Town Hall Meeting Speakers

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Speakers' Biographies

David Homa, PhD, MPH

Acting Senior Science Advisor for Epidemiology, Epidemiology Branch, Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC

David Homa, PhD, MPH, is the acting senior science advisor for epidemiology in the Epidemiology Branch of the Office on Smoking and Health in CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, where he provides scientific guidance on tobacco epidemiology and surveillance. His primary areas of focus are secondhand smoke, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and smoking-attributable mortality.

Dr. Homa has worked at CDC for 18 years—the past 7 with the Office on Smoking and Health. Prior to that, he worked in CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health for the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch and the Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch. Before joining CDC, Dr. Homa worked as an epidemiologist for the Cancer Control Program at the Georgia Division of Public Health.

Dr. Homa received a doctoral degree in epidemiology and a masters degree in public health from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Ripon College.

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Gail Livingston, JD

Deputy Administrator for Housing Programs, Boston Housing Authority

Gail Livingston is the deputy administrator for housing programs at the Boston Housing Authority. She has been in this position since February 2014 and was previously the director of property management and operations at the Boston Housing Authority for 10 years. She has worked in the public housing industry for more than 25 years.

In her current position, Livingston is responsible for the management of 13,000 public housing units, as well as a leased housing program of equal size. She is also responsible for all resident and participant application and screening activities for the authority.

During her tenure as director of the Boston Housing Authority, Livingston achieved high-performer status for its public housing program as measured by HUD’s Public Housing Assessment System for the first time. In addition to implementing smoke-free housing, the Authority has also engaged in many healthy housing partnerships during her tenure. She has presented information about these initiatives at several national conferences and spent years as a trainer and consultant to providers of affordable housing, writing and speaking about housing performance and evaluation in the public housing field.

Livingston received a bachelor of arts degree from Antioch College and a Juris Doctorate from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

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Kara Skahen, MSW, MPP

Program Director, Live Smoke Free, Association for Nonsmokers-Minnesota

Kara Skahen, MSW, MPP, is program director for the Live Smoke Free program, which promotes smoke-free multi-housing throughout Minnesota. Since 2007, Live Smoke Free has provided educational resources and technical support to building owners, managers, local policy makers, and residents of multi-unit housing. Live Smoke Free also provides technical assistance to smoke-free housing advocates at the state and national levels.

Since 2011, Skahen has given numerous presentations on smoke-free housing at the local, state, and national levels, and has provided on-on-one assistance to property managers, owners, and residents of public and private rental communities.

She received a masters of social work degree and a masters of public policy degree from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

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