September 28, 2018

As an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Fellow at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, GA, Nicole Dickerman, MPH '18, helps to expand the reach of practice-based evidence on a national level. She works exclusively on the Evaluation and Program Effectiveness Team in the Applied Research and Evaluation Branch (AREB) for the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP) in the National Center for Chronic Disease and Health Promotion (NCCDHP).

Dickerman, whose fellowship began in July 2018, supports her division's mission of making public health initiatives and programs more effective by building evaluation capacity, fostering evaluation use, and conducting high quality evaluations to expand practice-based evidence and improve accountability. In addition, she assesses how evaluation tools and resources are disseminated to state and local health departments, communities, tribal organizations, public health professionals, and partners in their evaluation efforts and she has seen results. "I have personally seen the research make an impact on both local and national levels," says Dickerman.

In the next five years, Dickerman sees herself continuing to collaborate with a team and strategizing and implementing ways to improve public health through evaluation research, policymaking, or advocacy.