MPH Faculty

The Mission of the MPH Program is to prepare graduate students to enhance the health in human populations through organized community effort.





Ranking & Recognition





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Master of Public Health , Faculty

Taniya Henry

Currently working as an Adjunct Faculty for the Online MPH & MBA Programs, Taniya Henry is an alumna of Benedictine University's MPH and MBA programs. Taniya graduated from the MPH program in 2002, and then from the MBA program in 2004.

Taniya also has a Bachelors degree in Dental Surgery (BDS) from the University of Karachi in Pakistan. She completed her residency in general dentistry and briefly practiced as a Registered Dentist in Pakistan prior to coming to the U.S. in the year 2000.

Taniya has worked in various health care and business organizations; from the Cook County Public Health department to a company specializing in corporate health and wellness programs. More recently, she worked with the PBM (Pharmacy Benefits Management) industry of health care. She has worked with Walgreens Health Initiatives, a division of the Walgreens Co., as an Implementation Specialist for the Medicare Part D benefits. From there, she transitioned into an Account Manager role managing significant accounts with SXC Health Solutions, Inc. (also a PBM).

Taniya enjoys traveling, shopping, and spending time with her family. Taniya Henry is a proud graduate of Benedictine University, and is excited to be a part of the adjunct faculty body. She looks forward to interacting with the students and sharing her health care and business knowledge and experience with them.

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Carmen Price

Presently employed as Online Faculty Manager for Rasmussen College, Inc., Carmen is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Mn, where she obtained a Bachelors degree in communications. Her graduate degree is in business communication from the University of St Thomas located in St Paul, Mn.

Carmen began her teaching career four years ago in the Allied Health Program at Rasmussen College in Minneapolis, Mn. She has taught pathology courses and medical terminology courses for that college. She also teaches allied health courses online for the University of Louisville, Adult Learning Center, Louisville, KY.

While Carmen’s training and education is in business and communication, most of the past 30 years were spent working in an acute care hospital setting in health information management. Carmen was a supervisor in Health Information Management (HIM) at Methodist Hospital in St Louis Park, MN. There she supervised medical records personnel and coders. From that position, she moved into a manager position at Regions Hospital in St Paul, MN where she did physician training in HIM procedures and software applications and was also part of the initiative to implement an electronic health record (EHR) for that institution. Her interest in the impact of the electronic health record in health care delivery, led her to researching the topic of provider acceptance of the EHR for her thesis. Carmen is also an active participant in The Upper Midwest National Institute of Health Policy, which is sponsored by The University of St Thomas, College of Business in St Paul, MN.

Carmen lives in Bloomington, MN with her college-age son and her two cats. She enjoys all outdoor activities, especially cycling and hiking.

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Nadine Stanley- BS, MPH

I knew I wanted to be a teacher since I was 5 years old. I was the only kid in kindergarten that was able to explain how to 'tie your shoes' to the other students but was unable to tie my own. After I completed my BS in K-12 Physical Education Teaching and Athletic Training from Eastern Illinois University, I began teaching in Naperville Community Unit School District 203. My first year teaching, I was at three different schools, which gave me the wonderful opportunity to explore numerous different teaching styles and environments. The following year I settled in at Lincoln Junior High School and have been there ever since. Soon after I settled in at Lincoln, I decided to continue my education in the 'Public Health' arena. I earned my Master of Public Health at Benedictine University and have found a use for my advanced education almost every day since.

I have affected the community in ways that I am very proud of . I have had the opportunity to develop and institute a Cooperative Aquatics Training (C.A.T.) program for the Naperville Fire Department that is still used today, I have developed and overseen parent sexuality education sessions, I have coordinated with health education peers within my school district to make significant strides in the quality of the health program our schools' offer, and I plan on continuing to touch the community in future health education avenues. I have had the opportunity to teach an introduction to Physical Education class aimed at elementary school majors along with currently teaching this course on Health Behaviors through Benedictine University.

In my many years teaching, I found that I was not only teaching good overall health habits to my eleven through fourteen year old students but, I was also refreshing the thought process regarding health that was in so many parents minds. I worked very hard to help my students understand that health information is constantly updated and that understanding and maintaining good health is an on-going process. I determined that my definition of 'health education' is keeping people informed with the most current statistics, research, and methods to improve each individual's quality of life.

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Mark Robinson

Mark Robinson is a currently a doctoral student at Princeton University. His current research interests are located at the convergences of Neuroscience and Medical Anthropology. At the University of Chicago, Mark received Masters degrees in Social Sciences and Religion where he studied global political and developmental responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Uganda. Prior to his work at Chicago, he completed undergraduate training in linguistics at Northwestern University where he produced a documentary for which he was named a Galbraith Scholar by the Institute for Social Inequality at Harvard University. Mark helped found the Committee on American Studies at Princeton and is a member of the Technology and Ethics Working Group at the Interdisciplinary Center on Ethics at Yale University.

Mark's clinical and professional experience includes work with the Black Coalition on AIDS, the Public Health Foundation Enterprise, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Heartland Alliance for Health and Human Rights, the HIV Center for Clinical Behavioral Studies at Columbia University's New York Psychiatric Institute and Mailman School of Public Health, the Department of Behavioral and Social Science at the University of California, San Francisco and Northwestern University's Weinberg School of Medicine. Mark is a member of the Society for Medical Anthropology, the New York Academy of Science and the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

Under a 2008 research fellowship from Princeton University's Center for the Study of Religion, Mark will conduct research at the Laboratoire de Physiologie Cérébrale in Paris. Mark's general interests lay in social neuroscience, psychopharmaceuticalization, biomedicine, religion and ethics.

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Jeannee Yermakoff

Jeannee Yermakoff has spent 20 years as a corporate health scientist managing U.S. and international technical teams. Her areas of experience include toxicology, environmental cleanups, environmental health reporting, systems management, communications, and, most recently, occupational health.

Dr. Yermakoff began her career with a Ph.D in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Rhode Island, where she taught both nursing and pharmacy students and conducted medical research in collagen biosynthesis and related connective tissue diseases (e.g., cirrhosis, arthritis, etc).

After post-doctoral positions at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. and Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. she moved to the petrochemical industry (Chevron, Amoco and BP), where she managed teams in various environmental health functions.

Her diverse background gives Dr. Yermakoff experience in many of the topics covered in Environmental Health 605. Some of these experiences include:

* Evaluating health impacts through animal and clinical toxicology testing
* Assessing the effects of pesticides
* Providing emergency response assistance to individuals and health professionals
* Managing hazardous waste sites
* Complying with requirements to track and report environmental information
* Managing occupational health exposures to noise and chemicals
* Serving as a media and community relations representative

Dr. Yermakoff has an interest in the substance of environmental science and the appropriate application of the science. She recognizes that the choice of scientific solutions varies with politics, perspective, philosophy and other issues and has spent much of her career working to bring together diverse opinions on such solutions. Recognizing the benefits to all of working through different approaches, she will challenge students to bring their opinions and rationale for environmental health applications to the class for discussion. Her goal is to help all have a better understanding of the broad impact of the choices that we make.

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Steven M. Seweryn, MPH

Steve Seweryn has been an adjunct faculty member at Benedictine University, teaching Public Health Epidemiology, since 2003. He has also taught in the undergraduate program at Northern Illinois University in the past. In 2006, he began teaching a distance learning course in Epidemiology at the Loyola University of Chicago's Niehoff School of Nursing in Maywood, Illinois.

When he is not teaching, Mr. Seweryn serves as the Director of Epidemiology for the Cook County Department of Public Health. He has over 20 year of experience in local and state public health practice. In his current position, he is responsible for assessing the health status for over 2.4 million residents of suburban Cook County. He has also been involved in community based assessment and planning activities over the past 15 years. He is currently a member of the Cook County Bureau of Health's IRB.

Mr. Seweryn has extensive experience in communicable disease control and disease surveillance, through earlier work at the both Cook County and the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Mr. Seweryn earned his MPH from University of Illinois in Chicago with a concentration in Epidemiology and Biometry in 1986. He is an alumnus of Benedictine University, receiving a Bachelor's Degree in Biology in 1982.

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Heidi Roeber Rice, MD, MPH

Dr. Rice is board certified in Occupational and Environmental Medicine through the American Board of Preventive Medicine and has a clinical practice as a staff physician with HealthPartners Clinics in Minneapolis, MN. She received her MD and BA--Biology degrees from the University of North Dakota, and earned a Masters in Public Health degree at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, where she is presently an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences. She is the Residency Program Director for the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency Training program. Dr. Rice has maintained an active role in education since her first assignment as a math teacher with the US Peace Corps (Lesotho 93-95) extending into the present where she is engaged in graduate and medical student education, resident physician training and community health education programs. Her professional interests include wellness promotion, injury and disability prevention, health issues unique to women in the workplace and the cultural, physical and medical opportunities to address the disparate needs of underserved populations.

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Beth Bormann

Elizabeth "Beth" Bormann received her undergraduate degree in community health/health administration in 1994 and her master of public health degree in 2003 from Northern Illinois University. She has worked in a hospital as an office coordinator, in a social services agency assisting developmentally disabled adults, and in a public health department assisting with surveillance, program evaluation and report writing.

Elizabeth currently advises over 300 undergraduate students majoring in public health at Northern Illinois University. She also oversees approximately 30 interns each semester as they obtain professional experience before their graduation. She also teaches a course that prepares students for their internship and has taught a variety of undergraduate public health courses for the program.

She serves on Supportive Professional Staff Council for the university, and the Evangelism Committee and Response Team Task Force for her church. She is also a member of the Alpha Eta Honor Society and received the Students' Choice Award from Northern Illinois University's Student Association in May 2006.

Elizabeth is married with two young children and enjoys reading, watching movies and walking her dogs, a Shih Tzu mix and a retired racing Greyhound. She and her family currently reside in the Chicago suburbs.

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John Davis

John Davis has over 30 years of experience in both financial and operational areas. He served 22 years on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps. His rank at retirement was Lieutenant Colonel, and in his military career he held various engineer positions as well as serving as a military controller, managing the funds for several major commands.

In civilian life he has served as an Executive Director of Finance, Chief Financial Officer, and Controller, and has headed up financial and operational management in commercial, federal, municipal, and nonprofit organizations. Mr. Davis has taught Accounting, Finance, Production and Operations, Statistics, and other business and operational courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level.

John holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of South Carolina and a Masters of Science in System Management from the University of Southern California. He is also a Certified Public Accountant.

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Thomas Keith Mirabile B.A., M.A., J.D., LL.M

Born in Lancaster, Ohio and raised on the Northwest Side of Chicago, Tom has been practicing law for 32 years. His law office is located in Wheaton, Illinois.

Tom has been teaching for the Benedictine University for three years in the MPH program. He has served on the faculty of University of St. Francis since 1997 where he has developed and taught classroom and online courses in the Graduate Programs in Business and Health Administration. He also serves as a member of the Graduate School Advisory Council at USF.

Prior to his return to Illinois in 1996, Tom served as a Professor at Oklahoma City University School of Law and the Graduate School of Business. He also serves as an adjunct professor at The College of Law at DePaul University in Chicago. Tom has taught in China and Singapore and has been recently approved as a candidate Fullbright scholar. Tom was named a Senior Fellow of the Western Pacific Institute in 1993 as a result of his work and publications on Asian affairs.

He has published extensively; his most recent publication can be found in the Journal of International Law of Michigan State University on AIDS, Africa and Access to Medicines.

While he was researching his most recent publication, he met a nurse of British derivation from Cape Town, South Africa who was at the time, initiating medical programs in Accra, Ghana.

The relationship blossomed courtesy of innumerable long distance phone calls, the net and a massive accumulation of frequent flyer miles between Chicago and Cape Town resulting in the relocation of his wife Pam to Illinois along with a step son Neil. Another step son, Paul is currently working as a consultant in Manchester, England.
Tom has two children of his own, Adrian who recently graduated from the University of Tampa and resides in Venice, Italy and Joe who currently serves on the USS Higgins in the United States Navy.

Tom was inducted in Who's Who in America in 2005. He is also listed in Who's Who in American Law. Tom is the recipient of a B.A. from Northern Illinois University, an M.A. from Northeastern Illinois University, a Juris Doctor for Oklahoma City University and an LL.M in Health Law from DePaul University College of Law in Chicago. He is a candidate for a Master's Certificate of Advanced Study in Higher Education Technology from the University of St Francis which he will be completing this fall.

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Shannon Homolka

Shannon Homolka is currently a Senior Marketing Specialist for Advocate Health Care based in of Oak Brook, IL. Her direct responsibilities include developing marketing strategies, planning, and implementation of initiatives. Shannon has gained experience in the health insurance sector as she develops co-marketing campaigns with various Illinois insurance companies including Humana and HealthSpring.

Prior to entering health care, Ms. Homolka was a marketing representative for LewisUniversity. She worked closely with the Graduate and Adult Accelerated Degree Completion Programs in developing marketing materials, recruiting students, and executed a yearly competitive analysis of adult education programs. She is still on staff at LewisUniversity as an adjunct facilitator of marketing teaching in both the undergraduate business program and the M.B.A. program.

Outside of health care and academia, Shannon also served as the Figure Skating Director of Arctic Ice Arena. Sports management is another area of interest for Ms. Homolka as she is able to combine her 27 years of experience in figure skating with her experience in business. Her achievements as director include increasing enrollments to nearly triple that of previous enrollments, starting a pre-school program to encourage new skaters, directing an ice show composed of 50 skaters, and managing a staff of 25 professional instructors.

Ms. Homolka received her M.B.A with a concentration in Marketing from LewisUniversity as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Business with a minor in Marketing.