2014 Derek Dunn Memorial Senior Scientist Officer of the Year
CDR Jeffrey L. Goodie
CDR Jeffrey L. Goodie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Uniformed Services University (USU) and a board certified Clinical Health Psychologist. He is also currently serving as the Director of Clinical Training (Interim) in the Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology at USU. As an educator at USU he taught over 1300 uniformed medical students evidence-based methods for targeting health behaviors. CDR Goodie’s teaching methods were recognized with USU’s Innovation in Teaching Award for the Clinical Sciences. CDR Goodie’s published research has focused on behavioral health interventions in primary care settings. He is an author of the book Integrated Behavioral Health in Primary Care: Step-by-Step Guidance for Assessment and Intervention, which has become a standard text across universities, psychology internships, and throughout the Department of Defense for teaching how to integrate behavioral health care and behavioral health providers into primary care settings. He is lead author for a chapter about USPHS in The Encyclopedia of Clinical Psychology and is an editor of the book Biopsychosocial Assessment in Clinical Health Psychology due for publication in 2014. His 45 published works have been cited over 725 times in the scientific literature. CDR Goodie serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings and Translational Behavioral Medicine: Practice, Policy and Research. He has also served as an ad-hoc scientific reviewer for the National Institutes of Health, Risk, Prevention, and Health Behavior Integrated Review Group; Social Psychology, Personality, and Interpersonal Processes Study Section. CDR Goodie served as the Program Chair of the 46th annual meeting of the largest behavioral and cognitive scientific national organization, the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. In his clinical work, he has provided thousands of direct care and consultation hours to active duty members and their families. He serves as an examiner and board member for the Clinical Health Psychology division of the American Board of Professional Psychology, where he helps to evaluate and set the standards for board certifying other clinical health psychologists.
CDR Goodie serves as a Deputy Squad Leader and is an active member of the deployment team Mental Health Team-2 (MHT-2). He responded to a suicide cluster in a Native American community, Superstorm Sandy, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, and the Boston Marathon explosions. In 2012 CDR Goodie served as the Chair of the Psychology Professional Advisory Group (PsyPAG) and actively participates in SciPAC’s Policy Review and Rules and Membership Committees. He has mentored junior Scientists and served as a SciPAC curriculum vita reviewer. In 2013 PsyPAG awarded CDR Goodie its Senior Career Psychologist Achievement Award for his “exceptional service” to the field of psychology and USPHS. His contributions have also led to his election to Fellow status in the Society of Behavioral Medicine and the American Psychological Association.
CDR Goodie earned his undergraduate degree at Dickinson College and his doctoral degree from West Virginia University. He joined the U. S. Air Force and completed his clinical psychology internship at Wilford Hall Medical Center (WHMC) and later completed a fellowship in Clinical Health Psychology at WHMC. CDR Goodie served nine years with the U. S. Air Force before joining the USPHS. CDR Goodie is grateful for the professional support and opportunities that have been afforded to him by his colleagues in the Division of At-Risk, Behavioral Health and Community Resilience in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response, the Defense Health Agency, and at USU.
2014 Junior Scientist Officer of the Year
LCDR Jennifer Adjemian
Dr. Jennifer Adjemian is a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) and currently serves as a lead Epidemiologist in the Epidemiology Unit for the Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). At the NIH, LCDR Adjemian leads a large and diverse research agenda focused on population-based studies related to infectious diseases, while also providing methodologic and analytic support for the clinical research conducted within the Division of Intramural Research (DIR), NIAID. Within this role she has developed an internationally recognized expertise in nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) lung disease, a global and ubiquitous environmental bacterial pathogen that can lead to severe morbidity and mortality in affected individuals; her groundbreaking studies have redefined our understanding of NTM epidemiology in the United States. LCDR joined the USPHS upon the completion of her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California, Davis, in 2007 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer with the Rickettsial Zoonoses Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where she conducted research, surveillance and led outbreak investigations on a variety of emerging infectious diseases, including Marburg hemorrhagic fever in Uganda, Rocky Mountain spotted fever in Arizona, and murine typhus in Texas. Following EIS, Dr. Adjemian served as the lead infectious disease epidemiologist for the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in Washington, DC until joining NIAID/NIH in 2010.
LCDR Adjemian consistently demonstrates outstanding leadership and dedication in her efforts to increase the understanding of the epidemiology of rare infectious diseases. She currently serves as the Principal Investigator in several critical NIH-led studies investigating the epidemiology of NTM and other rare diseases to identify risk factors and translate her work into important public health recommendations. Her leadership as a scientist at the NIH has enabled critical public health messages to be widely accessible to millions of individuals worldwide. Since joining the NIH, she has conducted ground-breaking research that identified lifesaving measures to help protect cystic fibrosis patients against NTM infections; worked closely with global NTM leaders to communicate important research findings that have impacted patient care; led a study that established the first-ever US prevalence estimates of NTM disease; worked with the pharmaceutical market research industry to improve treatment access for over 50,000 US NTM patients; and most recently completed a critical study that identified a lack of adherence to evidence-based medicine among US providers treating NTM disease. LCDR Adjemian’s exceptional record of scientific contributions is also demonstrated by her impressive list of dozens of publications and presentations.
LCDR Adjemian also has a record of leadership within the USPHS, serving as a Scientist Professional Advisory Committee (SciPAC) Voting Member, Subcommittee Chair and Co-Chair, and is currently an elected Executive Board Member. She is the recipient of numerous USPHS honor awards, including the Commendation Medal, CDC agency awards, as well as local community awards recognizing her contributions. LCDR Adjemian currently serves as a Tier-level 2 responder on the Applied Public Health Team-1 and has served on over 19 weeks of field deployments for the CDC and BOP.
2014 Scientist Responder of the Year
CDR Anthony P. Tranchita
CDR Anthony P. Tranchita has completed more than a decade of uniformed service, 4 years as an Air Force officer, and the last 6 in the United States Public Health Service. He currently serves as the commander for the Behavioral Health Flight of the 319th Medical Group, Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, where he has been stationed since December 2009. The 319th Medical Group serves a patient population of more than 1,800 active duty members and 5,500 beneficiaries in a 3-state area, and he leads a staff of 16. He is responsible for the mental health, substance abuse prevention and treatment and family support and care necessary to maintain the combat readiness of all-base personnel as well as the mental health and wellness of their families. Under his leadership, the Behavioral Health Flight has gone through inspections by both the Air Force Inspection Agency and the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, both of which concluded with perfect scores/no discrepancies for the mental health elements of both inspections. CDR Tranchita has also achieved conditional licensure as a prescribing psychologist in the last year after completion of a post-doctoral master’s degree in Psychopharmacology in 2011. CDR Tranchita has recently developed a prescribing/medical psychology special interest group within the PHS Psychologists Professional Advisory Group (PsyPAG).
CDR Tranchita has served as the Team Commander of PHS Mental Health Team-2 since April 2012. During his time on Mental Health Team-2, CDR Tranchita has served as the Behavioral Health Liaison to the New York IRCT after Hurricane Sandy, and has responded to suicide clusters on two Native American reservations, the flooding victims of Hurricane Irene in Upstate New York in 2011, as well as to a Federal Medical Shelter after Hurricane Ike in 2008. Officers from Mental Health Team-2 deployed for 4 operations during Fiscal Year 2013 for Hurricane Sandy, the Sandy Hook shootings, the Boston bombing, and to a Native American Community in South Dakota in September 2013, at the request of the FBI’s Victim Assistance Unit.
In this past year, CDR Tranchita and the Traumatic Stress Response Team provided much needed community and individual support after two unfortunate traumatic events impacting Grand Forks AFB. Through consultation with leadership, presence at group events, psychological first aid, and individual follow-up, post-event assistance was provided for more than 400 members of Team Grand Forks minimizing the mental health impact across the community.
CDR Tranchita completed his graduate degree in Clinical Psychology at Utah State University. The events of September 11th helped make his next career steps clear, and he chose a life of uniformed service, first in the Air Force and now in the Public Health Service. CDR Tranchita lives with his wife and two children, who have all enjoyed their opportunity to live in North Dakota to experience the wide range of outdoor activities and sense of community.