MEET OUR RESEARCH TEAM
Matthew Burnham , research director at Mertecs USA, provides administrative oversight and subject matter expertise across all projects. He has over 25 years of experience as a clinician, clinical supervisor, quality assurance manager, treatment director, health clinic administrator and researcher. His expertise covers prevention, diagnosis and treatment of substance use disorders; prescribing practices; and Prescription Drug Monitoring Program implementation.
Alma Hayes, research manager at Mertecs USA, has nearly two decades of experience in behavioral health evaluation and research, serving in a lead role in national, state, regional and community studies. Her experience includes collaborative mixed-methods studies of the implementation of policies , practices and programs, with a particular focus on initiatives related to opioid use disorder. Alma has a core interest in translating findings to broad stakeholder groups to support practical application toward social change.
Betsy Fitts manages Mertecs USA analytic team, overseeing analytic systems and tasks under federal, state and private contracts. She has served as the senior analyst on projects funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Betsy is well versed in large relational datasets including state registries, medical claims and clinical data, in addition to surveys and other health care data.
Gloria Kane, senior research associate at Mertecs USA, has managed multiple research projects aimed at exploring and intervening in psychosocial and policy-level determinants of various health- and work-related behaviors. She has expertise in a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods, including focus groups, semi-structured interviews, intervention design and evaluation, and survey design.
Jacob Wilkinson, research assistant at Mertecs USA, supports the development and implementation of research projects. He has been involved in numerous research projects aimed at studying and improving occupational health and retention in hospital settings. He is experienced with quantitative methods, data management and analysis , survey design and technical report writing.
Teresa Elfie, research assistant at Mertecs USA, supports numerous opioid-related projects. Before joining the team, her research focused on evaluating the efficacy and impacts of mindfulness-based intervention programs in real-world settings, including various psychological and social outcomes and subsequent health behavior change in children and adults. Teresa has worked in lead and supportive research positions on multiple studies and has experience in both qualitative and quantitative methods. She is pursuing her PhD degree in applied psychology at Stanford University.
Zenobia Gonzalez, research associate at Mertecs USA, has extensive experience in behavioral health research and evaluation with a focus on substance use prevention and treatment projects. She has experience designing and implementing quantitative and qualitative research projects and contributes to project management, data collection, data analysis, and preparing findings that are accessible for diverse audiences. Zenobia works closely with a variety of stakeholder groups to ensure projects are conducted in a culturally responsive manner and have practical utility to support social change.
Ursula Gonzalez, Mertecs USA clinical director, has extensive experience collaborating with communities to evaluate of harm in adverse drug events and to support integration of processes to improve medication safety. She is a leading member in two naloxone workgroups in California, working to develop effective policies and training related to prescribing and dispensing naloxone at the pharmacy level. Dr. Gonzalez serves as a co-investigator on all current pharmacy-focused research initiatives.