Meet the team.
- Stacy Robison, MPH, MCHESPresident, Co-founder
A self-proclaimed health literacy geek and an expert in clear communication, Stacy is responsible for leading CommunicateHealth’s content and creative excellence. Since co-founding the company at the age of 30, Stacy has been recognized as an innovative business leader by the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce. She has appeared in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Healthcare News, among other media outlets, discussing a variety of issues from entrepreneurship to health behavior change. - Xanthi Scrimgeour, MHEd, MCHESChief Executive Officer, Co-founder
Since co-founding CommunicateHealth in 2009, Xanthi has been driving company strategy and operations, transforming the organization into a nationally recognized multimillion-dollar consulting firm. Under her leadership, CommunicateHealth has been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies by Entrepreneur and Inc. magazines 3 years in a row. A veteran public health advocate, Xanthi spent 20+ years working on the front lines with state and local health agencies. She draws on this experience to serve a diverse client portfolio that spans Fortune 500 companies and community-based nonprofits. - Sandy Williams Hilfiker, MAChief Experience Officer, Principal
Sandy joined CommunicateHealth as Principal in 2010, bringing nearly two decades of experience in interactive design for health, usability and message testing, and all types of user research. Sandy is a leading expert in engaging people with limited literacy skills in the user-centered design process. She directs CommunicateHealth’s stellar UX team, delivering value to clients like the CDC, NIH, and the Veterans Health Administration — and simplifying the user experience for millions of healthcare consumers. - Adam MoormanCreative Director
Adam is a skilled visual communicator, and he takes pride in his graphic versatility. In his travels he has encountered and conquered: digital (web, email, user interface), branding and identity, traditional print, and design education. Adam’s goal is to provide our clients with a clean, clear, and precise design. Like most of his colleagues, he divides his time between CommunicateHealth’s visual and experience design teams. - Alana JohnsonSocial Media Manager
Alana is a driven community health advocate with a passion for health communication. When she's not coordinating multiple projects and ensuring clear communication across teams, you'll usually find her writing tweets using the latest health-related #hashtags. - Ayanna WilliamsResearch Associate
Ayanna is a skilled project coordinator who uses her outstanding logistical skills on everything from monthly reports to research recruitment. She’s also a talented Drupal coder with impeccable attention to detail. (What a rock star!) When she’s not chatting about public health, you can catch her bragging about her alma mater — Syracuse University. Go Orange! - Blythe Miller, MPHSenior Editor
Blythe is a gifted health writer and editor (and resident Deadhead) who transforms complicated medical information into original, plain language content. She specializes in sexual health, and her friendly tone and conversational style make this tricky health topic a lot more approachable. - Chrissy Packtor, MPHHealth Communication Associate
Chrissy’s participation in policy advocacy as an undergrad taught her the value of simplifying complex topics. Inspired by these experiences, she studied communications in grad school to learn best practices for making health information understandable. When she’s not working, Chrissy loves to read, travel, and try out new coffee shops. - Clare MatherCommunication Associate
Clare is a talented health writer and savvy project coordinator with a background in public health communication. Whether she is writing plain language health content or coordinating tasks across project teams, Clare specializes in crafting communications that are clear, easy to understand, and mindful of her audience's needs. - Corinne Berry, MAResearch Director
Corinne is a brilliant health communicator — and a total research geek. With more than a decade of experience in communication consulting, mixed-methods research, and intervention design, she always has her target audience in mind. She's a go-to moderator and skilled research strategist who brings a bit of sunshine to every project.
- David PearlDesign Associate
David is a creative thinker with a knack for designing intuitive user interfaces and engaging infographics. Drawing on his experience developing health tech innovations in refugee communities, he always keeps his end user’s needs in mind. In his spare time, you can find him pitching his next app ideas at health hackathons. - Dena Fisher, MPHHealth Communication Manager
Dena is a skilled project manager with 18 years of experience in health communication and social marketing. She leads interdisciplinary teams through every aspect of communication planning, from research and strategy to product development and community engagement. Dena is a passionate advocate for public health — and just the woman you want at the helm of your next communication campaign. - Deshani GunathilakeSocial Media Communication Associate
A skilled social media coordinator and plain language writer, Deshani's specialty is digital channel development and management. She is committed to improving health outcomes by using digital and social media channels to deliver easy-to-understand health information and products to consumer and professional audiences. - Elise McCabeWeb and Graphic Designer
Elise is an innovative visual problem solver with a passion for getting to the root of an issue. The user and the bigger picture drive the holistic design solutions she crafts for clients. She is enthusiastic about being a lifelong learner and employing a less is more approach to design (and life). - Emily Brostek, MPH, CHESContent Manager
Emily is a skilled project manager with more than a decade of experience in health education, patient advocacy, and health policy. She leads multidisciplinary teams through complex projects and ensures client requirements are aligned with user needs — all while keeping budgets and timelines on track. Emily is committed to empowering people with the information and resources they need to care for their health. - Fred Van Geloven, MSUser Experience Designer
Fred is a seasoned user experience designer, a creative thinker, and a problem solver. He takes pride in delivering accessible interfaces that are fun to use. Fred has played a variety of roles on digital design projects of all sizes throughout his career. These experiences, combined with his background in communication, make him an indispensable member of the team. - CH Alumn
- Hannah Herrington, MPH, CPH, CHESHealth Communication Manager
Hannah is a skilled, results-oriented project manager with more than a decade of experience in public health, health education, and communication. She excels at leading teams in tackling tricky public health topics like chronic disease management and mental health. Her mission: to create user-friendly, actionable products that delight clients — and inspire people to take charge of their health. - Janel Schuh, PhDSenior Health Communication Researcher
Janel is a highly skilled quantitative and qualitative researcher who is endlessly curious about health communication. With more than a dozen years of applied research and strategic communication experience, she helps clients create — and validate — communication-based solutions to challenging health issues. Janel loves interacting with people from all backgrounds and working with them to improve their health. - Jason MorrisSenior Web Developer
Jason is a front-end developer who prides himself on creating clean, responsive, intuitive websites. While he accepts (and even embraces) the constantly changing landscape of web development, he always stays focused on the essentials — keeping sites fast and accessible for all users on an increasing variety of devices. - Jeff Lee, MSWeb Developer
Jeff provides essential back-end application development and database support for our products — the behind-the-scenes work that users rely on, even when they don’t know it. Jeff is devoted to meeting industry best practices and increasing efficiency in our work — and happy to be part of a team advancing public health. - Jenna Paulsen, MFAHR Specialist
Jenna is a skilled HR and Operations pro with a background in art and design. In addition to helping new staff members learn the ropes, she coordinates benefits and helps keep CH company policies up to date. She also jumps in on the occasional design, IT, finance, or general office support task, and she firmly believes that all-staff emails pair best with memes. - Jessica Guernsey, MAAdministrative Associate
Jess happily keeps the Northampton office running with seltzer and spirit. Whether she's onboarding new hires, coordinating interviews, tackling IT issues, or scheduling meetings, her exuberant disposition and thoughtful care for the needs of her colleagues shines through. - Katie CheungHealth Communication Manager
Katie’s dedication to the principles of public health makes her a fantastic asset to our team — as does her experience in community-based research, data analytics, and health writing. She supports content and research projects to make sure things run smoothly and the end product exceeds user (and client!) expectations. - Katrina Lanahan, MPHDigital Projects Director
Katrina loves to solve problems, so she’s right at home leading the project teams that tackle CommunicateHealth’s toughest technical challenges. She excels at synthesizing user research findings, health behavior theories, and UX best practices to develop innovative websites and digital tools. Throughout every project, Katrina’s former life as a usability moderator keeps her laser-focused on the end-user’s needs. - Kim Hassell, MPHHealth Communication Manager
With expertise in health communication and contract management, Kim is a double threat — and a valuable asset to her project teams. At CommunicateHealth, Kim manages large-scale digital communication projects. Her conversational style and sharp instincts make complex projects an absolute breeze for teams, clients, and end users alike. - Laura Willwerth, MA, MFASenior Health Writer
Laura is a talented plain language writer who enjoys turning complicated health information into approachable, friendly content. With a background in creative writing and teaching, she approaches all her projects with a focus on clear communication and actionable messages. - Lizzie Barnett, ScDSenior Health Communication Researcher
Lizzie is a Harvard-trained researcher and seasoned public health professional on a mission to create healthier communities. She excels at leading health promotion research initiatives, from developing measurement tools and mixed methods protocols to synthesizing and translating research findings. If you think she looks serious, it’s because tackling big public health issues is no laughing matter. - Luisa RamirezHealth Communication Manager
Luisa is passionate about using health education to empower people to make healthy choices. With a background in global health, she has experience working on health campaigns with diverse populations. At CommunicateHealth, Luisa helps our project teams stay organized by coordinating tasks and facilitating communication among team members. - Lydia HansonCommunication Associate
Lydia is passionate about helping everyone understand how to stay healthy, regardless of their background. At CommunicateHealth, she uses her keen eye for detail to coordinate tasks across projects. Lydia enjoys bringing teams together to create a range of accessible plain language products, from web content to virtual reality. - Mareika PhillipsSenior Graphic Designer
Mareika is an accomplished design professional with diverse experience — ranging from hand-drawn typography and illustration to web and user experience design. Her visual solutions are always innovative — a reflection of her passion for aesthetics balanced with sharp strategic insight. - Margaret YoungbergOperations Specialist
Margaret is at home keeping as many administrative plates spinning as possible. We think it may have something to do with her background in physics and music… She’ll happily fix your internet connection while answering the phone, getting invoices out the door, and explaining how an FSA works (again). - Matt AllenTechnology Director
Matt leads our stellar team of front- and back-end developers. He's passionate about user-centered design and emerging trends in web and mobile technologies. Matt draws on his experience in web development and accessibility standards to create clean, intuitive websites that make his clients (and us) happy. - Megan Lewis Freedman, MA, MCHESContent Director
Megan is our leading content strategist and a veteran CommunicateHealth team member. She directs the development, maintenance, and subject matter expert review of several award-winning federal government websites. Megan also writes, edits, and evaluates plain language print and web content. - Michael Mercurio, MFAExecutive Assistant
Michael provides executive support for our CEO and helps to advance CH corporate priorities. Michael is also a utility player on the CH operations team, with experience in HR, administration, and finance, so he’s willing to jump in wherever he’s needed. He’s also a poet, and enjoys immortalizing his fellow CHers in verse. - Mikaela Momot, MPHCommunication Associate
Mikaela is a project coordinator who believes that people's health shouldn't be negatively impacted by complex and hard-to-understand health information. A former CH summer intern, she has a background in both public health and communication, and a true passion for health literacy. - Michael Godin, MSWeb Developer
Mike’s responsible for transforming CommunicateHealth’s original ideas and designs into accessible, high-performance applications for the web. He’s worked in government, industry, and non-profit realms on topics ranging from environmental risk management to underwater robotics. - Monika Ramnarayan, MPHCommunication Associate
With a background in research and program development, Monika supports project teams in creating health communication products that combine design thinking principles with public health approaches. Her strong coordination skills, flawless attention to detail, and commitment to promoting health equity make her a talented project coordinator — and a great fit for CommunicateHealth. - Rachel Pryzby, MPH, CHESProject Director
Rachel believes that health information can be beautiful — and fun! At CommunicateHealth, she leads talented interdisciplinary teams towards that goal, through creative strategy, precise planning, and a dash of good humor. You can usually find Rachel writing content, leading brainstorm sessions, managing budgets, or geeking out about the latest public health research. - Rachel Martin, MPHResearch Associate
Rachel loves digging for answers to tough research questions and collaborating with her colleagues on research reports, coordinating data collection, and keeping the research team on track. Rachel is passionate about helping teen and college-aged populations choose healthy behaviors. When she's not in the Northampton office, you can find her perfecting her karaoke repertoire. - Rachel Oziel, MPHResearch Manager
Rachel is passionate about building healthier communities by creating health information that people can understand and use. When she’s not assisting the team with project management and research tasks, you can find her at community photo shoots for CommunicateHealth's new stock image website, Picture Public Health. - Rebecca WrightContent Strategist
Rebecca believes that everyone has the right to health information they can understand. With a thoughtful approach grounded in user-centered design and health literacy best practices, she creates clear, engaging plain language health materials that are accessible to low-literacy audiences — and a pleasure to read for everyone else. - Sami Cohen, MPHSenior Health Communication Manager
With joie de vivre, Sami leads project teams in developing thoughtful, innovative solutions to tricky health communication challenges — on time and in budget. She’s a deft project manager and talented public health professional who can manage even the most complex projects with ease. - Sarah Pomerantz, MPH, CPHProject Director
Sarah is passionate about environmental justice. And it’s a good thing, because she directs our environmental health work. It’s Sarah’s job to oversee the research, design, and development of stellar communication products — for professionals and the public. She’s also a data nerd, lending her expertise to national initiatives like DATA2020. - Sean Arayasirikul, MSPH, PhD, CHESSenior Health Communication Researcher
Sean is a social and behavioral researcher who studies how racial, ethnic, and other minority populations make complex decisions about their health care. He’s committed to a “high-touch, high-tech” approach to our websites and digital tools — creating cutting-edge tech that’s approachable and empowering. - Sonia Barkat, MHSA
Sonia is a skilled project manager with over 8 years of experience in the health care field. Prior to joining CommunicateHealth, Sonia was a business management consultant for medical groups and hospitals. She brings a strong background in problem-solving, strategy, and communication. In addition to her in-depth knowledge of care delivery in the private sector, Sonia is also well versed in health policy. She is able to create solutions that meet a variety of needs while staying true to the public health mission. - Stacy Allen, MSHealth Communication Manager
Stacy is a skilled project manager and usability researcher. She is dedicated to making public health resources accessible to everyone, particularly to underserved populations. As a content manager at CommunicateHealth, she oversees the development of the Spanish-language content for healthfinder.gov and contributes to several usability research efforts. - Vicki ChapmanWeb Developer
With more than 15 years of experience in front-end web development, Vicki is well-versed in modern technologies and web standards, including responsive design best practices. Her background in art gives her a keen visual eye and helps her create websites that are attractive, user-friendly, and accessible. - We ♥ Health Literacy
Like what you just read? Sign up for We ❤ Health Literacy and get our weekly email full of practical health literacy tips and tricks delivered straight to your inbox. - Whitney Marmer, MPHHealth Communication Manager
With a background in community outreach and program planning, Whitney is a health communication all-star. In addition to coordinating teams and projects, she develops strategic social media and outreach plans that get the right messages to the right audiences at the right time. You can always find her working with an iced coffee in hand — even in the winter!
Meet our partners.
Janna R. White
Janna creates stylish, accessible, and grammatically correct content that any reader will appreciate. She is the founder of Janna R. White Content and Editing, the co-editor of a book on contemplative science forthcoming with Yale University Press, and a total word nerd. She’s our resident copyeditor in shining armor.
Noah Smith
Noah Smith co-founded Common Media in 2007 after completing a Master’s degree in Computer Science at Tufts University. Since then, Noah has built Common Media into an award-winning web development firm. Noah’s primary responsibilities are business development, solutions architecture, and company-wide technical direction.
Kelly McManus
Kelly is an uber-talented graphic designer with over 20 years of experience — and we're stoked to have her on our team. Clients dig Kelly's uncanny ability to develop brand identities that capture the essence of an organization or issue. And we dig her laid-back style and boundless creative energy.
Morgan Griffin
Morgan has spent his career in health communication, most recently as a content guru at CH, and before that as reporter and editor with WebMD. His ongoing mission: to root out baffling medical jargon wherever he can and to create guidance that’s both compassionate and clear.
