Senior Research Specialist
Center for Health Services Research

Hannah Pomales serves as the Senior Research Specialist for the Center for Health Services Research. She specializes in qualitative and community-based participatory research (CBPR) with a passion for translating science and outcomes to policymakers, providers, and communities most directly impacted by programs and policies. Previous to her current role, Hannah served as the Senior Project Manager at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, where she led the strategic design and continuous improvement evaluation for the Health’s Early Roots & Origins (HERO-3) study in early learning and community-based contexts – a national study to develop measures to assess stress activation in young children at biological, behavioral, and social contexts.

Hannah has also served as the Project Director and contributing researcher within Rutgers University Department of Social Work, where she led numerous studies at the intersection of substance use, caregiver-child health and parental sensitivity, and early childhood trauma, as well as child welfare case practice improvement and evaluating decision-making within child welfare program and policy change. She also contributed to several mixed-methods studies in partnership with RWJ Barnabas Health’s Institute for Prevention and Recovery on projects centering opioid prescribing practices, peer recovery services, and maternal health substance use services in emergency departments. Her research interests include: community-engaged research, decision-making and lived expertise within CBPR, caregiver-child health services and policy, substance use services for caregivers, and youth mental health services within child welfare and family well-being systems of care. Hannah holds a BA in psychology and women’s and gender studies from Douglass Residential College and Rutgers University, and is completing a master’s degree in social work at Rutgers University with a specialization in management and policy.