Our TTAE Team
Training, Technical Assistance, and Evaluation Team (TTAE)
Holly Raffle, PhD, MCHES
Holly Raffle, Lead Evaluator, is an Associate Professor at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs. Dr. Raffle works primarily in the disciplines of K-12 education, post-secondary education, and public health. Dr. Raffle is the lead evaluator for Ohio’s Partnerships for Success (PFS) project and has worked on a wide variety of AOD prevention initiatives across Ohio, including the Ohio SPF-SIG. In 2014, Dr. Raffle was the recipient of the Ohio MHAS Prevention Champion Award.
Nicole Yandell, MA
Nicole Yandell is a Research Associate at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs. Nicole has a Master of Arts in Sociology from The Ohio State University. She works on projects related to health, AOD prevention, education, and the environment.
April Schweinhart, PhD
April Schweinhart is an Associate Research Scientist with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE). Since starting work with PIRE in 2016, she has been bringing her background in computational strategies and research methods to multiple prevention and public health related projects, including the Ohio SPF-PFS project. Other projects she is involved in relate to educational evaluation and assessing community needs.
Laura Milazzo, MA
Laura Milazzo is a Research Associate at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs. She conducts a wide variety of evaluation, applied research, and planning projects on health and social service issues. Previously, Laura worked for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a social science research analyst. She holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Kansas.
Matt Courser, PhD
Matthew Courser is a Senior Research Scientist with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE). He is a program evaluator and research methodologist who has worked domestically and internationally in the areas of prevention, treatment, and public health since 2003. He currently serves as the CQI Field Agent for the Bureau of Problem Gambling and is part of the evaluation team for the Ohio SPF-PFS project.
David Collins, PhD, MPA
David Collins was a Research Scientist with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE). Dr. Collins has led or co-led a number of research and evaluation projects in substance abuse prevention and mental health services. His experience has included directing SIG and SPF-SIG grants in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee and he worked on Ohio’s SPF-SPE project. He has also been an investigator on NIDA funded studies to prevent youth use of harmful legal products to get high. Dr. Collins has since retired and is missed by all.
Casey Shepherd, MPH
Casey Shepherd is a Research Associate with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE). Casey has a Masters of Public Health in Hospital and Molecular Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. She works on program evaluation in the areas of drug abuse treatment and prevention, education, and health promotion.