Our Team
The Center consists of a team of faculty and staff evaluation experts committed to applying cutting-edge evaluation theory and methodology to provide clients with high quality evaluation services. CREEHS takes a unique team approach to evaluation services. The team is comprised of CREEHS personnel and affiliated Montclair State University faculty members.
Center Personnel
Director: Huey T. Chen, PhD
Huey T. Chen, Director of CREEHS and Professor of Health and Nutrition Sciences, is an international expert on the theory and practice of evaluation. Previously a Senior Evaluation Scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Chen has worked with community organizations, health-related agencies, government agencies, and educational institutions. He has conducted both large-scale and small-scale evaluations in the U.S. and internationally, including evaluating the Asthma Control Program supported by the CDC, an HIV prevention and care initiative in China, and a drug abuse prevention program in Ohio. Dr. Chen has published several books including Practical Program Evaluation (2005, Sage) and Theory-Driven Evaluation (1990, Sage). He has also published more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Chen serves on the editorial boards of New Directions of Evaluation and Evaluation and Program Planning. He received the American Evaluation Association’s Lazarsfeld Award for Evaluation Theory and the Senior Biomedical Service Award from CDC for his evaluation work.
Senior Research Associate: Eden Kyse, PhD
Eden N. Kyse, Senior Research Associate, has expertise in program evaluation, research design, qualitative and quantitative methodology, statistical analysis, and data maintenance. She has managed several large-scale and small-scale evaluations, including those focused on teacher professional development; literacy, mathematics, science, and STEM; early reading tutoring; and community health. This work has been funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, and by contracts with local educational agencies and foundations. Dr. Kyse has also worked as a statistical consultant and taught college courses in Educational Psychology and Research Design. She holds a doctorate in Educational Psychology, specializing in Quantitative Methods and Psychological Research.
Affiliated Faculty Members
Amanda S. Birnbaum, PhD Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences
Dr. Amanda Birnbaum, an Associate Professor in the Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences at Montclair State University, received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and her M.P.H. from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Her research focuses on understanding and improving health behaviors, particularly related to eating and physical activity. Working from a social ecological perspective, Dr. Birnbaum combines quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate social environmental factors, such as neighborhood and school environments, as they relate to diet, physical activity, and other health behaviors. She has extensive experience with school-based studies, and was the principal investigator of the Good Fit Project, a National Cancer Institute funded, mixed-methods formative evaluation study of physical activity among multiethnic adolescents living in urban areas. Dr. Birnbaum also collaborates on developing and evaluating both local and national initiatives aimed at promoting healthier eating and physical activity among families and communities, working with partners such as the Healthy Children Healthy Futures initiative, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation, and the local initiative, Eat. Play. Live…Better.
Brian V. Carolan, PhD Department of Educational Foundations
Dr. Brian Carolan , Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations at Montclair State University, received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Carolan is a sociologist of education whose areas of expertise include social networks and quantitative research methods. His work has been funded by a number of sources, including the National Science Foundation, and has appeared in publications such as Social Networks, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, and Journal of Research on Adolescence.
Elizabeth J. Erwin, EdD Department of Early Childhood, Elementary and Literacy Education
Dr. Elizabeth Erwin is Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator for the Inclusive Early Childhood Education Program at Montclair State University. Her research and advocacy over the past 20 years have focused on building classroom communities for diverse young learners, creating family-professional partnerships, and fostering practices that support learning and well-being in inclusive environments. Dr. Erwin served as Co-Principal Investigator on a 3 year federally-funded collaborative grant on building foundations for self-determination in young children with disabilities and home-school partnerships. She is committed to translating research into practice for a range of audiences and exploring how innovative research models can be applied to early childhood intervention.
Leslie Kooyman, PhD Department of Counseling and Educational Leadership
Dr. Leslie Kooyman, Assistant Professor in the Counseling and Educational Leadership Department at Montclair State University, received his Ph.D. in 2007 from University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He teaches and advises students seeking master’s degrees and Ph.D. degrees in Counseling and Counselor Education. His research focuses on understanding the factors influencing decisions around HIV transmission and sexual risk-taking behavior among marginalized populations. He has presented at numerous national professional conferences and has published a number of articles in his research area. He also provides evaluation and consultation services to nonprofit organizations and schools. He has been a community leader and social justice advocate working in HIV/AIDS for the past twenty-five years. In 1985, he founded Metrolina AIDS Project in Charlotte, NC. His work has included developing both care and prevention services for people living with HIV in the Charlotte region, counseling people living with HIV/AIDS (private practice), and consulting with other organizations in developing AIDS services in rural North Carolina. He also successfully transitioned Metrolina AIDS Project from a primarily gay, white male organization to a thriving minority-based agency integrating and addressing the needs of people of color.
Lisa D. Lieberman, PhD Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences
Dr. Lisa Lieberman, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences at Montclair State, received her Ph.D. in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan. Dr. Lieberman came to MSU in 2009, after 17 years of program planning and evaluation research as President of Healthy Concepts Research, Inc., during which time she conducted program evaluation and applied research in the areas of adolescent health, maternal and child health, and tobacco control. She has served as PI of a longitudinal study comparing varying approaches to school-based pregnancy prevention in NYC, as the Co-PI of a study of NYC High Schools’ condom availability program, and as evaluator for pregnancy and HIV prevention programs in NY, NJ, Georgia, and South Dakota. In addition, she has conducted evaluations of several NYC prevention and intervention services for pregnant and parenting teens. Dr. Lieberman was the evaluator for the Rockland County (NY) Department of Health Comprehensive Tobacco Program, a decade-long program which resulted in the county’s surpassing the Healthy People 2010 tobacco goals and achieving the lowest smoking rate in the state of NY. Dr. Lieberman served as an evaluation consultant to the US Office of Population Affairs from 1996 – 2010, and as Chair of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, Research and Evaluation Workgroup in 2008 and 2009. Dr. Lieberman is a member of the editorial boards of the journals Health Education & Behavior and Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
Jennifer Brown Urban, PhD Department of Family and Child Studies
Dr. Jennifer Brown Urban, Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Child Studies at Montclair State University, received her Ph.D. in Human Development with a minor in Program Evaluation and Planning from Cornell University. Dr. Urban was a Policy Fellow of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)/American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Executive Branch at the National Institutes of Health, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. Dr. Urban currently directs the Developmental Systems Science and Evaluation Research Lab (DSSERL) at Montclair State. Dr. Urban is a developmental scientist with specific expertise in youth development and program evaluation. Her scholarship applies the theoretical approaches and methodologies of systems science. She has published several papers on the interaction of self-regulation, out-of-school activity involvement, and neighborhood contexts. Dr. Urban has also published on the role of program evaluation and planning in research-practice integration. Her specialties are Organization/Program Evaluation Capacity Building and Systems Evaluation Facilitation. Dr. Urban is currently the co-PI on the NSF-funded project entitled, A Phase II Trial of the Systems Evaluation Protocol for Assessing and Improving STEM Education Evaluation.