Ellen is an associate professor and associate dean in the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing at Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada. Her areas of research interest are rural health and the social determinants of health, with a particular emphasis on rural homelessness and substance use.

Sagar Dugani is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Research Chair in the Division of Hospital Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, United States. He provides care to adults hospitalized with general medical conditions. As a researcher, he serves as Director of HEXAGON, a research platform for hospital medicine across 16 Mayo Clinic hospitals in four U.S. states (Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, and Wisconsin). His research focuses on reducing health disparities, in particular, for rural populations and people of underserved race/ethnic groups. Sagar has healthcare experience from work in India, Canada, United Arab Emirates, United States, and as a Consultant to The World Bank, Washington DC. His research is funded by the US National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIH/NIMHD) and the Robert and Elizabeth Strickland Career Development Award. Twitter/X: @SagarDugani_MD

Dr. Randolph Hubach is Director of the Sexual Health Research Lab at Purdue University and Associate Professor of Public Health. He holds a Ph.D. in Health Behavior from Indiana University’s School of Public Health and MPH from California State University, Fullerton. Early in his career, Dr. Hubach’s research and practice experiences included serving as PI on a federally funded community-based sexual health intervention project, developing managed care programs for local public health and mental health jurisdictions, and serving in leadership positions in multiple community health coalitions and planning processes. As a behavioral scientist and public health researcher, he has gained a practical understanding of the challenges associated with the delivery of public health programs that are scientifically sound and responsive to the needs of diverse communities. Dr. Hubach’s research interests include using community engaged principles to address sexuality-related health disparities, sexual behavior, LGBT population health, and HIV/AIDS within urban and rural communities.Dr. Randolph Hubach is Director of the Sexual Health Research Lab at Purdue University and Associate Professor of Public Health. He holds a Ph.D. in Health Behavior from Indiana University’s School of Public Health and MPH from California State University, Fullerton. Early in his career, Dr. Hubach’s research and practice experiences included serving as PI on a federally funded community-based sexual health intervention project, developing managed care programs for local public health and mental health jurisdictions, and serving in leadership positions in multiple community health coalitions and planning processes. As a behavioral scientist and public health researcher, he has gained a practical understanding of the challenges associated with the delivery of public health programs that are scientifically sound and responsive to the needs of diverse communities. Dr. Hubach’s research interests include using community engaged principles to address sexuality-related health disparities, sexual behavior, LGBT population health, and HIV/AIDS within urban and rural communities.

Dr. Leigh-Anne Krometis is an Associate Professor and Elizabeth and James E Turner Jr Faculty Fellow of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA, USA. She earned both her BS and MS at Virginia Tech and her PhD in Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Public Health. Her research aims to promote sustainable development of water resources while preserving public health though the identification of potential environmental threats and the engineering of solutions to minimize exposure and risk. A substantial portion of her projects focus on documenting the consequences of inadequate water and sanitation systems in the Appalachian Coalfields on both human and ecosystem health. Current projects intentionally examine the potential intersections of socioeconomic and demographic factors, infrastructure, and hydrology on patterns of human environmental exposures to emerging contaminants, including PFAS, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and waterborne lead.

Dr. Sean Maurice is Assistant Dean of the Northern Medical Program (a rurally focused satellite campus of UBC Medicine), and Assistant Professor in the Division of Medical Sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia. He is a 3M National Teaching Fellow (2022 recipient). He is the provincial lead for the Healthcare Travelling Roadshow: an initiative that has been bringing multidisciplinary groups of healthcare students to rural communities to present to youth on healthcare careers, since 2010 (https://www2.unbc.ca/healthcare-travelling-roadshow). His research interests include: rural distributed health professions education; and university-high school outreach and community engagement to build the rural health workforce. He gratefully acknowledges that the land on which he lives, works and plays is the ancestral and unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh