CPH Faculty

Dr. Raedeh Basiri is an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies. Basiri’s research interests are assessing the effects of healthy eating on the prevention and treatment of diabetes and obesity. She is also interested in preventing pediatric obesity via the application of multi-faceted interventions.

Bethany Cieslowski is the Simulation Coordinator for the George Mason University School of Nursing. She earned her BSN from the University of Virginia, MA from Columbia University’s Department of Biomedical (Nursing) Informatics and DNP at the Duke University School of Nursing. 

Dr. Erin Maughan's research focuses on measuring the effectiveness of school nursing and school health programs that support the need of students (K-12) living in vulnerable situations. Her particular research focus looks at the infrastructure needed to support appropriate school nurse staffing and identifying indicators that best measure the effectiveness of school nursing and school health. Dr. Maughan uses her professional work experience and expertise in mix-method and qualitative designs to not only strengthen the evidence related to school health, but also obtain the data needed to change health and education policy.

Dr. Batheja is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Food and Nutrition Studies. Batheja’s research interests are how to leverage technology to create dietary behavior changes and impact overweight and obesity.

Dr. Michelle S. Williams is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Global and Community Health at George Mason University. Dr. Williams’ research is focused on developing culturally appropriate health behavior interventions for cancer prevention and control that will lead to a reduction in cancer disparities. Since 2009, Dr. Williams has been conducting research in Ghana, West Africa that is focused on cervical cancer prevention.

Dr. Carolyn Drews-Botsch is Professor in the Department of Global and Community Health. Her research has focused on the epidemiology of pediatric conditions and the factors, particularly in the perinatal period, that contribute to their etiology.  Specifically, her work seeks to understand these conditions, and carefully apply modern epidemiologic methods to studies of these conditions. Her research program has included work in a variety of related fields including congenital cataracts, fetal growth restriction – particularly in relationship to placental development, intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders.  

Dr. Marti Kubik has an 18-year history of extramural-funded research with a focus on youth and families and low-income and minority populations. Nationally recognized in the field of childhood obesity prevention, Dr. Kubik’s work has advanced understanding of the school food environment, contributing to school nutrition policy at state, national and international levels. Other research examined the role of school nursing in obesity prevention. New work piloted a trauma-informed, resilience-based multi-level intervention to reduce violence among urban youth. She has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is a past standing member of the NIH Community-Level Health Promotion Study Section.

Dr. Hong Xue is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy. His primary research interests are in health economics, nutritional epidemiology, systems science and modeling, (childhood) obesity, mHealth, and big data and machine learning.

Dr. Griffin is a Professor in the Department of Global & Community Health at George Mason University. His research focuses on health risk behaviors such as substance use and abuse (including prescription drugs and opioids), violence and aggression (including bullying and sexual violence) and related behaviors among children, adolescents, and young adults.

Building on over 40 years of nursing practice and research experience, Dr. Kathi Huddleston’s research interest has focused on improving health outcomes for children. She has conducted research in the intensive care areas and the community health arena. Her interests range from genomics to the microbiome, from neurodevelopment assessment to pediatric obesity.