The EMSTAR Team

Dr. Starnes received her BSW and MA in clinical psychology from East Tennessee State University and her Ph.D. in community and organizational psychology, in 1987, from Georgia State University. Her professional work has concentrated on designing and evaluating programs in such diverse areas as substance abuse prevention, child abuse prevention, childhood immunizations, volunteer programs for cancer patients, violence prevention programs with teens, community outreach health programs, after-school programs, training programs for state agencies and many others.

Dr. Starnes also served on the Atlanta City Council for 12 years, from 1994 through 2004 and served as Policy Advisor to Atlanta’s Mayor Shirley Franklin. In addition, she serves on several corporate and non-profit Boards.

Dr. Emshoff holds retired faculty positions of Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Community Psychology Program at Georgia State University. He also founded and serves as Director of Research at EMSTAR. He has directed research projects funded by a variety of federal agencies focused on health and well-being. He has received many honors, including the American Medical Association Substance Abuse Prevention Award. During a leave from his academic position, Dr. Emshoff worked at the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) where he concentrated on evaluation issues and the creation of CSAP's grant program for substance abusing pregnant and post partum women and their infants. Dr. Emshoff has conducted evaluation research focused on substance abuse, violence, HIV/AIDS, child abuse, community collaboratives, mentoring, delinquency, and health promotion programs at the local, state, and national levels and provides technical assistance in prevention and evaluation to many organizations. He serves on the Board of Directors or Executive Committee of several national organizations. Approximately 200 of his publications and professional presentations focus on a variety of prevention and evaluation issues.

Dr. Erickson, a Georgia native, spent the first decade of his career as a service provider and administrator in Georgia's public mental health system. During his doctoral studies at Georgia State University he developed research and management skills working at the Centers for Disease Control and Emory University, first as a research assistant and then as a project manager. Since joining EMSTAR in 1990 he has specialized in the evaluation and development of public and private, non-profit organizations. Issues addressed by these organizations include child and family wellness, maternal and child health, teen parenting, alcohol/tobacco/other drug abuse, adolescent sex offending, racism, community collaboration, historic preservation, caretaking, and consumer satisfaction, among others.

Kimberley Broomfield has worked as a program evaluation consultant with EMSTAR since 1998. With degrees from the University of Central Florida and Georgia State University, Dr. Broomfield completed her doctoral work in the field of Community Psychology, with a focus in program evaluation. Although her primary research interest is in positive youth development, her work with the Georgia Campaign for Pregnancy Prevention (GCAPP) and the Center for Black Women’s Wellness sparked an interest in issues around perinatal health. She currently evaluates the Atlanta Healthy Start Initiative; a federally funded program implemented by the Center for Black Women’s Wellness, Inc. whose goal is to address disparities in perinatal heatlh by removing barriers to adequte health care for pregnant women and parenting mothers with infants under the age of two. In addition to her work around youth development and perinatal health, she has also worked with such organizations as Tapestri, Inc., the American Cancer Society, and the United Way. Ms. Broomfield’s academic and occupational experiences continue to fuel her passion for working with community-based organizations and desire to empower disenfranchised communities.

Michelle DiMeo is completing her Ph.D in Community Psychology at Georgia State University. Her dissertation focuses on the benefits youth and parents receive through participation in after-school programs. Her work is guided by the principles of community psychology and focuses on primary prevention and promotion efforts to support healthy youth development. Her work is steered by a commitment to ensure that evaluation efforts are ecologically valid, strength-based, empowerment focused, action oriented, and culturally competent. Michelle is currently a Project Director at EMSTAR Research, evaluating several systems of care which offer community-based services and supports for emotionally-disturbed youth. Previously Michelle has worked as a part of the National Evaluation Team for the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families program. Additionally, Michelle has been involved in several research studies including the assessment of developmental outcomes of youth in Calhoun Georgia, the evaluation of the After-School All-Stars Atlanta program, and the evaluation of the Cool Girls Inc. program. Michelle has expertise in quantitative and qualitative research methods and data analysis, program evaluation, and program consultation.

Zuri Murphy received her MSW from Georgia State University with an emphasis in community partnerships, and is licensed to practice in the State of Georgia. She began evaluating programs for non-profits while earning her graduate degree and has continued to provide program evaluation consulting to non-profit and government agencies. In addition to being an evaluation professional, she ran programs in community mental health for several years. She joined EMSTAR as a Project Manager in 2009.

Shaheen Rana received her M.A. in Clinical/Community Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While receiving her graduate degree, her research focused on interagency collaboration and systems change in the response to intimate partner violence. Her Master’s research focused on using social network analysis (SNA) to study coordination in collaborative settings. She was also a research assistant on the local SAMHSA-funded systems of care project, which extended her interest in collaboration to services for youth with SED. In addition, she was interested in youth voice, and was part of a youth empowerment project that worked with predominantly African-American girls during her last year in Illinois. She also taught a human service learning course for two years, which was a collaboration between the university and the local rape crisis center, on child abuse prevention. At EMSTAR, she is currently working on projects that evaluate multi-agency collaborations that seek to better serve youth with severe emotional disorders.

Molly Russ received her Master of Public Health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University with a focus on behavioral health and health education. Molly has a diverse background, with experiences in HIV education and prevention, youth empowerment, and community-based obesity prevention research. Molly became involved in program evaluation during her graduate career and now serves as a Project Manager for EMSTAR. Current projects include evaluation of several collaborative programs providing community-based services and supports for seriously-mentally disturbed youth and their families, as well as Georgia’s Rural Health Experience, an educational and cultural training rotation for medical students that promotes Primary Care Provider placements in rural locations.

Debra Hughes received her BS in Science Education from East Tennessee State University and her MEd in Science Education from Georgia State University. During her 34 year tenure as an educator, Debra has been named Teacher of the Year as well as STAR Teacher. In addition to teaching, Ms. Hughes has worked as a content specialist for Georgia Public Broadcasting and a curriculum content writer for the Department of Juvenile Justice. She joined EMSTAR in 2011, and is working as a Data Manager for a state-wide curriculum program.