Sarah Verbiest, DrPH, MSW, MPH

(she/her)

Sarah is the Director of the Jordan Institute for Families and the Executive Director for the Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health. She is a Clinical Professor at the School of Social Work. She brings over 20 years of expertise, leadership, and research in women, maternal, child, and family well-being to the team. She supervises programs serving clinics across North Carolina, serves on policy teams, including the Child Fatality Task Force, maintains a robust research portfolio, and has convened statewide coalitions to address maternal and infant mortality disparities. Verbiest has successfully led complex mixed-methods research studies and leveraged the findings into on-the-ground change. She edited the book Making Change Happen: Moving Lifecourse from Theory to Action (APHA Press, 2018)) which focused on MCH practitioners.  Her book – Preconception Health and Care: A Lifecourse Perspective, was released in August 2020. Dr. Verbiest co-edited the 4th Edition of the Maternal and Child Health textbook, released in 2021. Her most recent co-edited book, the Maternal Health Practical Playbook, was released in February 2024. She is a co-founder and co-leader of the 4th Trimester Project and leads the national Show Your Love campaign. She holds a doctorate in public health leadership, a master’s degree in public health (maternal and child health), and a master’s degree in social work (community, management, and policy practice), all from UNC-Chapel Hill.

sarah_verbiest@unc.edu
(919) 638-5183

Yvette Thompson, BA, has over 20 years of experience in administration and financial accounting. She has been in a variety of roles at UNC-Chapel Hill over the years. She has strong communication, program coordination, problem-solving, customer service, and business management skills.

vette4ee@gmail.com

Allison De Marco, PhD, MSW, is an advanced research scientist at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, the lead research associate for the Jordan Institute of Families, and adjunct faculty at the School of Social Work at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work focuses on economic supports for families, leadership development, research methodology, engaging with policy makers and community members, poverty, housing and homelessness.  She was awarded a team Interdisciplinary Research Leadership award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for a community-based study entitled, “Overcoming Structural Racism in Housing Stability and Wealth-building: Laying the Foundation for Community Health and Well Being.” This project is in conjunction with her long-term community partner, the Community Empowerment Fund. In 2022 she was awarded the UNC Provost’s Award for Engaged Scholarship for the economic justice course she co-teaches with CEF.

Allison.Demarco@unc.edu

Rakiah earned her MPH in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gillings School of Global Public Health. Rakiah’s career commitment is to utilize culturally responsive practices and equity approaches to understand and address disparities in health outcomes. Rakiah hopes to be a champion for her community and evaluate public health efforts to promote meaningful, long-lasting change.

rakiah@unc.edu

Katherine Bryant, MA, MSPH

Katherine has been a program director and coordinator for a variety of state and national projects since 2014. Her portfolio includes projects with the Maternal Health Learning and Innovation Center, the Missouri Foundation for Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, PCORI, JSI, and HRSA MCHB. She shares her time between projects at JIF and the Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health. She received her Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Duke University in 2007 and her Master of Science in Public Health from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC in Healthy Policy and Management in 2010. She is passionate about public health, with a focus on women’s and children’s health, social determinants of health, and health equity.

Katherine_bryant@med.unc.edu

Jenna Muller, PhD

Jenna is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Her research interests primarily include systemic forms of trauma, coping, and mental health. She prides herself on her engagement in interdisciplinary collaborations across fields such as social work, public health, education, and child welfare. Jenna is interested in future research with transformative and social justice-oriented philosophies and methodologies that pursue accessible solutions for marginalized groups. She previously earned her PhD in social work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Molly Crabb

Molly Crabb is an aspiring social work professional focused on systems change, economic justice, and the redesign of social programs to better address poverty and the wealth gap. With a background in nonprofit communications and social impact work, she brings a strong understanding of how policy, institutions, and narratives shape access to resources and opportunity.

Molly is particularly interested in macro and mezzo-level social work, including program development, policy implementation, and evaluation. Her work is guided by a commitment to addressing root causes of economic inequity and to advancing systems that are more equitable, effective, and responsive to lived experience. She is especially drawn to efforts that integrate data, community voice, and cross-sector collaboration to reduce structural barriers facing low-income individuals and families.

As she pursues advanced training in social work, Molly aims to build a career that bridges strategy and practice, partnering with organizations and public systems to reduce economic inequality and promote long-term stability and dignity. She brings clarity, empathy, and a deep commitment to social justice to her work.

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Paul Lanier, MSW, PhD is The Wallace Kuralt Distinguished Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the associate director of the Jordan Institute for Families and a research fellow at the Sheps Center for Health Services research. Dr. Lanier received his doctoral degree from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and was a fellow with the national Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-Being. His research focuses on developing, evaluating, and scaling up evidence-based prevention programs across child welfare, mental health, and early childhood systems. He has conducted studies on parenting support models, including Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), the Triple P Positive Parenting Program, Circle of Parents, and several maternal and child health home-visiting models. In addition to his focus on intervention research, Dr. Lanier also uses linked, multi-sector administrative data for policy analysis to improve child well-being. He is also a board member of the North Carolina Infant Mental Health Association.

planier@email.unc.edu

Todd M. Jensen, PhD, MSW

Dr. Jensen is a Research Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work and a Family Research and Engagement Specialist in the Jordan Institute for Families at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the Associate Director for Research in the Collaborative for Implementation Practice. His scholarship focuses on (a) promoting family well-being in diverse contexts; (b) strengthening family-serving systems; and (c) prioritizing equity in family research, practice, and policy. 

• Families experiencing relationship transitions and shifts in parental structure
• Family maltreatment prevention among military-connected families
• Promoting the use of data and evidence in family-serving systems
• Understanding the role of trusting relationships in optimizing the uptake of effective programs and practices in family-serving systems 
• Advocating for inclusive definitions of family
• Centering equity in the theory and methods used to study and support families and family-serving systems

jensen@unc.edu
(919) 962-6543