About the Institute for Population Health

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Ashley Carroll, MPH, serves as the market director of healthy communities and population health for CHI Health and Creighton Institute of Population Health. In her role in the IPH, she works at the intersection between the University, the health system and the community, galvanizing the respective resources and expertise of each for maximum population health impact. She leads community health needs assessment (CHNA) and population health initiatives to address the root causes of disparate outcomes. Carroll supports local, state and federal healthcare policy and advocacy focused on access to care, health care workforce and the social determinants of health. In her bridging role in the IPH and CHI Health, she strives to diminish the research- practice gap by testing, evaluating and adopting healthcare transformations that lead to improved outcomes and experience.

Carroll was the inaugural recipient of the Nebraska Public Health Defender award in 2022 and earned a spot on the Midlands Business Journal 40 Under 40 in 2024. She earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a master's degree in public health from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She actively serves her community through past and current volunteer positions on a number of state and local boards, including Child Saving Institute, the Southwest YMCA, the Women’s Health Advisory Council, the Nebraska Workplace Violence task force, Douglas County Foster Care Review Board and as president of the Public Health Association of Nebraska.

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April Dixon, MPH, serves as interim director of Creighton at The Highlander. She joined Creighton 20 years ago as a health educator and also serves as project manager for the Creighton Community Collaborative. The Highlander is part of a purpose-built community in North Omaha, where, because of the city’s history of racism and structural racism, residents experience disparate health outcomes. North Omaha is the historic heart of African American arts and activism, and Creighton’s IPH aims to become a more respectful and engaged neighbor. The Highlander will also serve as a resource for community engagement capacity-building among Creighton students, faculty and staff, and the team will develop a strategy for power-sharing/power-building with North Omaha changemakers. The University's efforts in The Highland are guided by Jesuit values, a passion for place-based justice, an appreciation for the principles of community well-being, and our adaptations of the Community Action Model. Creighton will continue to adapt our offerings to support the ongoing desires and needs of our North Omaha neighbors.

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Kevin Fuji, PharmD, MA, serves as the faculty research lead for the institute. In this role, he uses his formal training in qualitative and mixed methods to advance various initiatives within the IPH, including providing support to IPH grantees and working with external partners to help them evaluate and enhance various programs/initiatives that impact population health. Fuji sees population health as perfectly aligned with the University’s mission and Ignatian values. “Not only do we have comprehensive health sciences education that is already engaging with population health from an education, service and research perspective, but having the IPH in place allows us to leverage the already important work that is being done and expand it even further. Population health is for everyone, and the IPH has a unique opportunity to bridge the health sciences at Creighton with other areas across the University, including areas that may not always think of themselves as having a role with population health – for example the Heider College of Business, the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Law, etc.” Fuji, in his 17th year at Creighton, also serves as an associate professor of pharmacy sciences in the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions.

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Sarah King joined Creighton University in 2022 as a program manager for population health efforts at the University. At Creighton, she collaborates with partners from across the University to establish early efforts for the Institute and help guide the Institute’s overall strategic planning and programming. Prior to joining Creighton, Ms. King spent eight years at the Association of American Medical Colleges on the Clinical Innovations team where she helped to establish the AAMC’s telehealth strategic plan that included developing telehealth competencies, launching the Telehealth Equity Catalyst Award and Grant Program, and forming a telehealth learning collaborative. She has worked closely with over 50 health systems across the nation. Ms. King’s previous experiences include quality and education at a nonprofit hospice, serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA member, and as a health volunteer in Uganda with Peace Corps.  

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Danielle Okezie, MEd, joined Creighton in fall 2023 as program manager to develop and implement the CommonSpirit Health Leadership in health Equity, Advocaty and Diversity Scholars Program-Phoenix. The program is a strategic tool for population health intervention that includes a leadership training component for diverse healthcare workers at the University’s partner hospital in Phoenix. Okezie views the IPH as an important University initiative because of the nationwide shortage of healthcare workers and the even greater shortage of diverse healthcare workers. “With Creighton's Ignatian values and excellent academics, the students learn to provide quality care and treat everyone with dignity despite their circumstances, all while striving to achieve equity in access and service.” Danielle also serves as a member of Creighton’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion team.

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Alejandra Rebolledo-Gomez joined Creighton in early 2024 as community engagement coordinator for the IPH at the Highlander. She supports Creighton's commitment to elevate and raise awareness of the University’s activities at the Highlander by: cultivating and sustaining relationships with community partners; collaborating with stakeholders to assess needs and provide feedback for future opportunities and to strategically plan community engagement activities for improving population health; and working as an advocate and partner in community endeavors to expand impact and champion efforts leading to positive change and better outcomes. She sees her role fitting into Creighton’s mission to promote justice – building bridges within the community to understand needs and priorities and to facilitate the improvement of health equity.

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Scott Shipman, MD, MPH, is the inaugural CyncHealth Endowed Chair of Population Health at Creighton University, and the executive director of the Institute for Population Health at Creighton. This university-level institute, launched in fall of 2023, partners with each of Creighton’s undergraduate and graduate schools and its clinical partners in the Midwest and in Arizona, and with the many key stakeholders that influence health and well-being in our communities.

Shipman spent the previous decade as director of Clinical Innovations and director of Primary Care Initiatives at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), where he worked with health system leaders to promote effective innovations in ambulatory care delivery and training. He led AAMC activities focused on telehealth innovations within teaching health systems. Shipman established Project CORE (Coordinating Optimal Referral Experiences), a leading model of care that measurably improved quality, efficiency and access at the interface of primary care and specialty care. He oversaw the scaling of this model to more than 50 large health systems in more than 20 states across the U.S.

A pediatrician and health services researcher by training, Shipman has studied the healthcare workforce and workforce policy extensively. He completed medical school at the University of Nebraska, residency at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and a fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Johns Hopkins, where he also received his MPH. 

Read the Creighton Magazine feature about Shipman and the IPH.

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Emily Sutton, BSW’07, serves as senior administrator for the IPH. While her career spans many sectors, her background in social work and nonprofit administration and her unwavering commitment to health equity led her to the institute. She oversees the day-to-day operations and supports the team with strategic direction, ensuring measurable impact. Her longstanding, meaningful relationships with special populations and expertise in organizational leadership complement her team’s talents. “I’m optimistic about the systemic transformation we can achieve by combining the university’s resources with the powerful leadership already present within the communities we aim to serve. It’s through this meaningful collaboration that we’ll see true progress in population health.”

Emily served in the Encuentro Dominicano program as a Creighton student. After graduating, she relocated to the Dominican Republic where she lived and volunteered for about three years. She is currently pursuing a master of Science in organizational leadership at the College of Saint Mary.

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Cathy Tibbels, BA’88, joined Creighton in fall 2023 as senior communications strategist for the IPH. She brings 30 years of marketing and public relations experience to the role, creating and executing a communication plan for the institute to increase awareness and keep the institute, its key initiatives and its partners in front of both external and internal stakeholders. She holds the same position within the University’s communications and marketing department as a member of the internal communications team, where she writes stories, edits the monthly Provost Digest and creates and executes strategic communications plans for internal initiatives as needed.