ACPP Associates
Alaska Center for Public Policy Associates are highly trained and experienced professionals with decades of combined experience in policy analysis and research, and program evaluation. These are the people who do the work at ACPP. A few of the Center Associates are listed below.
Dr. John Booker is Associate Director for Public Health Practice at the Institute for Public Health at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. At UNM he has also served as Principal Investigator for the Southwest Diabetes Prevention Center sponsored by the CDC, providing training and community-based research support to tribal communities in the region. Previously he was Director of the North Carolina Center for Health Statistics and a member of the faculty for the Public Health Leadership Doctoral Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Public Health. His professional work with Native American health issues began in the 1970s as Project Director for the American Indian School of Medicine and as Director of Health Statistics and Research for the Navajo Health Authority. He spent 15 years in Alaska as the Coordinator of Cross-Cultural Education Development and Director of the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies with the University of Alaska. He is currently the Director of the UNM MPH Extension program in Shiprock, New Mexico.
Dr. Isabel Londono has been involved in public policy and education for many years. Prior to her association with the Center, Dr. Londoño was the Director of Community Development for the City of Bogota, capital of Colombia, and a city of more than 8 million people. She was part of the Mayor’s cabinet, and played a prominent role in the development of public policies concerning women and youth issues. In addition, Dr. Londono was Chief of Staff for the First Lady of Columbia, Ana Milena Munoz de Gaviria. Dr. Londono was also General Consul of Colombia for New England, serving a community of more than 60,000 Colombian immigrants across six states. She has been a consultant with the Interamerican Development Bank, World Bank, Creative Associates, and USAID. She is fluent in Spanish, and has worked in Peru, Honduras and Colombia. She created and directed the Foundation COLFUTURO, awarding more than 1000 graduate scholarships for Colombian professionals abroad, and managing an endowment of more than $20 million dollars. She also created the Foundation Women for Colombia, and was a founder for the Foundation for the Reconciliation. Recently she was an executive liaison of the office of the President of the Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek. Isabel Londono earned a Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude, in 1980 from the Business School of the Universidad de los Andes (Bogota, Colombia), a Master of International Education; and a Doctorate degree in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Dr. Karl T. Pfeiffer is currently an Associate Professor of Sociology (tenured) at the University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA), and has been teaching at UAA since 1989. Dr. Pfeiffer has been involved in the creation, administration, and program evaluation of non-profit social service organizations since 1986. Research interests include applied sociology, formal organizations, social problems, and environmental sociology. Dr. Pfeiffer is currently working on a textbook, under contract with Prentice-Hall, entitled An Introduction to Formal Organizations. Dr. Pfeiffer has been professionally involved in research since 1992 including serving as the Evaluation and Research Coordinator for the Center for Human Development and serving as a Research Analyst for the Bering Sea Partnership for a Healthy Community. Duties have included project evaluation, planning, and analysis; grant preparation; and statistical analysis of survey data. Dr Pfeiffer was awarded a PhD in Sociology from South Dakota State University (Brookings, SD) in 1993 with a concentration in formal organizations, research methodology, and social theory. Dr. Pfeiffer received his Masters and Bachelor Degree from Loyola University of Chicago in sociology and psychology, respectively.
Mr. John Riley has a faculty appointment at the University of Alaska Department of Health Sciences. His policy interests include health care access, quality of care, and health professional education issues. In addition, he has conducted program evaluation for the Alaska Center for Rural Health. Mr. Riley is a practicing physician assistant, and former medical director at the Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center. He holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin Madison, and a Hopkins Business of Medicine Executive Certificate from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Mr. Riley has served on the boards of the Health Care Coalition of Alaska, Alaska Primary Care Association and the Alaska Public Health Association.
Dr. Melissa M. Toffolon-Weiss has conducted program evaluation research since 1994 in the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean. Her academic experience includes the following: Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA) Masters of Public Health Program; Visiting Assistant Professor in the UAA Sociology Department; and Adjunct Professor at Mat-Su College. Dr Toffolon-Weiss has served in various capacities in public health education since 1986. Dr. Toffolon-Weiss has published in the areas of environmental justice and evaluation. Dr. Toffolon-Weiss received her PhD in Sociology from Tulane University in 2001 along with an M.A. in Sociology in 1998. She received a Masters Degree in Public Health from Columbia University, and a B.S. in Allied Health from the University of Connecticut.
Dr. Lawrence D. Weiss is a retired Research Professor of Public Health from the University of Alaska, and formerly Principal Investigator for a grant from the National Institutes of Health. While at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Dr. Weiss developed and directed the Master of Public Health program, and spearheaded the development of the Alaska Native Studies program. He is the author of three books on various aspects of public health policy, and a fourth book about the historical political economy of the Navajo people. In addition, he has published numerous articles about medical and public health policy. During the mid-1980s, Dr. Weiss was executive director of the Alaska Health Project, a private nonprofit organization that focused on occupational health and safety training, and environmental health issues. During the 1970s he was a program evaluator for the University of New Mexico School of Medicine Department of Family, Community, and Emergency Medicine. He is the founder the Alaska Center for Public Policy, and Executive Director.