Leadership Montgomery 2024 CORE and Emerging Leaders Programs Include Westat

Westat staff members are among the participants of Leadership Montgomery’s 2024 CORE and Emerging Leaders programs. Leadership Montgomery is a Montgomery County, Maryland-based community leadership organization that fosters cross-sector collaboration to address complex county issues through its programs and offerings. Beginning in September 2023, class participants will attend sessions to expand and build their leadership to support thriving and inclusive communities in Montgomery County and beyond.

CORE

CORE (Connecting Our Regions Execs) Program, Leadership Montgomery’s flagship program, is geared toward seasoned leaders looking to enhance their leadership.

Westat’s Kerry Grace Morrissey, MPH, a Vice President for Public Health, joins the CORE class. At Westat, she oversees a portfolio of domestic and international clinic- and community-based epidemiologic and evaluation research for HRSA, CDC, and NIH related to infectious and chronic disease. She manages communications with public health agency leadership and provides oversight to a cadre of senior staff. She also leads strategic planning and organizational initiatives that support Westat’s responsiveness to public health research needs and the advancement of health equity.

Emerging Leaders

The Emerging Leaders program is for rising leaders who demonstrate commitment to their community and are looking to build their leadership.

Lena Centeno, MA, a Senior Research Associate for Large Surveys, is a task leader on the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and works in a cross-functional capacity that requires bridging communications between field operations and questionnaire design/training. In this capacity, Centeno leads large-scale training efforts, organizes and oversees public facing reports, in addition to representing Westat at several professional conferences.

Belen Michael, MPH, a Lead Research Associate for Public Health, serves as the lead contact for CDC’s Let’s Stop HIV Together Clinical Ambassador program. She also provides qualitative research support to multiple projects in the Health Communications group, including for CDC’s Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services (CSELS), and supports dissemination efforts for HRSA’s Collaborative Health Equity Measures project.

Rebecca Montalvan, MPH, a Senior Research Associate for Clinical Research, provides program management and development support for health-related research. As the project director for NHLBI’s Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Initiative, Montalvan oversees operations and project direction for the administrative coordinating center. She also directs CDC’s Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Surveillance program by overseeing data collection, validation, and publication activities. Montalvan provides program management expertise to NCI’s genome-wide association studies of lymphoma.