PANELISTS:    

Dr. Shamarial Roberson Florida Department of Health Dr. Shamarial Roberson, is the chief of Chronic Disease Prevention at the Florida Department of Health. Dr. Roberson provides direction and supervision for the bureau by overseeing operational functions such as chronic disease programs, epidemiology and evaluation, budget and grant functions, procurement and administrative support. In 2013 Dr. Roberson joined the Department of

Health as a chronic disease epidemiologist and evaluator where she served for two years as the bureau epidemiologist. While there, she was responsible for providing routine and special surveillance data analysis using various data systems. From 2015-2016 Dr. Roberson was the section administrator in Chronic Disease, providing administrative direction and policy coordination for the bureau. Dr. Roberson is a graduate of Florida State University where she earned her bachelor’s degree—a double major—in Biological Sciences and Family and Child Sciences. She returned to FSU, receiving her Masters of Public Health in 2009. She was awarded the highest academic distinction in her field, Doctorate of Public Health, from Florida A&M University in 2016. Dr. Roberson is committed to increasing health equity to disparate populations with a focus on chronic disease prevention.

Dr. Gina Beckles Program Evaluation Services, Inc. Dr. Gina Beckles is president and CEO of Program Evaluation Services, Inc., a grants and government contracting firm that specializes in conducting independent program evaluations for federally funded grants. She also provides training and consulting to various other organizations. She has over 20 years of experience working with government grants and contracts. She also wrote

a book entitled Grants! Grants! Grants! Everything You Need to Know About Grants. Her second book, Navigating the Federal Procurement Process, is expected to be released in late 2016. Dr. Beckles has also been an Assistant Professor in the College of Business and Entrepreneurship at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, FL. for over 20 years. Her areas of instruction include Business Research Methods, Management and Organizational Behavior, and Business Policy and Strategy. Dr. Beckles earned her Ph.D. and MBA at University of Central Florida, and her BS at Florida A&M University. She has also worked at Brevard Community College, the Federal Reserve Bank of Miami, and City Gas Company of Florida. Currently she serves on several Boards including the City of Titusville Code Enforcement, North Brevard Charities, and the Southeast Evaluation Association. A lifetime resident of Titusville, Florida, she is married to Roland and they have two sons, Roland Xavier (FAMU) and Malachi (BCU).

Dr. Tamara Bertrand-Jones FSU - College of Education's Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Dr. Tamara Bertrand Jones currently serves as an Associate Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Florida State University. Her research examines the sociocultural influences on socialization during graduate education and the professional experiences of underrepresented populations, particularly Black women, in academia.

Her previous work as an administrator and program evaluator also influence her other research interests in culturally responsive assessment and evaluation. She is a founder and past president of Sisters of the Academy Institute, an international organization that promotes collaborative scholarship and networking among Black women in the academy. She collaborated with fellow scholars to write Pathways to Higher Education for African American Women (Stylus Publishing) and Cultivating Leader Identity and Capacity in Students from Diverse Backgrounds (Jossey-Bass). She was awarded a McKnight Junior Faculty Fellowship for the 2014-2015 academic year. In 2013, she received a Transformation Through Teaching award from Florida State University’s Spiritual Life Project. She has taught courses on Diversity in Higher Education, Student Services in Higher Education, Outcomes of Higher Education, Institutional Research, and Literature Review and Professional Writing. In 2012, she was inducted into the FSU chapter of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. She was also named the 2009 recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award from Florida State University. Dr. Bertrand Jones received her Doctor of Philosophy in Research and Evaluation Methods from Florida State University in 2006.