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connie.baird@ssrc.msstate.edu
Connie Baird-Thomas, Ph.D.
Dr. Connie Baird-Thomas is the Associate Director of the Social Science Center for Policy Studies and Director of the Mississippi Health Policy Research Center (MHPRC), Mississippi’s only research center devoted to health policy issues. Through the MHPRC, health and health services data are provided to a number of stakeholders including state agencies, advocacy groups and political officials.
In the area of program evaluation, Dr. Baird-Thomas led the evaluation of a statewide effort to reduce health disparities among minorities. She also has served as the lead Investigator for the assessment of other statewide programs including the school nurse component of the Mississippi Tobacco Pilot Program and Mississippi’s Drug Free Schools and Community Program. Other activities for which she was the lead investigator include, a feasibility assessment of implementing the Nurse-Family Partnership Program in Mississippi and the Evaluation of the Mississippi Disaster Case Management Pilot Program.
Dr. Baird-Thomas’s research has been funded by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety Planning, the Mississippi State Department of Health and the Office of Rural Health Policy (HRSA). Her work has been published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, International Journal of Crime, Criminal Justice and the Law, and Criminal Justice and Behavior.
Sheena Gardner, Ph.D.
Dr. Sheena Gardner is an Associate Research Professor at the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University. Over the past several years she has worked on several evaluation projects in the areas of juvenile justice, public health, mental health, and non-profit/philanthropy. Currently, Dr. Gardner serves as the lead investigator for the evaluation of SAMHSA/OJJDP-funded juvenile drug treatment courts in Rankin and Madison counties and a SAMHSA-funded project aimed at developing sustainable infrastructure for school-based mental health programs. Throughout her career, Dr. Gardner’s research has been funded by state (University of MS Medical Center, the MS Department of Mental Health, the MS State Department of Health, the MS Department of Public Safety Planning, the MS Department of Human Services, and the Office of the Attorney General), federal (National Institute of Justice, US Department of Agriculture, and National Institutes of Health), and foundations (Mississippi Alliance of Nonprofits and Philanthropy, Community Foundation for Mississippi).
sheena.gardner@ssrc.msstate.edu
tockie.hemphill@ssrc.msstate.edu
Tockie V. Hemphill
Ms. Tockie V. Hemphill serves as a project manager for evaluation. She is a graduate of Rust College with a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and a graduate of Mississippi State University with a Master of Science in Counselor Education, Rehabilitation. She is a 2nd year Ph.D. student at MSU in the Department of Food Science, Nutrition, and Health Promotion, concentrating on Functional Foods. She has received training in diverse health and life coaching, which has advanced her skills in evaluating cardiovascular health, diabetes, and cancer prevention and maintenance programs. In addition, she is a member of the Mississippi State Health Assessment and Improvement Committee (SHAIC), Social Determinants of Health Workgroup. Ms. Hemphill is a Charter Member of the Mississippi Thrive Early Childhood Development Coalition, serving on the Enhanced Pediatric Medical Home Services (EPMHS) Subcommittee, and continues to support early education programs throughout Mississippi. Her former career was in Student Affairs serving in leadership roles in career advising, counseling, disability accommodations, and Veteran services. She also has experience working for the Veteran Administration.
Ms. Hemphill has dedicated years to volunteering in nursing homes, acting as a surrogate family member. She has completed one year of training in Psychodrama, Sociometry, and Group Psychotherapy founded by J. L. Moreno, M.D. (1889-1974), taught by Dr. Daniella Simmons (https://www.psychodramacertification.org/). This training was significant to her success while volunteering in Independent Living facilities with the Memory program in which many Veterans resided.
Equally important to critical thinking skills are Ms. Hemphill’s vision, purpose, and mission. Her vision is to become an expert in geroscience and translational research. Her purpose emanates from family values to serve. Ms. Hemphill’s mission is to improve the health of communities, develop strategies to address social determinants of health, and alleviate age-related health disparities through education, research, and evaluation.
Sierra Nelson
Sierra Nelson is a Research Associate at the Mississippi State University Social Science Research Center and MSU’s High Performance Computing Center (HPC2). Additionally, she is a criminology doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology. Her prior evaluation work is in areas including but not limited to non-profit/philanthropy, mental health, and agriculture. Her current projects and publications utilize OSINT data to examine online extremism, online radicalization and mobilization, and the impact of online propaganda. She is also engaged in research examining social media sentiments surrounding highly publicized events—including those pertaining to mass violence and political violence. Sierra’s other research interests include school safety research, policy, and program evaluation broadly, and juvenile justice. She strives to create scalable research that can undergird evidence-based decision-making to produce both impactful policies and sustainable programs.
With the ERG, she has assisted on multiple projects including
- Gardner, S. (2019, January). Fannie Lou Hamer’s America Evaluation, Fannie Lou Hamer’s Team, W.K. Kellogg Foundation/Tougaloo College
- Robertson, A., Baird-Thomas, C., & Gardner, S. (2020, July). MERC-19 Project Evaluator, Mississippi Department of Mental Health.
- Rico-Mendez, G. (2021-2022). U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) – Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). Research and Learning of School Meal Projects in Africa.
sierra.nelson@ssrc.msstate.edu
gina.mendez@ssrc.msstate.edu
Gina Rico Mendez, Ph.D.
Dr. Gina Rico Méndez is an Assistant Research Professor at the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University. She leads applied social science research and evaluation initiatives at the intersection of food systems, governance, and social inclusion. With a systems-thinking approach, her work bridges research and practice to inform policy, support rural development, and advance global food security. She brings over a decade of experience in Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) across U.S. and international contexts, including work on major donor-funded programs. She is also a Fulbright scholar.
As a social scientist at a land-grant university, Dr. Rico Mendez is committed to applied research that informs both policy and practice. She collaborates with the Mississippi Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) to examine the interactions between agricultural production, natural resource management, and human behavior—supporting the development of more equitable and sustainable resource use strategies in rural communities.
She has led and supported policy analysis, institutional assessments, and adaptive learning initiatives for programs funded by USAID, USDA, HRSA, and the U.S. Department of State. As the former Research and Learning Manager for the USAID-funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Fish, she guided cross-continental research partnerships and supported capacity strengthening for evidence use across Africa and Asia.
Her geographic experience spans Latin America, North America, Africa, and Asia, with research and development efforts in the U.S., Colombia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia. She previously served as Developmental Evaluator and Interim Project Director for USAID’s Complexity-Aware Monitoring and Evaluation (C-AME) activity in Colombia, applying adaptive learning tools to inform programming in conflict-affected environments.
ORCID iD https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8021-698
Angela Robertson, Ph.D.
Dr. Angela Roberton is the Associate Director and Research Professor at the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University.
Since 1994, Dr. Robertson has been conducting multi-site and longitudinal research on behavioral health issues among substance abusing and offender populations. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has funded research on the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections and HIV risk behaviors among juvenile detainees, mental health treatment and social service needs of incarcerated youth, conditions of confinement in Mississippi juvenile detention facilities, and behavioral interventions to reduce drug use and HIV risk behaviors among juvenile offenders.
Dr. Robertson collaborates with state juvenile justice agencies to collect, analyze, and report information on juvenile crime and the processing of youth by the juvenile justice system. Her analyses and reports have been instrumental in assisting in monitoring compliance with federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention mandates. Dr. Robertson is also involved in a NIDA-funded collaborative research program with five other universities designed to implement evidence-based substance abuse and HIV prevention and treatment programs for youth involved in the juvenile justice system.
Before coming to Mississippi State University, Dr. Robertson worked in community mental health and substance abuse treatment for 16 years. She developed and directed the ARK, the first state funded residential substance abuse treatment program for adolescents in Mississippi.
angela.robertson@ssrc.msstate.edu
ksergi@ssrc.msstate.edu
Katerina Sergi, Ph.D.
Katerina Sergi is an Assistant Research Professor at the Social Science Research Center. She is involved in a variety of projects including early childhood education and development, mental health awareness and prevention services, and tobacco control. Katerina Sergi combines quantitative and qualitative data to create work plans, reports, presentations, and publications that describe the effectiveness of interventions and point out the strengths and limitations of particular programs.
Katerina Sergi provides services to the following projects:
- Project AWARE, sponsored by SAMHSA, to develop and improve a school-based continuum of mental health awareness, prevention, training, and service linkage/delivery within the Mississippi Achievement School District (MASD).
- Project ECHO for early childhood development and health, funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, to measure the effectiveness of the ECHO Model® among early childhood professionals and families with children ages birth to eight.
- An evaluation project to assess the impact of tobacco control programs in the state, funded by the Mississippi Department of Health, Office of Tobacco Control.
Katerina Sergi has experience working abroad, conducting research and evaluation for global firms in Europe, North and South America, Asia, and for a variety of demographics, including those with vision impairments. She graduated from Queens College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in applied social research and received a doctorate degree in educational psychology from Mississippi State University.
Daniel Shawl
Daniel Shawl serves as a project coordinator at Mississippi State University’s Social Science Research Center. He began working at the SSRC in the fall of 2021. Shawl coordinates the Research and Development of MASEP, as well as various other projects involving topics such as recidivism, substance abuse, juvenile justice, etc. Shawl earned a B.A. in Anthropology from Mississippi State University in 2017, and an M.A. in Anthropology with a focus on Archaeology from the University of Mississippi in 2021. Prior to his work at the SSRC, Shawl worked as an archaeologist for Mississippi State University for over three years, and worked as a National Park Ranger for the Natchez Trace Parkway. During his career as a student and archaeologist he did extensive research on the early Natchez people and the chronological dating of the construction of their ancient capital. Through his experience in Archaeology and Anthropology, Shawl brings a unique skill set into the Social Science Research Center and the projects he works on.
daniel.shawl@ssrc.msstate.edu