Meet the Dashboard's Newest Members

Name: Anne Vierse Dashboard Role: Data Analyst Hometown: St. Louis, MO

1. Tell us a little about yourself. What brought you to the Dashboard? I come from a rather varied academic background, beginning my undergraduate studies in cultural anthropology before moving into the education sector where I got really into data and analytics. I graduated with my Masters in Statistics in 2020 and worked in non-profit program evaluation before an interest in wider public health alongside a desire to dive deeper into analytic methods brought me to the Dashboard.

2. What are you excited to learn while working at the Dashboard? I’m excited to join the Dashboard team and really expand my knowledge of coding while exploring the wide variety of metrics that the Dashboard hosts.

3. Tell us something that will let us get to know you outside of your work experience and interests. Any interesting hobbies or talents? In my free time, I either like to be doing something physical (such as running, hiking, or Pilates, which I’ve only recently gotten into) or something more crafty (like sewing or knitting).  Living in New York City, I’m always looking for an opportunity to escape the city and walk around nature. I’ve got some favorite hikes along the Hudson and into the Catskills, although I do enjoy a closer-to-home walk in the beautiful Green-Wood Cemetery! In my less adventurous hobbies, I’ve been trying to challenge myself to work with a variety of fabrics and patterns to broaden some of my skills with the sewing machine.

Name: Jacqueline Betro Dashboard Role: Senior Project Coordinator Hometown: Oradell, NJ

1. Tell us a little about yourself. What brought you to the Dashboard?

   With a background in oncology research, I entered the NYU system as a graduate student at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. I sought to gain further analytical skills that could inform and evaluate health policy. After graduating with my MPA in Health Policy and Management, I came to NYU Langone to lead the program evaluation of a NYC DOHMH opioid harm-reduction initiative. I found the Dashboard exciting because of its unique mission and equity-focused approach to social determinants of health. I’m so excited to contribute to the Dashboard’s current site and help expand to a Dashboard for congressional districts!

2. Tell us something that will let get to know you outside of your work experience and interests. Any interesting hobbies or talents? After training in ballet for 15 years, I still love to keep art and exercise in my life. My ideal weekend would be spent hiking, cooking, and traveling with friends and a good playlist.

3. What’s your ideal metric? My ideal metric would include a measure of homelessness. Homelessness and unstable housing are significant social determinants of health and many of the multiple causes of homelessness reflect the broader health status of a city or neighborhood. Homelessness is something I’m passionate about and something that I don’t think is prioritized very often.

Name: Jay Stadelman Dashboard Role: Data Analyst Hometown: Davenport, IA

1. What are you excited to learn while working at the Dashboard?

   I am excited to learn more about the data sources and the metric calculations. Prior to joining the Dashboard, I had regularly searched for city information on a lot of topics that the Dashboard reports on. I always wondered where places got this information and how the metrics were calculated.

2. What’s your ideal metric? A healthy city metric. The Dashboard has a lot of very interesting stand-alone metrics, but a city is so much more than the sum of its parts. A very interesting idea to me would be how do these metrics interact and can we unify them into a single healthy city metric?

3. What excites you about the City Health Dashboard and its mission? I think I am very excited about the scale of the Dashboard. Many institutions report on local metrics, but this dashboard not only has an extensive list of metrics but also a vast list of cities it reports on. This scale helps bring equity to marginalized places which wouldn’t have the resources to do something like this.

Name: Noah Zazanis Dashboard Role: Data Analyst Hometown: Darnestown, MD

1. Tell us a little about yourself. What brought you to the Dashboard? I joined the dashboard in June 2022 after graduating from Columbia University’s MS program in Epidemiology.

   My master’s research used the CDC BRFSS dataset to examine transgender health disparities, specifically the prevalence of chronic pain disorders in trans populations. Using national datasets for trans health research has given me an interest in questions of measurement more broadly: how do we know that we’re asking the right questions, especially across disparate datasets? I’m excited about the Dashboard’s work producing policy-relevant, accessible data to improve community health at the local level.

2. Tell us something that will let us get to know you outside of your work experience and interests. Any interesting hobbies or talents? I’m really into karaoke! My friends would probably say I take it too seriously/competitively. I think I take it just seriously enough!

3. What’s your ideal metric? A metric of disability accessibility, like our Walkability metric but for the presence of ramps, elevators, public seating, and disability-accessible public transit. 32 years after the passage of the ADA, disability access is still unequal between and within cities, and a Dashboard metric could identify unmet access needs at a population level and help cities fill in the gaps. While no two people with disabilities have the exact same access needs, principles of universal design can make cities safer and more inclusive for everyone.