Staff - Maryland Living Well Center of Excellence

Leigh Ann Eagle

Leigh Ann Eagle, BS, is the Director of the Living Well Center of Excellence (LWCE). Under her leadership, LWCE is connecting healthcare organizations with the AAA’s and other community resources throughout the state. Ms. Eagle has been responsible for all aspects of program design and management for MAC, Inc. Health & Wellness Center. She was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the MD Chapter of the American Trauma Society and was recognized by Susan G. Komen, Maryland with the Maryland Affiliate: Promise of One Award” in 2010. She is a Master Trainer for the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-Management and Cancer Thriving and Surviving and the Stepping On programs. She is certified in Patient Navigation. Ms. Eagle was appointed to the Leadership Committee, MD Department on Aging, is a member of the State Leadership Team for the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program, DHMH Minority Health & Health Disparities, promoting healthy equity & eliminating health disparities. She has managed a wide range of federal, state, and private foundation grants

Our Team

Deputy of Maryland Living Well Center for Excellence, Wendy Askew has served the LWCE since 2016. She is the lead community liaison between Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs), local health departments, physician practices, healthcare clinics, multi-cultural and other Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) throughout the state of Maryland. Creating and maintaining business relationships with statewide health care entities increases access to and use of evidence-based interventions assisting older adults and adults with disabilities to live longer and healthier lives.

She supports the management of all aspects of program development and implementation creating new reimbursement models to sustain evidence-based programs. Providing day-to-day management and oversight of multiple projects ensuring contract deliverables are met, to include marketing, communication, technical assistance, support, and guidance to state and community organizations for CDSME, dementia, caregiving, falls prevention and other evidence-based programs.

Ms. Askew created and currently manages the Maryland LWCE Virtual HUB for statewide launch of evidence-based programs and training courses to support disease prevention program activities to outreach and engage rural and underserved minority communities. She oversees the leader pool, marketing, website design, QRCodes, workshop recruitment, retention and reporting. Since 2019, she has coordinated statewide leader training for volunteers and professionals to include fifty-five training courses to over 565 leaders.

As Data Systems Manager Felicia Skinner oversees all data related processes for CDSME including data collection and data entry into MD Living Well database; ensures data reporting accuracy; data distribution. She prepares quarterly data reports on demographics and quality assurance reports to health systems, Area Agencies on Aging and other network partners and maintains credentialing status of MTs and Peer leaders.

As the Living Well Coordinator, Jill Kenney, MS, BS, AA is a MT for CDSMP, DSMP, CPSMP, and CT & S. Jill Kenney is a Living Well Coordinator at Mac Inc., Living Well Center of Excellence. The Living Well program under Jill Kenney’s leadership connects individuals suffering with Chronic Disease to essential community resources throughout the counties of Wicomico, Worcester and Somerset.

Recognizing health status is influenced by a vast and interconnected set of determinants, Dr. Matthew Lee Smith, PhD, MPH, CHES, FAAHB, FGSA, has devoted his career to creating synergistic partnerships and initiatives to encourage positive lifestyles and reduce rates of preventable morbidity and mortality. As an evaluator and survey methodologist, he has initiated many projects to better understand risky health behavior and develop scalable interventions to evoke behavior modification. Dr. Smith’s involvement in local, state, and national evaluation initiatives have been integral to fostering understanding about the reach, adoption, implementation, effectiveness, and maintenance of different evidence-based programs. His ability to form interdisciplinary collaborations affords him opportunities to apply his translational research and evaluation experience to bridge research and practice issues among the healthcare sector, aging services network, and public health system. Dr. Smith is the Co-Director of the Texas A&M Center for Population Health and Aging and holds faculty positions in the Texas A&M School of Public Health and University of Georgia College of Public Health.