WSPHA 2019 Award RecipientsWSPHA is honored to recognize the following leaders for their dedication and contribution to the public health community.
Public Health Leadership Award Betty Bekemeier, Professor, University of Washington Betty Bekemeier is a professor at the University of Washington School of Nursing and Director of the UW School of Public Health’s Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. She is a distinguished public health systems researcher focused on improving the effectiveness of our prevention systems and related workforce. She has led numerous studies regarding local health department services and their impact on health outcomes and equity. She emphasizes the inclusion of rural public health jurisdictions to support research to improve the reach and distribution of prevention services to underserved communities. Dr. Bekemeier is also PI of the Public Health Activities and Services Tracking (PHAST) Study, initiated in 2010 through the RWJF. PHAST is a highly regarded, growing database of uniquely detailed and linked data regarding LHD services and financing, which has supported several studies and involves an interdisciplinary research team. Dr. Bekemeier’s studies on change, variation, and outcomes regarding public health systems and its workforce and resources are conducted in close partnership with public health practice leaders and have been immediately relevant to addressing current policy issues. She has also held leadership positions in the Washington State Public Health Association, the American Public Health Association, and other leading public health and nursing organizations.
Katherine (Kathy) Josa Briant is the founding Program Administrator for the Fred Hutch/University of Washington Cancer Consortium’s (Consortium) Office of Community Outreach & Engagement (OCOE). Since she stepped into this role in 2018, Kathy worked with Dr. Jason Mendoza and Dr. Beti Thompson to plan and secure funding for the structure of the OCOE. She subsequently assembled a team of Community Health Educators (CHEs) to engage community organizations and their clients in educational interventions to address health promotion. In addition, she is working with Consortium faculty to facilitate collaborations on grant proposals and projects using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach.Through these efforts, the OCOE engages in community partnerships, research and practice that builds community capacity to address the cancer burden in Washington State.Throughout her career at Fred Hutch, Kathy has served as a catalyst for cancer control planning and implementation. Kathy began working at Fred Hutch in 2003 as the Northwest Region Partnership Program Manager for the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Cancer Information Service. She and her staff worked with organizations that reach medically underserved populations to help plan, implement, and evaluate effective and sustainable cancer control strategies throughout Alaska, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Prior to her current role, she directed cancer outreach and education efforts for the Center for Hispanic Health Promotion, an NCI-funded Community Network Program Center addressing cancer disparities among Hispanics/Latinos in the lower Yakima Valley of central Washington State using a CBPR approach.
Public Health Excellence Award
Steve Whittaker, Toxicologist, King County Steve is a toxicologist and Research Services Program Manager with the Hazardous Waste Management Program in King County, where he focuses on hazardous chemicals and safer alternatives assessment. Steve’s recent interests include dry cleaning solvents and automotive paints. Steve also has an affiliate faculty appointment in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington. Prior to joining the Haz Waste Program in 2008, Steve worked for 12 years in the SHARP occupational health research program at the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. Steve has a PhD. from University College London and conducted postdoctoral research in developmental toxicology at UC Berkeley and the University of Washington.
Lea Hamner, Epidemiologist, Skagit County Lea Hamner is the Communicable Disease and Epidemiology Lead at Skagit County Public Health. She has been with Skagit County for the 3 years, hired as the first epidemiologist for the county. Bolstering Public Health’s role as the Chief Health Strategist, Lea sets a foundation of data-informed, community-driven decisions, collective learning, and strong interagency partnerships. Lea has worked on programmatic and epidemiology projects for communicable disease, maternal and child health, the opioid epidemic, and public health strategic planning. She developed the first inventory of local opioid data for the Skagit Opioid Dashboard in 2018. In 2019, she led the implementation of opioid overdose as a notifiable condition and built an active surveillance system to identify cases for intervention and follow up. Lea is working to ensure local efforts have a wider impact and thus is collaborating with regional, state, and national epidemiologists to develop innovative programs and research projects to move our understanding and intervention in communicable disease and opioid overdose forward.
Amy Fuller, Kittitas County Department of Health Amy Fuller is the Assessment Coordinator for the Kittitas County Department of Public Health. While working as the department's Assessment Coordinator, Amy completed her MPH through the University of Washington in 2018. During that process, she also co-facilitated a county-wide 2018 Community Health Assessment, which was the most successful attempt at engaging our community partners and leaders to date. She also assisted local schools with the implementation of the 2018 Healthy Youth Survey and then helped the community to understand the results of that survey in 2019. Her work with the HYS received media attention and accolades in an area that doesn't always buy-in to social determinants of health. Internally, Ms. Fuller's passion for Quality Improvement, financial planning, and program management has brought new inspiration to the management team and all staff in strategic planning for the department. Because of her enthusiasm, ability to teach others, and much-needed patience, KCPHD is finally becoming a workplace with a culture of Quality Improvement. She has also gained the trust of our elected officials, community partners, and her team. Through data-driven projects and results based accountability, her ability to translate difficult public health concepts to the general public, and her enthusiasm for her work, Amy Fuller has made a palpable impact on the public health of Kittitas county.
Exceptional Student Award
Haylea Hannah, Ph.D. Student, University of Washington Haylea is currently a Ph.D. student in Epidemiology at the University of Washington. After earning an MSPH, Haylea completed the CSTE Applied Epidemiology Fellowship in Marin County, California, where she conducted routine surveillance describing the community burden of opioid-related harms to inform local efforts and designed routine data collection mechanisms for programs to measure, assess, and evaluate service delivery and health outcomes. During her Ph.D., Haylea has worked with Dr. Janet Baseman as a research assistant for the Student Epidemic Action Leaders team to provide graduate students with informal and formal training in applied epidemiology. For her dissertation, Haylea is evaluating the impact of medications for opioid use disorder treatment in the criminal justice system in California. Haylea is committed to providing research that builds the evidence-base for programs and policies that impact population health.
After recovering from addiction to nicotine and other substances I decided I never wanted another youth to be targeted by big tobacco. In 2017 I began sharing my story in the community and volunteering with 5 local drug-free coalitions and became a peer educator. The next year I went on to become a national Youth Ambassador for The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. I completed 2018 having trained over 1000 youth, educators and guardians about the dangers and marketing tricks of tobacco. I planned and hosted the first Great American Smoke Out event in my state and testified in the Washington Statehouse and senate to pass Tobacco 21. Following this work, I won the National Youth Advocate of the Year award in May of 2019. Since winning the award I have trained over 50 members of my community, worked with ESD 112 to educate my community on the dangers of tobacco and other substances and continued my tobacco prevention work as a National young adult ambassador for CTFK.
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WSPHA President's Award
 Jack Thompson, University of Washington
The 2019 President’s award recognizes Jack Thompson for his dedication and leadership to WSPHA and to public health in Washington State. Jack is a longtime member of WSPHA and has served on the board since 2011. He brings a broad public health perspective to all discussions through his work experience in local governmental and academic public health as well as community-based health organizations. His mentorship and support for the future public health leaders are reflected in the numbers of students and young professionals that have become involved with WSPHA through the Annual Conference Content Advisory Team and other committees.
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Secretary Award
 Abigail Echo-Hawk, Seattle Indian Health Board
Abigail is the Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute (Tribal Epi Center) and Chief Research Officer for the Seattle Indian Health Board. She is a fearless leader when it comes to advancing equity and social justice. Abigail collaborates with approximately 100 tribal nations in many ways like engaging and including community partners; research and evaluation of health care, and other community priorities; Education, training, and capacity-building for Native people including researchers, students, and communities. Her exemplary series of reports, Our Bodies, Our Stories, highlights the history of pervasive sexual violence among native women in Seattle and the lack of data and understanding of violence against urban American Indian and Alaska Native women.
Elected Official Award
When it was unclear if efforts to eliminate the personal belief exemption for the MMR vaccine would pass the Senate, Senator Cleveland got to work. She refuted every false statement during the Senate's floor debate that went long into the night.
Senator John Braun, 20th Legislative District Senator Braun was the prime sponsor of Washington's new vapor tax - public health's first dedicated funding source since the repeal of the MVET in 1999. .
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 Representative June Robinson, 38th Legislative District
Representative Robinson is a tireless advocate for public health. Thanks to her strong negotiation skills and dedication, public health now has its first dedicated funding source since the repeal of the MVET in 1999.
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 Representative Paul Harris, 17th Legislative District
Representative Harris led the charge on increasing the age to legally sell tobacco and vape products to 21 AND eliminating the personal belief exemption for the MMR vaccine for kids attending daycares and schools. He is as true public health champion!
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