Danielle M. Varda is an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver, with a secondary appointment in the Colorado School of Public Health, Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy. She specializes in collaborative management and policy networks, focusing specifically in public health systems and services research. Her research focus is on evaluating the network structure of collaborations between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors and the subsequent network affects of these recorded interactions. She has developed models and methods of network measurement, for example she has developed a research model for measuring social capital by evaluating the network structure of local community networks, including developing questionnaires and analysis of diverse network data. In addition, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, she has recently developed a software tool (PARTNER) that allows public health departments to measure and monitor their collaborative activity over time. Dr. Varda’s PARTNER tool was featured in her first place award for the 2008 Maxwell School Collaborative Governance Initiative competition, Teaching Simulation. In addition, she was awarded the “2009 Public Health Systems and Services Article of the Year” award by Academy Health PHSSR Interest Group for her paper “Core Dimensions of Connectivity in Public Health Collaboratives”. In 2010, she was awarded the Excellence in Research and Creative Activities Award from the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver. Her research has been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, Veterans Administration, University of Kentucky School of Public Health, and the Department of Defense. She is an experienced interviewer, facilitator, and has extensive experience developing and administering surveys.

 
Dr. Retrum has eight years of clinical experience in health related social work; hospice, home care, inpatient and developmental disabilities. She has also provided mental health care to children in residential and in-home settings. Her doctoral research interests were in social work in the field of gerontology with community dwelling older adults with chronic illness and their social supports.  Dr. Retrum was a recipient of the John A. Hartford Foundation Pre-Dissertation Award in 2006. Her dissertation researched involved a dyad analysis of older parents and their cohabitating child caregivers. Through her own research and affiliation with the Institute of Gerontology from 2005-2009, Dr. Retrum worked with many community non-profit organizations that serve the social, health and mental health needs of older adults and their families. She teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses including research and program evaluation at University of Denver and Metro State College of Denver.

Dr. Retrum currently serves as the PARTNER Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Health Systems and Service Research at the University of Colorado Denver, School of Public Affairs. She provides support to the PARTNER project through community outreach and education, training and technical assistance, data management and analysis, scholarly work, and grant writing. Dr. Retrum assists with the implementation of new and ongoing PARTNER related social network analysis research.