Meet the Housing Transitions QUERI Project
Evaluation Team

Alec Chapman, MS

Data Scientist

Alec Chapman, MS, is an data scientist for Housing Transitions QUERI who is affiliated with the University of Utah Division of Epidemiology and VA Salt Lake City IDEAS Center. He holds an MS in Biomedical Informatics and is currently a PhD student in biostatistics. His research interest lies primarily in leveraging electronic health record data using methods such as natural language processing to enable population health research and support clinical operations.  He has worked on a range of clinical topics including homelessness, infectious disease surveillance, and patient safety.

Camilla Cummings, PhD

Fidelity Assessor

​Camilla Cummings, PhD, is a member of the Housing Transitions QUERI evaluation team. She is trained as a Clinical-Community Psychologist and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Health Services Research and Development at the West LA VA. Dr. Cummings is a mixed methods researcher with expertise in homelessness, housing interventions, substance and alcohol use disorder, PTSD, and program evaluation. 

Erica Hua Fletcher, PhD

Qualitative Scientist

Erica Hua Fletcher, PhD, is a member of the Housing Transitions QUERI evaluation team. Dr. Fletcher is a post-doctoral fellow at the UCLA/VA Center of Excellence for Veteran Resilience and Recovery. Her current research in the fields of social medicine and health services research investigates issues related to homeless-experienced Veterans, including those with serious mental illness. She has also written about U.S.-based mental health social movements, peer-led mental health programs, stakeholder engagement in research, and the education of health professions and paraprofessionals. ​

David A. Ganz, MD, PhD

Co-Investigator

David A. Ganz, MD, PhD, is a Co-Investigator for Housing Transitions QUERI, focused on the economic evaluation of CTI implementation in the VA GPD case management aftercare grant program. He is a geriatrician at GLA GRECC and CSHIIP. He is also Professor of Medicine at UCLA and Adjunct Physician Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation. Dr. Ganz’s research program focuses on fall prevention, care coordination, implementation science, and quality improvement.

Lauren Hoffmann, MA

Qualitative Scientist

Lauren Hoffmann, MA, is a member of the Housing Transitions QUERI evaluation team. She is a Health Science Specialist at CSHIIP and MIRECC with a background in psychology and qualitative methods. Prior to working for VA, she performed qualitative research with an active-duty military population, solving issues in human factors engineering. 

Nicholas Jackson, PhD, MPH

Statistician

Nicholas Jackson, PhD, MPH, is the Statistician for the Housing Transitions QUERI evaluation team. He is an Assistant Professor with UCLA’s Department of Medicine Statistics Core. Dr. Jackson holds advanced degrees in biostatistics (MPH) and quantitative psychology (PhD), which he uses to explore the intersection of statistics, behavior, and public health. His research interests are in longitudinal modeling and demography with a focus on age-period-cohort analytic methods and designs for capturing unmeasured sources of longitudinal change. ​

Matthew McCoy, PhD

Qualitative Scientist

Matthew McCoy, PhD, is a member of the Housing Transitions QUERI evaluation team. He is a health services researcher and medical anthropologist at CSHIIP. Dr. McCoy has expertise in homelessness among Veterans, PTSD, substance use, mental health, racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare, and women’s health. He is also affiliated with the UCLA-DMH Public Mental Health Partnership (PMHP) where he researches outpatient conservatorships for gravely disabled homeless clients.

Ann Elizabeth Montgomery, PhD

Co-Investigator

Ann Elizabeth Montgomery, PhD, is a Co-Investigator for Housing Transitions QUERI, focused on the impacts of CTI implementation on housing and health service use outcomes. Dr. Montgomery has 20 years of experience working in the field of homelessness and housing. Since its inception in 2009, she has worked with the National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans (NCHAV) to develop and implement a diverse research agenda emphasizing homelessness prevention, interventions to prevent and end homelessness among high-need Veterans, and the demography, epidemiology, and services utilization of Veterans experiencing homelessness. ​

Richard Nelson, PhD

Health Economist

Richard Nelson, PhD, is a Health Economist for Housing Transitions QUERI, focused on the economic evaluation of CTI implementation in VA GPD case management aftercare grantees. Dr. Nelson is a health economist and Research Health Scientist at the George E. Wahlen VA Salt Lake City Medical Center. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and the Associate Director of the Health Economics Core of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Nelson is an expert in health economics, cost-effectiveness, and health services research and has interests in a wide variety of research areas including homelessness, rural health, and infectious diseases.

Agatha E. Palma, PhD

Qualitative Scientist

​Agatha E. Palma, PhD, is a member of the Housing Transitions QUERI evaluation team. She is a health services researcher at CSHIIP investigating issues related to homeless-experienced Veterans and women’s health. Prior to the VA, Dr. Palma spent two years researching housing and welfare for migrants in Europe, and worked as a case manager and mediator at a legal clinic for migrants in Palermo, Italy. 

Maharshi Rawal, MPH

Evaluation Coordinator

Maharshi Rawal, MPH, is the Evaluation Coordinator for Housing Transitions QUERI. His experience includes working in surgical oncology research coordination and clinical trial settings. As a research coordinator, he assisted patients and physicians by working closely with each one to enroll and consent patients in a variety of cancer research studies across the country. His current work includes coordinating several health services research projects at CSHIIP to help improve the lives of Veterans.

Eleni Skaperdas, MA

​Qualitative Scientist

​Eleni Skaperdas, MA, is a member of the Housing Transitions QUERI evaluation team. Ms. Skaperdas is a doctoral candidate in sociology at UCLA. Her dissertation, entitled "The High-risk Pregnancy in Two Americas," is a comparative ethnography of the high-risk pregnancy across extremes of socioeconomic class in Los Angeles. As an ethnographer with a mixed-methods background, she is interested in how ethnographic methods can be used in health services research and quality improvement to answer research questions not accessible through other methods.