Julia Rollison, PhD, MPH has joined Atlas Research as Director of Research and Evaluation. Dr. Rollison has over a decade of experience in program evaluation, research, and analysis studies for government and local agencies, private firms, and foundations. She has worked with several federal government agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services (specifically the National Institutes of Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Office of Human Research Protections), the Department of Education, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Defense. Dr. Rollison’s expertise includes study design; measurement; instrument development; mixed-methods data collection, analysis, and reporting; and data visualization.
Throughout her career, Dr. Rollison has managed efforts to evaluate programs and organizational systems. She has evaluated programs such as innovative cancer technology development grants, youth violence and substance use prevention partnerships, and faculty professional development. She has overseen the administration of thousands of web-based surveys and conducted over 25 group interviews and focus groups, as well as over 200 individual interviews, with a range of stakeholder types such as HIV-affected youth, members of the military, medical providers, and government officials. Dr. Rollison also has extensive communications and outreach experience such as the development of a best practices guide for D.C. health providers to improve linking youth to HIV care as well as a tool to help administrators and clinicians choose evidence-based programs. She has led efforts to develop reports, briefs, peer-reviewed publications, and presentations regarding evaluation efforts and findings.
In addition to her professional experience, Dr. Rollison has engaged in research projects including a study on the role of judgments of responsibility and diabetes disease management, African Americans and HIV vaccine trial participation, and most recently for her dissertation, the impact of methodological decision-making in evaluations. Dr. Rollison holds a Master's degree in public health from The George Washington University and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Research, Measurement, and Evaluation from Boston College.