Director of the HIV/HCV Resource Center, an AIDS Service Organization located in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Over the past decade, she has expanded her agency’s syringes service and overdose prevention programming and has worked to strengthen the linkage to care for people with substance use disorders. She is particularly interested in promoting health equity for clients who have faced stigma, including people who inject drugs and LGBTQ individuals. In addition to harm reduction, she is interested in relationships between gender, identity, society and culture. She is a graduate of Colby College and received an MA in Anthropology from Boston University. In her spare time, she likes to sing and play hockey, but not necessarily at the same time.
Faye Grearson, MEd
Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, Formerly Twin Pines
Faye Grearson, MEd, is the Employee Resource Navigator at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Faye grew up in Meriden, New Hampshire, and graduated from Dartmouth College, then taught public school in economically challenged communities ranging from Bellows Falls, Vermont to Kellogg, Idaho. She was an instructor at University of Montana’s School of Education before moving to Aspen, Colorado, where she taught skiing and partner dancing before returning to the Upper Valley. While raising her 2 sons in Lebanon she was active in the local homeschool community, organizing ski, drama, dance and social opportunities for young adults. Later, as Director of Supportive Services for Twin Pines Housing Trust, she collaborated with many organizations in defining and meeting the needs of Upper Valley residents. She is excited about identifying and removing barriers to a healthy life that still exist for many in our community.
Bryanna McConnell
TLC Family Resource Center
Bryanna is the Youth Programs Outreach Coordinator at TLC Family Resource Center in Claremont, New Hampshire. She grew up in Newport, New Hampshire, and still lives in her childhood home with her sister, Danielle, her mother, Teriko, and her gremlin-dog, Maia. One of her favorite things to do is travel. She has visited 20 states, including Alaska and Hawaii, as well as Japan, Zimbabwe, Canada, Puerto Rico, and just recently South Korea. She loves learning about places, people, languages and cultures that are different than what she grew up with. She also loves reading, writing, playing video games, cosplaying, kayaking, scuba-diving and playing with her 5-year-old godson, Jack. Bryanna has always had a passion for helping others and bettering her communities. She brings to the Advisory Council the perspective of a self-identified queer Millennial woman with a medical disability and several mental health challenges, including anxiety, depression and ADHD. She’s thrilled for the opportunity to help find solutions to local barriers.
Greg Norman, MS
Senior Director, Community Health, Dartmouth Health
Greg Norman is Senior Director of Community Health at Dartmouth Health in Lebanon, New Hampshire. In this role, Greg oversees Dartmouth Health’s Community Health Needs Assessment process, the development of Dartmouth Health’s Community Health Improvement Plan, and then helps Dartmouth Health organize its people, expertise and other resources to partner with community organizations and community members to help improve conditions that impact health and well-being. Prior to working at Dartmouth Health, Greg worked as a part of several Upper Valley region non-profits including Headrest, many regional schools, and The Family Place Parent Child Center, and provided strategic planning consultation to numerous other organizations. Greg is also an Adjunct Instructor in The Dartmouth Institute's Master's in Public Health degree program. Greg enjoys hiking, town recreation sports, and off-key singing and guitar playing in his spare time, and volunteers as a Board Member and Strategic Planning Committee member for Vital Communities.
Denise Pouliot
Cowsuck band, Penacook-Abenaki people
Denise K. Pouliot is the Sag8moskwa (Female Head Speaker) of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook Abenaki People and traditional artist. She currently serves on the New Hampshire Commission on Native American Affairs and New Hampshire Public Health Association, is a Federal Religious Advisor, the treasurer for COWASS North America and the Abenaki Nation of Vermont, and a founding member of the Indigenous New Hampshire Collaborative Collective. Denise is also an Affiliate Faculty member of the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Native American and Indigenous Studies Minor and recipient of the UNH Platinum Sustainability Award for community building and was named as one of The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC's) 60 individuals and organizations that have positively impacted the natural world in honor of TNC’s 60 years of conservation in New Hampshire 2021. In her spare time as a traditional artist, she creates coil, bark or woven baskets and produces traditional ceremonial clothing.
Rob Schultz
Retired, Formerly Vital Communities
Rob Schultz has recently retired as Director of Place-based Learning at Vital Communities, where he led Leadership Upper Valley. This is a program designed to bring leaders and emerging leaders together, learning with each other and regional experts about the critical issues facing the Upper Valley. Prior to this, Rob led Cover Home Repair in White River Junction, Vermont, for 9 years and the Farm and Wilderness Foundation for 8 years. He lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, with his partner, Diane. He is an avid carpenter, cellist, wilderness traveler and gardener.
Emily Zanleoni
Executive Director, Hartford Community Coalition
Emily Musty Zanleoni was born into a rural New Hampshire farming family and, early on, developed the sensitivities and qualities that make her a keen listener and appreciator of the human spirit. As a humanist, Em is committed to ensuring that all people have the skills and supports they need to live healthy, adventurous lives. Working with various educational and nonprofit organizations throughout Northern New England, Emily has worked to provide education and access to care for young people, and coordinated programs focusing on promoting sexual health, substance-misuse and suicide prevention, and positive youth development and engagement. She currently consults with Music to Life as a workshop trainer and coach supporting artists to turn their social change ideas into sustainable music-driven programs for communities in need; conducts trainings in Teen and Youth Mental Health First Aid for a variety of health and wellness organizations; and is also the Executive Director of the Hartford Community Coalition, her local community organization which acts to reduce the stigma and impact of alcohol and drug use, food insecurity and mental health in support of the development of a healthy, safe, and resilient Hartford, Vermont.
Angela Zhang, MSW
Programs Director, Listen Community Services
Originally hailing from Virginia and now living in Lebanon, New Hampshire, Angela Zhang is the Programs Director at LISTEN Community Services, a social services agency based in Lebanon dedicated to helping meet the critical needs of Upper Valley individuals and families. In her work, she is actively involved in fighting poverty, homelessness, and racism in the Upper Valley. She believes strongly in building community, mutual support, and visibility for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. In 2020, Angela co-founded the BIPOC Social Workers of Northern New England affinity group. She also teaches at the Social Work department at Plymouth State University. In her spare time, she volunteers as a crisis line advocate for WISE, and serves on the Board of Directors for WISE and Twin Pines Housing Trust. Angela was named the 2022 Social Worker of the Year by NH National Association of Social Workers.
The CARHE Planning team
A 6-month co-design process between January and June 2022 brought together diverse team members to shape the Center for Advancing Rural Health Equity. Planning team members were chosen for their expertise, knowledge and willingness to tackle big ideas in pursuit of health for rural populations.
Representation on the planning team included:
- Colby-Sawyer College
- Dartmouth Health
- Dartmouth College
- LISTEN Community Services
- Public Health Council of the Upper Valley
- Rural constituent from Dorchester, New Hampshire
- Rural constituent from Hartland, Vermont
- Rural constituent from Lebanon, New Hampshire
- Rural constituent from Littleton, New Hampshire
- Rural constituent from Sunapee, New Hampshire
- Rural constituent from Windsor, Vermont
- Twin Pines Housing Trust
- Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission
- Vermont Department of Health
Read the CARHE stakeholder report (PDF)
CARHE staff
