Our Board
Kelsey Jenison, Continuing Education Co-chair
Kelsey is a Health Education Specialist for the Swedish Cancer Institute and staffs the Cancer Education Center. The Swedish Cancer Institute is apart of the non-profit hospital, Swedish Medical Center. As a Health Education Specialist, Kelsey plans, implements, and evaluates health education programs for the Cancer Institute. She distributes patient education materials throughout the Cancer Institute and works to inform staff of new educational tools available for patients and their families.
Carol Viger, National Delegate
Carol received her BA in Health Education from the University of Washington in 1982. She is a certified nursing assistant (CNA) and completed her nursing prerequisites in 2006 at South Seattle Community College, where she was named to the president’s and dean's lists. Carol has experience in elder care, with specific experience in Cancer, Parkinsons, stroke, Centarian, and Alzheimers patients. She is an active community volunteer in West Seattle, raised two children, has been married 28 years, and speaks Norwegian. She enjoys actively engaging in SOPHE while seeking professional development, experience and employment within the Health Education field.
Taryn Oestreich, Programs Chair and Continuing Education Co-chair
Taryn has been a member of the PNW chapter for 25 years; she is a former President and helped to establish the Job Bank in the era when listings were recorded on an answering machine.
She works several positions concurrently – editing for the Patient and Family Education Services department at University of Washington Medical Center, team-teaching courses for Western Washington University, coordinating classes for Seattle Children’s, delivering an educational intervention for breast cancer research at University of Washington, teaching infant CPR and safety and first aid courses at Overlake Hospital Medical Center and doing contract consulting, writing and editing for numerous clients. Her areas of interest include maternal child health, injury prevention, developmental pediatrics, patient and family centered care, health literacy, school health issues, hospital-based patient education, and active training. She has coached, mentored or supervised over 100 health educators entering the field, returning to the field or moving to the greater Puget Sound area. Taryn walks, bikes, kayaks, hikes and enjoys reading, travel and being an empty nester.
Mara Hobler, Advocacy Chair
Mara is a new member of PNW SOPHE and is looking forward to interfacing with members about issues and educational opportunities related to advocacy. Mara resides in Seattle and has a B.A. from the University of Washington and an M.S. from the University of Oregon. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. through the University of Maryland, College Park, focusing on health communication, and her dissertation project is a cultural analysis of communication and advocacy strategies employed by international gender and development organizations. Mara has conducted original research
studies, notably covering health care reform, the midwifery model of care, and advocacy for reproductive rights. Prior to pursuing her graduate studies, Mara worked for advertising and public relations firms, advising corporate and non-profit clients.
Sarah Stempski, Membership Chair, Treasurer
Sarah is a recent graduate of the University of Washington School of Public Health department of Health Services. Her research interests include injury prevention and health disparities. Sarah works at Seattle Children’s Hospital as a Health Educator in the Family Resource Center. Sarah’s background is in elementary education, and was a fifth grade elementary school teacher in Boston, Massachusetts before moving to Seattle in 2005. Sarah has been a PNW SOPHE member since June 2010. She is thrilled to bring her skills and commitment to health education in the Pacific Northwest region!
Rhonda Johnson, Alaska Representative
Dr. Rhonda Johnson is Professor of Public Health and Chair of the Department of Health Sciences at University of Alaska Anchorage. Since 2004, she has directed the distance-delivered Master of Public Health (MPH) program in Alaska that is focused on northern health issues and geared toward mid-career professionals. She completed her Doctorate of Public Health (DrPH) as a Public Health Leadership Fellow at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1998-2001), and first came to Alaska in 1992 as a clinician in the tribal health system. She has been a nationally-certified family nurse practitioner (FNP), with more than 20 years of primary care practice and program management, mostly in rural, underserved areas of the US, including south central Alaska, western Massachusetts, southcentral Kentucky, and northern Arizona. She is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, (Rural Development-northeastern Thailand, 1981-2), and Peace Corps Trainer (Bangkok, Thailand, 1983); since then, she has had a particular interest in community-based public health and primary care efforts ,and has been active in health literacy initiatives. Dr. Johnson currently serves as Principal Investigator for the NIH-funded Center for Addressing Health Disparities through Research and Education (CAHDRE) in Alaska, and has previously served as PI of a regional Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) continuing education-distance learning project Frontier Models of Leadership: Learning from Communities”. She has served on federal review panels for HRSA, MCHB, CDC, AHRQ and National Center, now Institute, for Minority Health and Disparities (NIMHD). She has been a member of SOPHE for about ten years, serving as faculty mentor and participating in several national meetings, but has not yet been active at the regional level. Serving as Alaska Representative for the NW Chapter of SOPHE provides an excellent opportunity to strengthen public health education ties and collaborative opportunities in our region.