AHC Office of Education Team Members

Barbara Brandt, PhD
Assistant Vice President for Education
(612) 625-3972

Dr. Brandt's responsibilities include implementing academic health center-wide interprofessional education, community-based education, technology-enhanced learning, and faculty development.

Dr. Brandt has worked in a number of areas of curricular and educational change in pharmacy and the health professions.  From 1996 to 2000, she served as a facilitator for the annual American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Institute on Pedagogical and Curricular Change, a program in which over seventy colleges of pharmacy have participated.  In 2000, she was a United States Public Health Service Primary Care Policy Fellow, and in 2004 she is a member of the Kellogg Commission on Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Health Professions.  These appointments are based upon her scholarship in education to prepare health professionals to work with medically underserved populations.  Dr. Brandt is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, the accreditation agency for pharmacy educational programs.  In 2002, she was the Samuel W. Melendy Memorial Lecturer in the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy.

Dr. Brandt holds a Masters of Education and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Adult and Continuing Education with a specialty in continuing professional education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Dr. Brandt has extensive teaching and administrative experience in continuing education for health professionals.  Upon receiving her doctorate, she held a visiting assistant professorship in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Education for three years.

Prior to her current position, she was Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Science and Director, Curriculum and Faculty Development, at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy.  She co-chaired the Curriculum Committee charged with implementing the entry-level Doctor of Pharmacy degree.  In that role she was responsible for assisting faculty to implement innovations in educational practices such as teaching, admissions restructuring, curricular assessment, community-based education, service learning, and non-traditional Doctor of Pharmacy education.

Dr. Brandt has written many articles, given numerous national presentations, and consulted with universities and organizations in the area of continuing professional education, curricular development in health professions education, and organizational leadership.  Currently she serves as Professor, Pharmaceutical Care and Health Systems, University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, and director of the Minnesota Area Health Education Center (MN AHEC).

Judy Beniak, RN, MPH
Director, Health Careers Center (HCC)
(612) 624-0607

Judy Beniak has been active within the University of Minnesota since 1973 as an employee and an alumnus.  Since 2002, she has worked diligently to position the University of Minnesota's Health Careers Center (HCC) as a premier resource for health career information.  The Center now plays a vital role in helping to address the importance of health careers and the need for more qualified health care professionals within our communities.

Ms. Beniak holds a teaching appointment with the School of Nursing at the University.  Through that appointment she has been instrumental in creating the Immunization Tour program, which provided Nursing and Pharmacy students valuable hands-on clinical training and vaccinations to University faculty and staff.

Ms. Beniak has served as the Director of Student Services for the School of Nursing and as Chief of AIDS/Sexually Transmitted Diseases Section for the Minnesota Department of Health at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.  She earned a B.S. in Nursing from Alverno College, Milwaukee, and a Masters of Public Health in Public Health Nursing from the U of M.

HCC - Health Careers Center

Gwen Halaas, MD, MBA
Director, Center for Interprofessional Education
(612) 625-2621

Dr. Halaas is the founding director of the Center for Interprofessional Education, which will provide the structure and systems to formalize interprofessional education in the AHC to transform education in and across the health professional schools.  A family physician and assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, she is also Director of the Rural Physician Associate Program – a nine-month community-based continuity care experience for third year medical students interested in primary care and rural practice. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Halaas has significant, broad and deep experience as a family physician, as a health care system administrator, and as an innovative educator.  Dr. Halaas has worked in medical education since 1986 as faculty, assistant director and program director of two family medicine residency programs. Since 2004, she has also served as Associate Director for the Minnesota Area Health Education Center (AHEC). As associate director, she has led the AHEC Faculty Leadership Council, an interprofessional leadership body that is working with the regional AHECs and rural communities across the state to implement interprofessional educational experiences for health professional students, and has served as liaison to all of the schools and programs of the AHC.  

Dr. Halaas brings substantial administrative experience and knowledge of Minnesota’s health care environments. She has been an associate medical director for HealthPartners, where she was responsible for health plan policy decisions, supervising the centers of excellence and developing the Institute for Medical Education; she has served as medical director for UCare, where she developed a health promotion/disease prevention strategy for the members; and was a consultant for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in ministerial health and wellness.  She was profiled for her administrative leadership in Fitzhugh Mullan’s book, Big Doctoring in America: Profiles in Primary Care.

Jennifer Stumpf Kertz, MPP
Associate to the Assistant Vice President for Education
(612) 624-1923

Jeny Stumpf Kertz is the Associate to the Assistant Vice President for Education.  Jeny provides direction and coordination to support the AHC Office of Education's strategic and annual work plans.  Her responsibilities include advancing strategic initiatives that contribute to the overall mission of interprofessional education, community-based education, and technology-enhanced learning.

Previously, Jeny worked in Community Relations for the Academic Health Center, developing the Mini Medical School program and other community-related activities.  Prior to coming to the University, Jeny worked for Weber-Shandwick, a public relations firm in Minneapolis, and for the City of Moorhead, Minnesota, coordinating community-campus partnerships between the city and the local institutions of higher education.

Jeny grew up in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, received her bachelor's degree in communications and political science from Moorhead State University and her masters degree in Public Policy from the University's Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs.

Gina Kundan, MA
Director, Center for Health Interprofessional Programs (CHIP)
(612) 625-1113

Gina Kundan is the Director of the Center for Health Interprofessional Programs (CHIP). She has more than15 years of experience in student affairs that includes: leadership development, diversity education, organizational development, event planning, recruitment and retention, and fundraising. Gina provides structure, support, and inspiration for the co-curricular programmatic initiatives that enhance the aims of interprofessional education for AHC students.

Gina holds a bachelor’s degree in dance and performing arts from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, a master’s degree in social theory, and a certificate in mediation and conflict resolution from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

CHIP

Jane Lindsay Miller, PhD
Director, Teaching and Learning Initiatives and Interprofessional Education and Resource Center (IERC)
(612) 624-6989

Before joining our staff, Dr. Miller served as Director of the MnSCU Center for Teaching and Learning and the System Director for Academic Professional Development.  Dr. Miller's areas of expertise include organizational and faculty development in higher education, especially in the design and delivery of effective instruction, assessing student outcomes, and designing and conducting classroom research.  Prior to coming to Minnesota, she served as a program officer with the United Nations Development Programme, evaluating and delivering maternal-child health care training programs in West Africa.  As a doctoral candidate in medical anthropology at the New School for Social Research, she worked on a project sponsored jointly by Hunter College School of Public Health and the Columbia University School of Public Health to develop and assess culturally specific HIV/AIDS prevention programs for diverse communities in New York City.

IERC - Interprofessional Education and Resource Center

Janet Shanedling, PhD
Director, Educational Development
(612) 626-2873

Janet's expertise is in the development of curriculum and instructional programs for health care professionals.  In addition, she has extensive experience in the application of technology to the learning and teaching processes.  Before joining our office, she was an independent consultant who designed and developed curriculum and instructional programs for clients primarily in the pharmaceutical and medical products industries.  She also created programs and trained individuals and teams in the area of Emotional Intelligence.  She received her master's degree in Teaching English as a Second Language and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Instructional Design from the University of Minnesota.

AHC Learning Commons