Our TTAE Team
Training, Technical Assistance, and Evaluation Team (TTAE)
Holly Raffle, PhD, MCHES
As Director for the Partnership for Community-Based Prevention, Holly has collaborated to provide intensive leadership development, training, technical assistance, and evaluation services to 84 Ohio communities as they address critical needs and issues related to mental health and substance abuse. Dr. Raffle is a recipient of the Firefly Award from the Fairfield County Family, Adult, and Children First Council, and The OhioMHAS Prevention Champion Award recognizing her commitment to community and state-level prevention.
Nicole Yandell, MA
Nicole Yandell is the Senior Research Manager at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service. In this role, she provides technical assistance, evaluation, and data support for initiatives focused on behavioral health, substance use prevention, and education. Nicole has more than a decade of experience in coordinating federal reporting with local community organizations and currently serves as the Data Coordinator for COP-RCORP. She holds a master’s degree in sociology from The Ohio State University.
Nicole Yandell
Cale G. Burke works at the intersection of communication, recovery support, and organizational practice. He draws on long-term recovery and applied work across Ohio to develop practical tools, strategies, and tactics for organizations that want to adopt recovery-friendly approaches. His practitioner background now guides academic work that stays focused on real-world challenges and everyday workplace realities. The goal is to make recovery concepts accessible, useful, and credible for employers and communities.
Current projects examine how organizations talk about recovery and how those messages shape attitudes and culture. He studies how stigma shows up in policy and practice, and how supportive approaches can improve wellbeing and participation. Across initiatives, his aim is to build practical pathways for recovery support that strengthen workplaces and communities.
Elika Whitney
Elika Whitney is a Program Manager at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation’s (PIRE) Louisville Center. She obtained her master’s degree in school counseling from the University of Dayton and has over fifteen years of experience in the behavioral health and nonprofit sectors. As program manager, she plans meetings, oversees media updates, coordinates sustainability plans, monitors programmatic deliverables, and provides mentorship to project interns.
Matt Courser, PhD
Matthew Courser is a Senior Research Scientist with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE). He has worked with Ohio communities since 2003 and focuses his work on advancing Ohio’s behavioral health infrastructure and workforce. He focuses on Appalachian and rural communities and on using community of practice approaches to build and sustain community capacity for evidence-based prevention strategies, practices, and programs. Dr. Courser also works with the State of Ohio to support 988 and problem gambling initiatives.