Shari Barkin, MD, MSHS

Chief, Division of General Pediatrics
Professor of Pediatrics, General Pediatrics
William K. Warren Foundation Chair, Department of Pediatrics
Director of Pediatric Obesity Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Dr. Shari Barkin, William K. Warren Foundation Chair, Professor of Pediatrics, is the Director of General Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Director of Pediatric Obesity Research in the Diabetes Research and Training Center. She earned her undergraduate degree at Duke University, her medical degree at the University of Cincinnati, and completed her pediatrics residency at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. She was selected as a UCLA Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and completed a fellowship in Health Services Research. Her research has focused on examining the effectiveness of pediatric office-based interventions and the development of connections from the office into the community to improve children’s health.

Funded by NHLBI, NICHD, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the State of Tennessee, Dr. Barkin conducts family-based community-centered clinical interventions to change health behaviors in parent-child dyads. Currently, her team is focusing on changing growth trajectories in childhood, applying the ecologic model that considers the child in the context of their family, and the family in the context of their community. A theme of these scientific inquiries is the examination of the interaction between behavior, environment, and genetics in young children at critical windows of development. Funded by NHLBI, she is currently conducting a seven-year randomized controlled trial to prevent childhood obesity.  She chairs the NIH Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment Research Consortium which brings multiple researchers together examining Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment (COPTR). She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board of Children, Youth and Families.

To learn more about Dr. Barkin's obesity related research visit The Nashville Collaborative.

Rosemary J. Hunter, MD

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Neonatology
 

Dr. Rosemary Hunter has a love for mentoring, teaching, advocating and the overall well being of children and their families. She has lead the Food Insecurity Task force which began a screening and connection to resources program in the Primary Care clinic. She supervises residents at the Vanderbilt primary care clinic and Vanderbilt Newborn Nursery. She also directs the Community Health and Advocacy rotation for PGY-2 residents and the Social Medicine and Advocacy Academic community for the pediatric residency program at Vanderbilt.

James S. Powers, MD

Associate Director, VA Geriatric Research, Education, & Clinical Center
Professor of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine
Professor of Nursing, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
Vanderbilt Primary Care Village at Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt Center for Quality Aging
Geriatric Medicine Fellowship Program Faculty

James S Powers, MD received a BA cum laude from Wesleyan University (CT) in 1973 and MD with Distinction in Research from the University of Rochester (NY) in 1977 followed by residency in Internal Medicine at Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University Hospitals 1977-80. He served in the USPHS National Health Service Corps 1980-83 following which he was recruited to Vanderbilt to develop a Geriatric Medicine Program within the Division of General Internal Medicine.

Dr. Powers is author of over 75 papers, books, and book chapters he has devoted his academic career to Geriatric Nutrition, Education, and Healthcare Quality and Safety. He has mentored over 1200 trainees while at Vanderbilt and holds Fellowship in the American College of Physicians, American College of Nutrition, American Geriatrics Society, Gerontologic Society of America, and the Royal Society of Medicine. He serves as the Associate Clinical Director for the VA Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center.

Dr. Powers’ research interests include educational outcome evaluation, aging body composition, and models of geriatric care. He is PI of the Vanderbilt-Reynolds Geriatric Education Program, Co-PI of the Meharry Geriatric Education Center, and leads numerous clinical demonstration projects for the TVHS GRECC concerned with falls prevention, caregiver support, and treatment of agitated dementia, and health systems improvement.

Allison Jones, JD, MSW

Nashville Health and Benefits Attorney
Legal Aid Society of Middle TN and the Cumberlands

Allison Jones is a staff attorney in the Nashville office, practicing in the areas of health, public benefits, and special education. She also directs Legal Aid Society’s medical-legal partnership with Shade Tree Clinic, a comprehensive, free medical clinic staffed by Vanderbilt medical and nursing students. Allison is a legal services veteran, having worked as a consumer law paralegal at LAF in Chicago, and then as a housing law clerk and social work practicum student at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri throughout graduate school. She also served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Laura Denvir Stith of the Supreme Court of Missouri, and for Senior Judge John T. Nixon of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Allison jointly received her law degree and Master of Social Work in 2013 from Washington University in St. Louis. Her undergraduate degree in History was earned at Brown University. She currently co-chairs the TALS Health and Benefits statewide task force.

John Compton, M.Div.

Program Coordinator, Rooted Community Health
john.w.compton.1@vumc.org

John Compton, M.Div. is the program coordinator of Rooted Community Health (RCH). John earned his Master of Divinity with distinction from Vanderbilt Divinity School focusing on the intersections of theology and ecology through the practices of sustainable agriculture. During his time at Vanderbilt, he worked as a research assistant in biomedical ethics under Dr. Keith Meador, a teaching assistant in environmental biology, and a university chaplain intern.