Kerri Barton is a Rural Research Navigator working toward building research capacity in rural communities of Maine. Kerri’s interests include fostering partnerships with researchers, clinicians, and community organizations to bridge project work. Specific services include:

• Assisting rural clinicians with research project planning and development, drafting protocols, IRB submission, and data analysis
• Bridging connections for research between academic medical centers and critical access hospitals
• Building capacity for community engaged research in rural areas

Kerri received her Master of Public Health from Boston University in 2011 and is trained as an epidemiologist. Kerri has experience in bench science, field science, and healthcare, and is interested in social determinants of health and healthcare quality and access.

Services include:

• Find and foster appropriate clinical/basic science partnerships
• Identify possible research avenues to investigate the utility of laboratory discoveries in addressing clinical issues
• Assemble the necessary resources to conduct the research (e.g. funding, biospecimens, supporting personnel)
• Guide basic scientists in the clinical environment and the regulations for conducting research with human participants and/or human specimens
• Work with clinical teams in the conduct of translational research tasks
• Help draft and implement research protocols
• Aid in the submission of research compliance documentation (IRB)
• Coordinate the conduct of the research and the gathering of research data
• Develop databases of clinical information
• Identify and work through obstacles to translational research

Research Interests
Molecular predictors of response to cancer treatment
New therapeutic strategies

Ivette Emery is a translational cancer research scientist and a translational research navigator at Maine Medical Center. She received her PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining MMCRI in 2011, Dr. Emery was a Senior Scientist at the Maine Center for Cancer Medicine and Scientific Administrator of the National Cancer Institute Community Cancer Centers Program at the Maine Medical Center Cancer Institute. As research catalyst, Dr. Emery is responsible for promoting and facilitating research collaboration between clinical and bench investigators in order to translate laboratory discoveries into interventions to improve human health.

Recent Publication:

Emery, I.F., Gopolan, A., Wood S., Chow K., Battelli C., George J., Blaszyk H., Florman J., Yun K. Expression and function of ABCG2 and XIAP in glioblastomas. J Neurooncology 2017; 133(1), 47-57. PMID: 28432589

Research Interests
Assist in teaching risk communication to the Tufts medical students.
Assist in teaching critical appraisal of the literature and evidence based medicine to trainees.
Assist students, trainees and faculty in the development of research proposals, data analysis, and presentation of results.
Teach biostatistics in MMCRI’s research course.

Lee Lucas mentors students, trainees, and faculty in research methods and biostatistics. Dr. Lucas is an epidemiologist and health services researcher with a clinical background in nursing and a Master’s degree in health policy. Her professional career has been spent at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute, studying variations in the delivery of health care, screening issues, and appropriateness and overtreatment.

Dr. Lucas’ quantitative training has led to an interest in predictive modeling and she has participated in projects designed to create, evaluate and implement predictive models in clinical care. She is highly committed to the concept of shared decision making and works to provide patients and providers with the tools and skills they need to enhance shared decision making.

Deanna primarily provides support with database creation and database management (e.g., REDCap). Deanna has been responsible for various aspects of research coordination, data collection, database design, database management, and reporting solutions as well as website design and development. Deanna has been a Database Manager for several multi-center projects. Prior to joining CORE, Deanna was a Research Coordinator and Database Manager for the Early Detection, Intervention, and Prevention of Psychosis Program (EDIPPP), a multi-center study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She has since joined the Autism and Developmental Disorders Inpatient Research Collaborative (ADDIRC) as the multisite Data Coordinator; as well as supported the launch of the International Cardiac Arrest Registry (INTCAR 3.0) and served as the Communications Coordinator for a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) research contract.