Dr. Kelly N. Foster
Director
Contact:
423-439-4374 / cell: 706-540-0449
fosterkn@etsu.edu
Dr. Foster has 20 years experience as a survey research methodologist. She came to ETSU in 2012 from The University of Georgia where she spent 7 years specializing in survey research at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government and 3 years focusing on health-related survey methodology at The College of Public Health. She is primarily a quantitative researcher and has both education and expertise in research methodology, including survey research, questionnaire design, health-related survey methodology, new technologies in research methodology, and statistical analysis.
She is also trained and experienced in qualitative research including focus group moderation, in-person interviewing, and qualitative analysis. Dr. Foster served 2 years on the executive council for the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), the leading organization for survey researchers in this country, and continues to be active with the organization. She is past-president for the Southern chapter of AAPOR. Dr. Foster has worked extensively with local and state governments on public opinion polling and citizen engagement.
Morgan Kidd, MA
Assistant Director
Contact:
423-439-3751 | jonesms@etsu.edu
Mrs. Kidd graduated from the Masters of Sociology program at ETSU in 2014 and has over 10 years experience in applied research and project management. She is trained and experienced in questionnaire design, survey research, conducting focus groups, web, phone, and paper survey programming, data analysis and statistics. She is also responsible for project management and logistics of all projects at ASRL. In the 10 years she has worked with ASRL, she has been the project manager and/or study staff for over hundreds of research projects.
Mrs. Kidd is Research Core Certified in Qualtrics survey software and is currently servings as a full voting staff member for the ETSU Campus IRB. She also served on the Small Shops Outreach Group for the International Field Directors and Telecommunications Conference in 2017 and is currently serving as the Field Directors Small Shop Program Coordinator for the conference. She is also an active SAPOR, AAPOR, AASRO, IFD&TC member and attends conferences every year.
Rebecca Strasser, MPH/MSW
Project Coordinator
Contact:
423-439-3722 | strasserr@etsu.edu
M. Strasser holds a master’s in social work and is a recent graduate of the Master’s
in Public Health program (Epidemiology Concentration) from ETSU. She has experience
with data visualizations and presentations, project management, qualitative and quantitative
analysis, and scientific writing.
Candace Forbes-Bright, PhD
Assistant Research Faculty
Contact:
423-439-6653 | brightcm@etsu.edu
My research focuses on social/cultural development and more specifically, on social learning processes. This had led me to researching the role of social networks and social capital in health disparities and quality of life, as well as an emphasis on the how culture is interpreted at racialized geographies. Methodologically, I am interested in the advancement of social network analysis for understanding social/cultural processes.
Leslie McCallister, PhD
Senior Faculty Affiliate
Contact:
Dr. McCallister has 15 years of experience conducting community-based research projects. Since her arrival at ETSU, she has worked with multiple community agencies such as the Church Hill Free Medical Clinic, Coalition for Kids, Project Access, the Johnson City Community Health Center (formerly the Downtown Clinic) to design and implement program evaluation strategies. Her areas of expertise include survey research, questionnaire design, focus groups, grant writing, and program evaluation.
Trena M. Paulus, PhD
Faculty Affiliate
Contact:
Dr. Paulus has 17 years of experience as a qualitative research methodologist and instructional designer. She specializes in the design and analysis of online conversations and the impact of digital technologies on research design and implementation. Her areas of expertise include observational methods, both online and offline, interview and focus group design, qualitative social media analysis and narrative and conversation analysis techniques. Dr. Paulus is a certified professional trainer for ATLAS.ti data analysis software.
Most recently a professor in the University of Georgia’s Qualitative Research program, Dr. Paulus moved to the research division of Family Medicine in the Quillen College of Medicine at ETSU in 2019. Prior to her time at UGA, she spent 11 years at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville coordinating the instructional design program and graduate certificate in qualitative research methods. Her publications include Looking for Insight, Transformation and Learning in Online Talk (Paulus & Wise, Routledge, 2019) and Doing Research with Digital Tools (Paulus & Lester, Sage, forthcoming in 2020).