Staff Directory

Melvyn Adams, Executive Administrative Assistant, joined Kennell and Associates in 1995. He is responsible for preparing graphs, presentations, and spreadsheets. Prior to joining Kennell, Tom worked at Lewin – VHI. He also has previous experience in spreadsheet and database design. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Strayer University.

Arnold Brooks, Senior Research Analyst, joined Kennell and Associates in 1997 and has 20 years of experience in health care economics, economic and cost-benefit evaluations, econometrics, and health care policy modeling. For DoD’s TRICARE Management Activity, Arnie conducts economic/cost benefit analyses of TRICARE benefit changes using simulation, cost-effectiveness, econometric, actuarial, and budgetary forecasting models. His work emphasizes preventive medicine, new medical technologies, the autism spectrum of disease, chiropractic care, and reimbursement. Prior to joining Kennell, Arnie worked at OMB and ICF Incorporated. He holds an M.P.P. in Public Policy and a B.A. with Great Distinction in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Kathleen Timothy Caney, Associate, joined Kennell and Associates in 2008. Katie specializes in data analysis, reimbursement research regarding various government health care programs, and training. She has been consulting for TMA for more than four years and has extensive experience in the areas of contracting, program management, business operations, and health care data analysis. Katie received a B.A. in International Relations from Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Martin Cohen, Vice President, joined Kennell and Associates in 1995. Marty directs Kennell projects analyzing the impacts of health care interventions, benefit expansions and alternative benefit designs, at-risk contracting initiatives, and other program changes. He applies quantitative analysis approaches including actuarial and cost modeling to health care programs for DoD and CMS. He develops creative tools to solve difficult program management and budgeting issues. Marty also has extensive experience advising DoD in procuring and negotiating large regional managed care contracts. He holds an M.P.A. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and is a Magna Cum Laude graduate (in government) from Harvard University.

Linda Cottrell, Senior Analyst, joined Kennell and Associates in 2003. She specializes in statistical analysis, cost analysis, computer programming, and policy research. As an expert SAS programmer, Linda conducts detailed extractions and analysis of health care data from large data sets, guides the data extraction process, performs ad hoc extractions and analysis of health care data, and is highly knowledgeable of all types of military health care data. Linda holds a B.S. in Statistics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and is currently working towards a master’s degree in Public Health at George Mason University.

Christina Doukeris, Associate, joined Kennell and Associates in 2009. Christina specializes in health care policy research as well as health care financing and reimbursement issues affecting TRICARE, Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. Prior to joining Kennell she worked as a senior consultant at IBM Global Business Services for more than three years focusing on both government and health care sector initiatives and helped lead health care business development efforts. While holding graduate level internship positions at the Congressional Budget Office and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Christina also developed significant experience conducting health insurance data analysis and performing quantitative and qualitative research on several health policy issues. At Kennell, she has worked on several projects for TMA, CMS, and the VA comparing reimbursement rates across public and private insurance programs. She holds an M.P.P. in Public Policy from Georgetown University and a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Bates College.

Wendy Funk, Senior Health Services Researcher, joined Kennell and Associates in 2000. Wendy is a nationally known expert on DoD’s health care information systems and data quality. She has helped develop and analyze DoD’s key health care information systems. She leads a variety of analytical tasks for the MHS. Wendy also has extensive experience with Medicare data. She directed Kennell’s project for CMS to evaluate a new Medicare Chronic Conditions Warehouse. She holds an M.S. in Operations Research and a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Kentucky.

Doug Herbert, Senior Associate, joined Kennell and Associates in 2000. Doug has more than 15 years of experience in budget development and financial analysis. He specializes in the development of budgetary projections for TRICARE. He also performs ad hoc data extractions on Military Health System (MHS) databases and focuses on the improvement of the quality of MHS information systems. Prior to joining Kennell he worked for the U.S. Navy and for TMA as a financial and budget analyst. Doug holds an M.P.A. from George Mason University and a B.S. in Public Administration from Auburn University.

Geoffrey Hileman, FSA, Director of Actuarial Studies, joined Kennell and Associates in 2010. Geof directs Kennell's actuarial and cost modeling work. He worked as an actuary at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina from 2005 to 2010, with responsibiilty for reserving and pricing of group medical and dental products. Prior to joining BCBSNC, Geof was an actuary with Actuarial Research Corporation. Geof has an M.S. in Operations Research from the College of William and Mary, is a fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Laura Hopkins, Senior Analyst, joined Kennell and Associates in 2000. She has more than 10 years experience analyzing large health care data sets, surveys, and performance metrics, and is an expert in the data extraction process. Laura has experience working with patient-level Medicare claims data and is the lead programmer on the Kennell team analyzing data and producing statistics from CMS’s new Medicare Chronic Conditions Warehouse. She holds an M.P.A from New York University and a B.S. from James Madison University.

David Kennell, President, founded Kennell and Associates Inc. in 1995 and has 30 years of experience analyzing acute and long-term care financing issues and retirement policy issues. His work focuses on the costs and effects of changes to public programs, particularly health programs. He directs Kennell’s task order contract with DoD’s TRICARE Management Activity. From 1992 to 1995, Dave was a Senior Vice President of Lewin-VHI, and from 1976 to 1992 he worked at ICF and Lewin-ICF on health care financing, retirement policy, and income distribution issues. He holds an M.P.P. from the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from the University of Rochester.

John Montgomery, Senior Consultant, joined Kennell and Associates in 1996. His work at Kennell includes the analysis of costs for DoD health care programs and educational support for military health care managers. Prior to joining Kennell and Associates, John served as Director of OCHAMPUS and has been involved with CHAMPUS/TRICARE managed care programs since the mid-1980’s. John also has held leadership positions at several U.S. Navy hospitals and he is a widely recognized expert in managed care financial issues. John holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.H.A. from the University of Minnesota, and a B.A. from Brigham Young University.

Allison Russo, Senior Researcher, joined Kennell and Associates in 2010. Allison has 10 years of health services research experience supporting federal government clients in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the DoD. She specializes in the use of large administrative data sets to evaluate health care quality improvement projects, performance measures, and policies affecting health care costs and utilization. Prior to joining Kennell, she worked for Thomson Reuters supporting AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. She also previously served as a consultant to DoD's TRICARE Management Activity and TRICARE overseas programs. Allison holds an M.P.H. in Epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is completing her Dr.P.H. in Health Policy from George Washington University.

Bart Smith, Senior Manager, joined Kennell and Associates in 1995. He has over 30 years of experience with the MHS, including policy analysis, procurement assistance, and financial management educational support. He has extensive experience analyzing administrative costs for managed care contracts and contract modifications. Bart previously served in financial management positions at several U.S. Army hospitals and as a Senior Health Program Analyst at OASD (Health Affairs). He is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives as well as the Healthcare Financial Management Association and is a Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM). He holds an M.A. and a B.S. from Middle Tennessee State University.

Dawn Terrell, Associate, joined Kennell and Associates in 2008. She performs data extractions on various Military Health Care System (MHS) databases and is an MHS course instructor for WISDOM (a hands-on data course), the TRICARE Data Quality Course, and TRICARE Financial Management Education Program. Dawn has consulted for the MHS for 12 years, including the TRICARE Management Activity, the U.S. Air Force Surgeon General's Office, and TRICARE Regional Office (North). She holds a B.S. in Zoology from the University of South Florida.

Christina Witsberger, Senior Research Analyst, has been with Kennell and Associates since 1995. She has more than 20 years of experience in health policy and data analysis, financial and econometric modeling, health services research, data processing and statistical programming, and is a recognized expert in provider reimbursement policy, especially TRICARE and Medicare. She plays key design, management, analytical and policy development roles in areas of payment system design, development, implementation and maintenance (including physician, clinical laboratory and institutional providers), impact analyses, and general health services utilization, and access and small area variation analyses. Prior to joining Kennell, she worked at Lewin-VHI and at The RAND Corporation for 10 years. She holds an M.P.H. degree from UCLA.

Lisa Wright, Senior Associate, joined Kennell and Associates in 2003. She is an expert SAS programmer and uses this software to conduct statistical analysis, and survey analysis. Lisa analyzes and performs detailed data extractions from large multi-million record data sets to support demonstration programs, data use agreements, and ad hoc requests. Her experience also includes drafting functional specifications for the MHS Data Repository (MDR) and MHS Mart (M2). She holds an M.S. in Operations Research from George Mason University and a B.S. in Statistics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).