Staff

• Stephanie Giordano

  Email: sgiordano@hsri.org

  NCI Project Co-Director for HSRI

  Dr. Stephanie Giordano is the NCI Project Co-Director for HSRI and leads training and quality assurance activities on both NCI and NCI-AD. Her areas of expertise includes survey implementation methodology and techniques (including population-specific techniques), surveyor training, quality assurance, stakeholder engagement, and user-friendly dissemination of information. She holds a doctorate degree from Northeastern University and a Master’s Degree in Ethics and Public Policy from Suffolk University.

• Dorothy Hiersteiner

  Email: dhiersteiner@hsri.org

  NCI Project Co-Director for HSRI

  Ms. Hiersteiner is the NCI Project Co-Director for HSRI. Her areas of expertise include project coordination, data management and data analysis, report writing, and editing. She has contributed to numerous technical reports, data briefs, manuscripts, and training/TA materials. Dorothy also currently directs the NCI Staff Stability Survey. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in Waltham, Ma.

• Laura Vegas

  Email: lvegas@nasddds.org

  NCI Project Director for NASDDDS

  Laura Vegas is the Project Director of National Core Indicators at the National Association of State Developmental Disability Directors. Laura comes to the project with more than 28 years of experience in the I/DD service delivery systems. The majority of her career was spent with the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities where she was Assistant Commissioner of Policy and Innovation. While at TN DIDD, Laura’s team was responsible for becoming a member of NCI and implementing the first IPS there. While in TN, Laura lead the DIDD’s successful efforts to become the nation’s first IDD service delivery system to be accredited by CQL for person centered excellence. She also served as the waiver manager for TN’s 1915c HCBS waivers.

• Valerie Bradley

  Email: vbradley@hsri.org

  Ms. Bradley has been founder and President of Human Services Research Institute since its inception in 1976. During that time, it has become a leading resource for public managers in human services across the country. After getting her Masters in Political Science at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, she began her work in the 1960s as a staffer to the California Assembly where she contributed to the development of landmark legislation in mental health and developmental disabilities.

• Henan Li

  Email: hli@hsri.org

  Research Associate

  Dr. Henan Li is a research associate at HSRI and a member of the NCI team. His role on the NCI team include data cleaning, analysis, reporting, chart generator, and survey methodology. Prior to joining the NCI team, Henan was a disability and health researcher at Brandeis University's Lurie Institute for Disability Policy. He has a PhD in Disability Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he examined the relationship between obesity and health care expenditures among U.S. adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities using national health survey data.

• Karen Gruber

  Email: kgruber@hsri.org

  Software Developer

  Karen is a software developer dedicated to leveraging technology in support of values-driven initiatives. She supports a data collection and analysis application that allows state and project team users to enter and use data from the National Core Indicators and National Core Indicators–Aging and Disability survey tools. Karen takes a collaborative approach to work, and her insights help maintain a focus on quality outcomes for the team.

• Eric Lam

  Email: elam@hsri.org

• Alexandra Bonardi

  Email: abonardi@hsri.org

  NCI Project Director Emerita for HSRI

  Ms. Bonardi is the NCI Project Director Emerita for HSRI. She is also a clinical assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) and is a faculty member in the MCHB-funded Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disability (LEND) program at the UMMS EK Shriver Center. Until 2014, she directed the Center for Developmental Disabilities Evaluation and Research (CDDER) at the Shriver Center where she developed quality improvement projects to support state developmental disabilities systems. Alixe is a licensed occupational therapist and completed a LEND policy fellowship at the EK Shriver Center and a Fulbright fellowship, examining risk management and supports for people with intellectual disability in New Zealand. She has served as principal investigator for several AHRQ-funded and CDC-funded research projects. Her research interests include the promotion of health and wellness in people with intellectual disability, health surveillance, and support systems that promote good outcomes for people with intellectual and developmental disability.