Amy Rohling McGee, MSW
President

Amy Rohling McGee has served as the president of the Health Policy Institute of Ohio since 2010. With her leadership, HPIO has developed a reputation as a trusted source of data and evidence-informed policy analysis. McGee has more than 20 years of experience in management, government relations, policy development, strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, coalition building and communication.

Her prior public-sector experience includes work in the executive branch of state government, focused on policy issues such as mental health, health insurance, health system improvement and Medicaid; and service in the state legislature as a Legislative Service Commission intern in the mid-1990s. Private sector experience includes five years as the executive director of the Ohio Association of Free Clinics.

McGee earned her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in social work from the Ohio State University.

Get to know Amy in our December 2021 Employee Spotlight!

E-mail Amy Rohling McGee

Hailey Akah, JD, MA
Vice President of Operations and Strategy

Hailey Akah is Vice President of Operations and Strategy at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. Akah manages the daily operations of the Institute, ensures implementation of HPIO’s strategic plan and serves as the Institute’s in-house legal counsel and human resources liaison. Akah also leads projects on population health, healthcare spending, equity and the social drivers of health.

Akah has been with HPIO since 2015. In that time, she has developed expertise in several policy areas, including mental health and addiction, criminal justice, employment and aging. She has taken lead roles in developing Ohio’s State Health Improvement Plan, Strategic Action Plan on Aging, Minority Health Strikeforce Blueprint and HPIO’s Addiction Evidence Project.

Akah holds a law degree and a master’s in public policy from the Ohio State University and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Lawrence University.

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Amy Bush Stevens, MSW, MPH
Vice President of Research and Evaluation

Amy Bush Stevens is Vice President of Research and Evaluation at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. Stevens leads policy research and evaluation projects related to population health, public health and prevention, mental health and addiction, equity and the social drivers of health. She also serves as HPIO’s evaluation coordinator.

Prior to joining HPIO, Stevens served as the Program Evaluator at the Community Mental Health and Recovery Board of Licking and Knox counties and as a program evaluation trainer and coach with local prevention coalitions through the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. As an independent consultant, Stevens partnered with numerous public health organizations and prevention coalitions in rural Ohio to conduct community assessments, strategic planning and program evaluation.

Stevens began her research and evaluation career at Wilder Research Center in Minnesota, and at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. She holds master’s degrees in public health and social work from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree in Religion from Kenyon College.

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Nick Wiselogel, MA
Vice President of Strategic Communications

Nick Wiselogel is Vice President of Strategic Communications for the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. Wiselogel oversees all HPIO communications efforts, including media relations, layout and design, social media and website management.

Prior to joining HPIO in 2008, Wiselogel was the Communications Specialist for Health Care Excel, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Kentucky and Indiana. He began his career in community journalism, working as a reporter, editor and page designer at newspapers in the Boston, Chicago and Louisville metro areas. He holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Louisville and a master’s degree in journalism and new media from Emerson College in Boston.

Get to know Nick in our July 2021 Employee Spotlight!

E-mail Nick Wiselogel

Carrie Almasi, MPA
Director of Assessment and Planning

Carrie Almasi is the Director of Assessment and Planning at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. Almasi oversees HPIO’s Assessment and Planning stream of work, which includes needs assessments and strategic plans produced for decision makers at the state and local level. She leads projects on issues such as health equity, population health, healthcare spending and the social drivers of health, and has expertise in policy areas including child and family health, health disparities and inequities, older adult health and COVID-19.

Prior to joining HPIO in 2020, Carrie was Assistant Vice President of Community Impact at United Way of Central Ohio. She also previously led central Ohio’s free tax preparation coalition and served two terms as an AmeriCorps member.

Carrie holds a master of public administration from Ohio State University and a bachelor of arts in international studies from Miami University.

E-mail Carrie Almasi or connect with Carrie on Twitter: @CarrieHPIO

Jasmine Barfield, BA
Office Manager & Assistant Policy Analyst

Jasmine is the office manager and an assistant policy analyst at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. She is a passionate professional with over 15 years of experience in project management, coalition building, event planning, and technical assistance for a variety of social justice based non-profits across Ohio. Formerly, she served as the Statewide Prevention Coordinator for the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence and most recently the Operations Coordinator for IMPACT Safety. Her work as a Research Evaluation Consultant gives her a unique perspective, as she not only understands, but respects the importance of data and evaluation.

Ms. Barfield studied at The Ohio State University and has a bachelor’s degree in business psychology from Franklin University. Her professional motto is: be kind, be helpful and take nothing personally. She is a volunteer with Simply Living and lives in a tiny house on wheels!

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Robin Blair-Ackison, MPH
Health Policy Analyst

Robin Blair-Ackison is a Health Policy Analyst at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. Prior to joining HPIO, Robin worked as a program manager at the Ohio State University College of Public Health,  where her focus was facilitation of strategic plans, community health improvement plans, and health equity programming. Robin also worked as a supervisor with OSU’s COVID-19 Contact Tracing Team.

Robin started her career as a classically trained chef and went on to own her own culinary business that provided grant funded culinary and nutrition programs in the Cleveland area in partnership with Case Western Reserve University and the Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED).   

Robin holds a Master of Public Health and a Bachelor of Specialized Studies from Ohio University.  

Email Robin Blair-Ackison or connect on LinkedIn.  

Becky Carroll, MPA
Director of Policy Research and Analysis

Becky Carroll is the Director of Policy Research and Analysis at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. Carroll oversees HPIO’s Policy Research and Analysis stream of work, which includes policy briefs, fact sheets and data snapshots. She leads projects on issues such as population health, healthcare spending, equity and the social drivers of health, and has expertise in health policy issues surrounding children. She was the primary author on HPIO’s Connections between Education and Health policy brief series.

Prior to joining HPIO, Carroll worked in both Ohio’s legislative and executive branches of government. Carroll was employed at the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, first as a healthcare policy analyst and later as the manager of the medical reimbursement and coding policy. She also worked for a health policy consulting firm in Washington, DC and served as a Legislative Service Commission intern in the Ohio Senate in 2009.

Carroll holds a master’s of public administration from the Ohio State University and bachelor’s degrees in business administration and mathematics from Bowling Green State University.

E-mail Becky Carroll

Lexi Chirakos, PhD
Policy and Data Management Specialist

Lexi Chirakos, PhD., is the Policy and Data Management Specialist at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, managing data quality, collection, compilation and analysis for the Institute.

Prior to joining HPIO in 2021, Lexi was a Legislative Services Commission Fellow in the Senate Democratic Caucus, and Co-President of the Science Policy Initiative at the University of Notre Dame. Lexi is passionate about using evidence and data to inform the policy-making process.

Lexi graduated in 2015 from The Ohio State University with a bachelors of science in microbiology, and a PhD in biological sciences from the University of Notre Dame in 2020. Her thesis work focused on tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacterial infections.

Email Dr. Lexi Chirakos

Alana Clark-Kirk, BA
Education and Communications Manager

Alana Clark-Kirk is the Manager of Education and Communications at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. She coordinates the production and planning of all HPIO forums and educational events, assists with layout and design of publications and manages the website.

Prior to joining HPIO, Alana served as the Associate Director of Workforce Initiatives at the Ohio Association of Foodbanks. She served two years as a national service member and holds a bachelor’s of arts from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

E-mail Alana Clark-Kirk

Neva Hornbeck, BA
Accountant

Neva Hornbeck is the Accountant at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. Before joining HPIO in 2011, she contracted her accounting services for several small businesses and non-profits. For the first 20 years of her career, she was an auditor for BP Oil.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Akron.

E-mail Neva Hornbeck

Édith Nkenganyi, BA
Health Policy Analyst

Édith Nkenganyi is a Health Policy Analyst at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio (HPIO). Prior to joining HPIO, Édith was a Special Project and Policy Liaison at the Ohio Department of Education where she helped spearhead the RemotEDx initiative, which cuts across multiple K-12 education partners, to increase student access to remote and hybrid education. She also worked closely with the Cleveland Browns Foundation, Proving Ground at Harvard University and Attendance Work to address chronic absenteeism and provide whole child support through the Stay in the Game Network. Édith began her career in government as a Legislative Service Commission Fellow and later served as a Legislative Aide in the Ohio Senate.

Édith holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and African-American History from the University of Cincinnati.

Email Édith Nkenganyi or connect on LinkedIn with Édith Nkenganyi 

Tonni Oberly, PhD
Senior Policy Analyst

Tonni Oberly, PhD is a Senior Policy  is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio where she leads quantitative and qualitative research for the development of policy briefs and resources.

Prior to joining HPIO, Oberly worked as a birth equity research scholar at the National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC). Oberly previously served as a project manager at the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center and a public health consultant at the Ohio Department of Health. She brings expertise in research and project management at the local, state, and national level. Tonni is especially passionate about achieving birth equity and understands that this is requires multisector and multi-scalar collaboration.

Tonni graduated from Emory University with a bachelor’s degrees in biology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. She also graduated from The Ohio State University with a master’s in public health with a specialization in health behavior and health promotion and a PhD in city and regional planning. Her dissertation focused on the intersections of place, racism, and health outcomes in Black communities.

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Jacob Santiago, MSW
Policy and Evaluation Specialist

Jacob Santiago is the Policy and Evaluation Specialist at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, managing work related to policy and program evaluation and leading HPIO’s internal evaluation efforts. Santiago analyzes key health policy issues, including health equity, mental health and substance use, ACEs, maternal and infant health, and the social drivers of health, with a focus on housing and the physical environment. He also manages HPIO’s legislative outreach. 

Since joining HPIO in 2020, Santiago has assisted with and helped lead projects such as the Healthy Beginnings at Home evaluation, the Addiction Evidence Project, the Ohio ACEs Impact Project and contracted work with the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. 

Santiago holds a Master of Social Work, with a concentration in community and social justice, from the Ohio State University; and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from Wright State University.

Email Jacob Santiago