The Research Team + Collaborators
Working alongside the HEEAT Lab’s Founding Director, Dr. Schenita Randolph, is a dedicated team of researchers and collaborators.
Ragan Johnson, DNP, FNP-BC, CNE
Co-Director, HEEAT Lab
Associate Clinical Professor
Ragan Johnson is the Co-Director of the HEEAT Lab and an Associate Clinical Professor at Duke University School of Nursing. She earned a DNP with a public health concentration in 2012 and a MS in Nursing in 2005, both from The University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, TN. She received her BS in nursing from Tennessee State University in 2001. Her nursing and advanced practice nursing career has focused on improving health equity and caring for patients from underserved communities. Through educational interventions, she has developed nurse practitioner educational innovations that prepare students and nurse practitioner preceptors for caring for patients from marginalized communities. She is also the Director of LEAHP, a summer intensive program for Black registered nursing students interested in becoming nurse practitioners.
Her scholarship has focused on community evidence-based interventions to improve health in Black communities. She has a strong passion for reducing disparities of HIV among Black adolescents and young adults. She has partnered with barbers and barber shops to reach hardly reached populations, at places and with the people they trust. Currently, she is serving as Co-Investigator on the Lab’s UPDOs and The Talk initiatives.
Allison Johnson
Clinical Research Coordinator
Allison (Ally) C. Johnson is a Clinical Research Coordinator with the Duke University School of Nursing. She has been at Duke since 2007 focusing on infectious disease research and is currently finishing her Behavioral and Social Sciences degree at North Carolina Central University. She has a bleeding heart for anyone or anything in need, often volunteering her free time to hold babies in the NICU, comfort expectant mothers in the antepartum unit, take care of sick or injured animals, or deliver food and supplies to the unhoused population in Durham.
Besides working, school, and volunteering, she is the mother to a 7-year-old boy, Marley. When she isn’t doing various activities to tire him out such as hiking, swimming, or spending time at the Eno River, she is taking him to live music shows. (Sometimes they’re her own shows—she performs under the name “Ally J”!)
Maralis Mercado Emerson, MPH, MACS
Clinical Research Coordinator
Maralis (Mah-Dah-Lease) Mercado Emerson is a public health researcher and educator committed to creating spaces that lead to collective healing and innovation. She collaborates with community organizations, academia, and citizens to promote equitable, inclusive, and diverse opportunities for change. She has experience developing, coordinating and implementing initiatives through engaged inquiry and creative collaborations with non-profit organizations and civic and community institutions domestically and internationally.
She holds two master's degrees in Public Health and Christian Studies from the University of South Florida and Duke University, respectively. She has a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida and a certificate in design thinking from the University of Virginia. Recently, she leads research initiatives as a Clinical Research Coordinator at Duke University School of Nursing. She is the founder of reclaimthewell.com.
Elizabeth Jeter, PhD
Research Associate
Elizabeth Jeter, PhD, is a Research Associate for the HEEAT Lab. Her research experience includes technology-delivered interventions, treatment/medication access, and interprofessional clinical team collaboration for chronic diseases, including HIV, cancer, and heart disease. Her publications appear in diverse health care journals, such as the Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, Public Health Nursing, and Journal of Pharmacy Technology.
Collaborators
Ronda Taylor Bullock, PhDO
Executive Director, weare, Inc.
Ronda Taylor Bullock, Ph.D. is originally from Goldston, NC. In 2018, she earned her doctorate at UNC Chapel Hill in the Policy, Leadership, and School Improvement Program. Her research interests are critical race theory, whiteness studies, white children’s racial identity construction, and anti-racism. Prior to entering her doctoral program, Ronda taught English for almost ten years at Hillside High School in Durham, NC, where she now resides.
Ronda is the co-founder and Lead Curator (executive director) of we are. She is the wife of Dr. Daniel Kelvin Bullock and mother of son Zion and daughter Zaire.
we are is addressing both systematic and idealogical racism particularly in youth, parents, and educators with the hope of providing anti-racist education in a more equitable society.
we are reimagines educational systems so that all children, particularly black and brown, can exist in spaces that affirm their identity and dignity, promote their educational advancement, and support their social and emotional well being
Crystal Taylor
Founder of Get Happy Organization
Crystal E. Taylor, the Founder, CEO of The Underground Collective, Beats n Bars Festival & Founder/Executive Director of non profit Get Happy in Durham, NC. As a NC native and North Carolina Central University graduate she began producing events, showcases, and community events in 2012. All of which cater to the protections, support and uplifting of African American music culture and community needs in its entirety for the liberation of people. Currently she is an executive producer of an ongoing series of ethno-dramas and productions made to help educate communities on health disparities plaguing people of color working with North Carolina Central University and Duke School of Nursing. Crystal is a 4th generation farmer, and co-founder of The Black Farmers Market & Black August in the Park, serving as the Director of Agriculture and Farmer Relations & Entertainment and City Planning. The farmers market takes pride in providing access for affordable food, supporting black farmers and businesses while encouraging health & wellness at Durham Tech and SE Raleigh YMCA. Lastly, she leads Get Happy, A non profit organization whose mission is to restore the quality of life for people of color through health and wellness, innovative education and community driven engagement.
Recently, Taylor received the distinguished honor of being a 40 under 40 recipient from North Carolina Central University.
Kara McGee, PA
Duke University School of Medicine
Kara McGee is an Associate Clinical Professor in the MSN program at the Duke University School of Nursing and Associate Professor at the Duke University School of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases. She maintains a clinical practice as physician assistant with Duke Health Infectious Disease clinic. Dr. McGee completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Medical Technology at the Catholic University of America and then earned her physician assistant degree at SUNY Stony Brook. She also has a Master of Science in Public Health from UNC Chapel Hill and a Doctor of Medical Science from Lincoln Memorial University, Debusk College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Dr. McGee is certified by the National Commission for the Certification of Physician Assistants and is credentialed as an HIV Specialist by the American Academy of HIV Medicine. She has been a PA since 1994 and has been practicing HIV medicine for 18 years with particular interest and experience in the diagnosis and management of acute HIV infection, the management of HIV in pregnancy, and PrEP for HIV prevention. She also practices at a community health center in Henderson, NC with a focus on HIV and primary care in rural populations. Dr. McGee helped develop the HIV specialty program for nurse practitioner students at the Duke University School of Nursing where she is also director for the program.