Gloria Gantt

Gloria graduated from the University of Kansas in 2022 with a B.A. in Psychology and minors in Spanish and Social Justice in the U.S. Her involvement in the McNair Scholars program introduced her to research, for which she has maintained a passion for. Her research interests include increasing health data literacy among individuals with I/DD and their caregivers, improving local and state data infrastructures, and helping policymakers and service providers adopt more effective and uniform frameworks. She is currently a first-year candidate in KU's Master of Public Health program.

As the primary liaison for the project's longitudinal data collection, Gloria collaborates with state officials across all 50 states and D.C. to gather Medicaid expenditure data, ensuring accuracy, comparability, and integrity through the project’s methodology. She designs Excel workbooks, trains data contacts, and manages data from collection to visualization. She assists in translating data into accessible visualizations and presentations for diverse audiences, including policymakers and community stakeholders, and translates products into Spanish (e.g., Data Bites) to broaden reach. Gloria leads the Data Ambassador Program as Community of Practice Project Lead, mentoring graduate students in data literacy, accessibility, research methodology, and knowledge translation through an online platform with training sessions, discussions, and resources.