John P. Allegrante, Ph.D.
email: allegrante@tc.columbia.edu

John P. Allegrante, Ph.D., is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Center for Health Education and Professor of Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Allegrante began his career at Teachers College as an assistant professor in 1979, chairing the Department of Health Education from 1980 to 1990. He served as director of the larger Division of Health Services, Sciences, and Education, which included the health education, nutrition education, and nursing education departments, from 1989 to 1996. Dr. Allegrante was a founding director of the Center for Health Promotion, a multidisciplinary research and development group that was established at Teachers College in 1981.

Dr. Allegrante holds a joint appointment in the Division of Sociomedical Sciences at the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University and is adjunct professor of behavioral science in medicine at the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University. He also is a senior scientist in the Research Division of the Hospital for Special Surgery at the New York Presbyterian Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. He is currently the co-principal investigator and lead behavioral scientist on the Healthy Behaviors Trial, a four-year project supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute that is designed to improve health behavior and outcomes after angioplasty.

He has been a consultant to the National Institutes of Health since 1983 and has been an advisor to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and numerous other U.S. government agencies, private foundations, and universities. He currently advises the American Legacy Foundation in Washington, DC.

Dr. Allegrante has broad, interdisciplinary scholarly interests and has published extensively about health education in schools, the worksite, and medical care. He has served on the editorial boards of several journals and is currently on the boards of Health Education Research and the Journal of Health Communication. A frequent speaker at national and international meetings, Dr. Allegrante has traveled extensively within the U.S. and to more than 15 countries throughout Asia, Europe, Scandinavia, and South America. Dr. Allegrante is a past president of the Society for Public Health Education and currently serves as a vice president of the North American Regional Office of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education. He is a member of the International Scientific Committee for the XVII World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education.

Dr. Allegrante received a B.S. from the State University of New York College at Cortland and earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Fellow from 1985 to 1988 and a Pew Health Policy Fellow at the RAND/UCLA Center for Health Policy Study in Santa Monica, California, during 1987-88. He was named a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine in 1985, and received the Distinguished Fellow Award from the Society for Public Health Education-the society's highest honor-in 1999. He is a member of the American Public Health Association, American School Health Association, and Society for Public Health Education.

Ray Marks, Ed.D.
email: ray@nche.org

Ray Marks is the Associate Program Director at the National Center for Health Education. She is responsible for the final processing and dissemination of Starting Healthy, a comprehensive pre-school health curriculum, and the Medical Education Curriculum, which will supplement the present Growing Healthy curriculum, and research and development activities.

She received her doctorate in health education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she is currently an adjunct associate professor of Health Education. She was a Research Fellow in the Outcomes Section at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York from 2000-2003 and is a recipient of a SOPHE/CDC Unintentional Injury Fellowship Award, A Cornell Aging Research Award, and has been honored as an Andrew Stewart Research Scholar, a John Dewey Scholar, a Province of Alberta Fellow, and as an Arthritis Scholar. She is a recipient of several writing awards, has conducted over 100 professional presentations worldwide, authored more than 100 publications, sits on the editorial board of Health Education, and has served as a consultant to numerous universities, research groups and consortiums across the globe in the area of chronic arthritis management and prevention.

She is on SOPHE advocacy committee and is co-chair of the SOPHE ethics committee and a member of the American Public Health Association. She holds Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in physical therapy, and a Bachelor of Medical Science degree. She has been listed in Who's Who in America since 2003.

Helen Conlin
email: helen@nche.org

Helen Conlin has been associated with the National Center for Health Education since 1996 in the capacity of business management. She is responsible for all the day-to-day business transactions and supervisory activities.

Jeanne Chun, MA, CHES
email: jeanne@nche.org

Jeanne Chun is the Associate Program Director at the National Center for Health Education. She is responsible for the development and promotion of National Health Education Week, the revision and continuing development of the Starting Healthy© comprehensive preschool health education curriculum, and the production and dissemination of the Growing Healthy® Youth, Parents, and Communities newsletter. She is also NCHE's webmaster and maintains the NCHE website. She has extensive experience in the research and product development of school-based health education curricula, including Dr. Gilbert Botvin's LifeSkills Training substance abuse prevention program.

Jeanne is also a Health Educator at Alice! Health Promotion Program at Columbia University.

She holds a Master of Arts degree in Health Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biological Sciences from Columbia College, Columbia University. She is also a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES).

Karen Heppeler, BS
email: karen@nche.org

Karen Heppeler is a Program Associate at the National Center for Health Education. She is assisting with promotion and marketing efforts, is responsible for the development of a physical education curriculum, and is organizing the continuing development of the remarkable teacher training service of Growing Healthy®. She has considerable experience in the health, fitness and wellness industries, specifically in commercial and corporate settings. As a highly regarded personal trainer and exercise specialist, practicing for eight years, she has hosted a variety of interactive health workshops. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, and holds certifications with the American College of Sports Medicine, American Council on Exercise, and Mad Dogg Athletics.

She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Fitness and Cardiac Rehabilitation/Exercise Science from Ithaca College, and is completing her Master of Arts degree in Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.