The Mary Amelia Center is excited to welcome several new staff members. In the past few months, the number of staff members at MAC has more than doubled! The MAC family is expanding, and we are thrilled! Our first new member was Stephanie Tokarz, who started in late September is the Program Manager for our evaluation partnership with a local non-profit, Educare New Orleans and our Kellogg-sponsored Healthy Beginnings Project run out of the school.

Florence Fleischer Djoleto started at the Women's Center in October as Program Manager for Dr. Theall's new NIH Healthy Neighborhoods Project. Patricia Davis, our new Program Coordinator, will collaborate with Florence on the Healthy Neighborhoods Project.

Chardae Cutno, a recent Tulane grad has joined the team here at MAC in November as the Center's Media and Communications Specialist. She and our new Postdoctoral Fellow, Melissa Goldin Evans, work closely to oversee Communications strategies at MAC. Melissa is a graduate of Louisiana State University School of Public Health and began working at the Women's Center in mid-November and also pursues research and grant opportunities and supervises the evaluations for many of our programs.

Dovilė Vilda is our second new Postdoctoral Fellow. Dovilė is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and will be working closely with Dr. Maeve Wallace on her two newly received NIH grants to study maternal mortality in the US. Lauren Dyer, will also be working with Dr. Wallace on her NIH grants, as a Research Analyst. Lauren started at MAC in December and received her MPH from Louisiana State University.

We look forward to 2019 and an expanded capacity for research, training, and dissemination of findings. Stay tuned!