Our Team
Mary Butler, PhD, MBA
butl0092@umn.edu
Mary is director of the Project for Healthcare Stewardship and co-director of the Minnesota Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC). She has overseen review projects on a wide range of topics including complex patients and complex interventions. Her training in health services research included a special focus on outcomes research and health behaviors in alternative medicine, as well as a stint in complexity science at New England Complex Systems Institute. Prior to her academic career, Mary worked as an investment professional for a financial services firm, managing a $45 million portfolio. Her corporate background—including managing multiple organizationally diverse collaborations, meeting financial and investment objectives, and creating benchmarks to track performance—lends itself well to her work leading teams and projects at the University. In light of her deep interest in contemplative and collaborative processes, Mary is delighted that the PAHS name and mission both embody the idea of slowing down to deeply consider something.
Jeannine Ouellette, MFA
Jeannine@umn.edu
Jeannine is principal editor for the Project for Advancing Health Care Stewardship and the Minnesota Evidence-based Practice Center. She assists with the planning, preparation, and publication of manuscripts, reports, grants, editorials, etc., and facilitates internal and external communications and partnerships. Jeannine’s background is in narrative journalism and creative writing, and she is the author or co-author of several books, including The Good Caregiver with the late Dr. Robert Kane. Her writing has appeared in many journals and anthologies and her work has been supported by Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts and Millay Colony for the Arts. Jeannine is most excited about the Project for Advancing Health Stewardship’s plans for qualitative research based on health narratives, and how those narratives might improve our understanding of health and the health care system.
Katie is a Researcher 5 with the Minnesota Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC). Prior to joining the EPC, she served in outreach, project, and program management roles in the nonprofit sector, with a focus on women’s health and elder justice advocacy. Her background combined with a passion towards social justice and health equity brings an eagerness to gain understanding of ways individual experiences and stories could be used to shape our healthcare encounters and better serve both patients and healthcare workers.
Katie Behrens, MPH
behr0042@umn.edu
Asheanna Lee
lee02119@umn.edu
Asheanna was the Undergraduate Student Worker for PAHS and now works as a convenor and part-takes in the communications aspect of PAHS. She joined the team in May of 2020 with the intent of observing how narrative and health intersect through the lens of healthcare stewardship. Under the wing of Jeannine, she drafts blog posts and runs the social media pages for PAHS. She also takes part in planning on the events that PAHS holds, such as their forums and symposium where she is a facilitator. Asheanna graduated in May of 2023 with a B.A. in Biology, Society and the Environment and Public Health minor. She hopes to pursue a career in the field of public health or environmental sciences.
Stuart is a medical sociologist who teaches and conducts health services research at The University of Minnesota in the School of Public Health. Stuart completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Shared Decision Making in 2015 from the Dartmouth Institute (TDI). Stuart holds a PhD in health behavior and an MPA in public management from Indiana University. Stuart's teaching promotes a social and behavioral framework, one that emphasizes the interplay of social and environmental factors and their impact on the health and well-being of populations. Stuart's research centers on implementing new technologies or strategies to enhance patient-provider communication. He partners with Envision Community and Hue-Man Partnership, both community-based organizations in the Twin Cities, fostering stronger health through research and engagement. Stuart's work has focused on reducing health disparities in communities of color as well as among people who experience homelessness. He has presented his work in the UK, Australia, Peru, Canada, and Europe. His recent work examines the health implications of intentional community as well as the complexities of health utilization behaviors among Black men with type-2 diabetes.
Stuart Grande, PhD, MPA
sgrande@umn.edu
Timothy J. Usset MDiv, MPH
usse0006@umn.edu
Timothy J. Usset MDiv, MPH is a Board Certified Chaplain and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of Minnesota. He is a PhD student in Health Services Research, Policy & Administration in the Health Policy & Management Division of the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health. Throughout his career, Tim has worked extensively with moral injury, spiritual distress, and posttraumatic stress disorder on numerous research projects and clinical areas within the Veterans Health Administration. By pursuing a PhD, Tim plans to expand his research interests to include the impact of moral distress, moral injury, and burnout on healthcare worker well-being and patient health outcomes. Currently, Timothy is the Executive Director for the Physicians Wellness Collaborative, a non-profit organization supporting physician wellness and mental health and a Brigade Chaplain (MAJ) in the Army Reserves.
Tai Mendenhall, PhD, LMFT
mend0009@umn.edu
Tai Mendenhall, PhD, LMFT is a medical family therapist and associate professor in the Couple and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota (UMN) in the Department of Family Social Science. His clinical work is situated in our Medical School, alongside his efforts as a trauma-response team leader in the Academic Health Center's Medical Reserve Corps (MRC). Tim’s scholarship centers on the conduct of integrated behavioral healthcare and community-based participatory research (CBPR) focused on public health issues for which marked ethnic/racial disparities are extant.
