Mary A. Moore, Ph.D., is the Director of Field Research at the Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory (SERL). She began working at SERL in 1990 while obtaining her doctorate in Social Psychology at VCU. She directed SERL’s data collection operations for many years.  Dr. Moore currently directs a diverse group of projects, focusing on the Virginia Judicial Performance Evaluation project and several opioid prevention projects with the Virginia Department of Health (VDH). Her research interests include public policy and youth and young adults. Her experience includes developing survey instruments, designing research projects and program evaluations, and all aspects of the data collection process.  She has taught Research Methods in the VCU Criminal Justice program.  Dr. Moore has a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from VCU, an M.S. in Social Psychology from VCU, and a B.S. in Child Development and Family Studies from Purdue University. 

Anne Buford, MPA, MS/EdS, NCC, LCMHC (NC), a Project Manager at SERL, has more than a decade of experience in higher education settings – and particularly in applied community research. Ms. Buford’s interests include health policy and administration, grant writing, literature reviews, process evaluation, and reporting. She has conducted field research activities, drafted community needs assessments, coordinated professional development curricula, and evaluated local/state/federally-funded programs. Ms. Buford came to SERL from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. At SERL, Ms. Buford has coordinated a chart review analysis about opioid overdose visits to VCU’s Emergency Department; she has also contributed to Virginia Educated: A Post-College Outcomes Study – a unique data collection and analysis effort led by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Ms. Buford earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia. She received her Master of Public Administration from George Mason University – while working as a congressional aide – and also after completing her final course requirements at the University of Oxford. In addition, she holds dual Master of Science and Specialist in Education degrees – with a concentration in community counseling – from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Ms. Buford is a National Certified Counselor and maintains the Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor credential in North Carolina.

Dr. Julie Charbonnier (she/they) earned a bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, a Master in Biology from VCU in 2012, and a PhD in Integrative Life Sciences from VCU in 2017. Dr. Charbonnier completed a postdoc in biology research education at the STEM Transformation Institute at Florida International University, which focused on undergraduate students' interests and career goals. Dr. Charbonnier has contributed to SCHEV's Virginia Educated: A Post-College Outcomes Study by writing literature reviews and coding open-ended responses, and is co-leading focus groups for the VCU IEP Designation Project. Dr. Charbonnier is passionate about making research accessible for everyone and combating racial and gender inequities in higher education.

Daniel Davis, a Research Support Specialist at VCU SERL, received a Master of Science degree from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania in Psychological Science with an emphasis on Applied Research. Daniel has nearly a decade of experience in survey design, survey methods, focus groups, and optimizing the survey experience for participants. At SERL, Daniel contributes to various research projects including the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV)’s Virginia Educated project, the Henrico County Planning Department's HenricoNext initiative, and multiple internal program improvement studies within Virginia Commonwealth University.

Kim Hunter, a Project Director at SERL,  began working at SERL in 1995 after obtaining her Masters in Social Work. She has managed the Virginia Ryan White personal health data for the Virginia Department of Health since 1995. Long-Term data management and database development with a focus on quality assurance and quality management has been her key focus. She is involved in training all funded health providers in the state for grant reporting requirements. She is working with the medical campus on a data system to capture program data reporting requirements for Interpersonal Violence prevention program. Her research interests in include health disparities and interpersonal violence among different race and sexual orientation groups. 

Dr. Cydney Lowenstein (any/all) earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Criminal Justice from Virginia Commonwealth University. She completed her doctoral degree in Public Policy and Administration with a concentration in Justice Policy from VCU in 2020. Her primary research interests are digital crimes and intellectual property theft. Her dissertation focused on explaining illegal file uploading using social learning theory. While at SERL, she has assisted with data analysis, visualizations, and reporting for several projects including SCHEV’s Virginia Educated: A Post-College Outcomes Study. Dr. Lowenstein has experience working with SPSS, Mplus, REDCap, Tableau, Python, JavaScript, Java, C#, HTML, PHP, and Microsoft SQL.

Catherine Poarch (she/her) is the Production Supervisor at the Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory (SERL). She has a background in education, psychology and management. Poarch trains and manages SERL’s team of Data Entry Clerks and coordinates and executes large-scale survey mailings. She also assists with daily data entry for ongoing projects, creates surveys using various programs and analyzes data to create reports for clients. She has been involved in projects such as the “Documenting Our Work” project for the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, the Virginia Judicial Performance and Evaluation program (VAJPE) for the Supreme Court of Virginia and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia project (SCHEV). Recently, Poarch has joined the recruitment team for the longitudinal “VAPORS” study, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, which seeks to gather data from E-cigarette users across the US in order to study the long-term effects of using these devices.

Candace Stafford, a Senior Project Manager, has worked at VCU’s Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory since 2000. She provides assistance to study directors and clients with the coordination and day-to-day management of both program evaluation and survey research projects. She has extensive experience with mail and web survey questionnaire design and construction, as well as survey methodology, research subjects protection, data collection, data management, data security, analysis, and reporting. Ms. Stafford serves as a REDCap software liaison for VCU’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs assisting students, faculty, and staff with their use of the university’s web survey software as needed. 

Aarti Rijhwani (she/her) is a Wilder Fellow at SERL. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from VCU, and will graduate from The L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs with a Masters in Public Administration in 2023. At SERL, Aarti has assisted with various projects, including the Virginia Judicial Performance and Evaluation program for the Supreme Court of Virginia and an environmental scan of tobacco retailers for Rappahannock Rapidan Community Services. Currently, she is engaged with a suicide prevention gap analysis for the Virginia Department of Health.

Alexandra Stewart-Jonte, M.P.A. is a Project Manager at SERL.  She began her research career as a Research Fellow at SERL while receiving her Master’s of Public Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University.  She assisted with the design and implementation of several surveys for state agencies using REDCap, data collection, report writing and performing statistical analyses with SPSS. She also interned at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) working on program evaluations of the Veterans Health Administration recruitment and retention of physicians and the National Guard Counterdrug program. Currently, she is engaged with opioid prevention projects with the Virginia Department of Health. Her research interests focus on animal-assisted therapy and therapy dog interventions within the school system.