Jess is a senior research scientist in NORC’s Health Sciences department. She has a mixed-method research background, including the design and implementation of randomized, experimental, and quasi-experimental study designs to test behavioral interventions and health decision-making as well as validating surveys using formative testing, confirmatory factor analyses, and multigroup structural equation modeling. Jess has also led various statistical analyses, including multilevel regression models for nested and repeated measure designs, survival and growth curve analyses, and latent factor and latent class models. In her qualitative work, Jess has experience leading environmental scans and thematic analyses of focus groups and in-depth interviews using inductive and deductive coding. 

At NORC at the University of Chicago, Jess leads evaluation and analyses efforts across a variety of projects. She leads a mixed-method implementation evaluation of George Washington University’s randomized controlled trial on kidney disease treatment options and she co-leads assessment and analyses for AHRQ’s Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Programs for Healthcare Acquired Infection Prevention and Telemedicine for Antibiotic Stewardship. In her work with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF), Jess co-leads the development of resources and webinars to share community-engaged recruitment strategies across study sites in MJFF’s Black and African American Connections to Parkinson’s Disease Study.

Prior to joining NORC, Jess completed postdoctoral training in epidemiology at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities at NIH. She also has over 15 years of experience working in the nonprofit sector, including projects funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and America’s Essential Hospitals. Jess has a strong history of publishing peer-reviewed research, including work on patient and family engagement in health care, structural barriers to health services, and stress exposure and chronic disease.