Nicole has worked in Heart Disease Public Policy and Public Health Programming for 18 years. Most notably, Nicole served as the lead for CDC-funded Heart Disease Programming for 12 years with the Vermont Department of Health, and she was previously the Director of Policy and Government Relations for the American Heart Association in VT. Prior to becoming Chair, she served in the Chair-Elect role and as the CVH Council’s Liaison to NACDD’s Health Equity Council, allowing her to provide an equity lens to our CVH Council work. 

Shelby Vadjunec is the Data and Evaluation Coordinator for the Chronic Disease Prevention Program (CDPP) at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) where she has been using data and evaluative techniques to measure performance and inform program activities that are designed to improve the prevention and management of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease in Wisconsin since 2014. Meaning, she works on evaluation, performance measures, priority populations, and other data needs under a lot of CDPP’s CDC cooperative agreements, currently including 23-0004/National CVD, 23-0004/Innovative CVD, 23-0020/diabetes, 2109/CHWs, SPAN, and 2358/ACTion.

Shelby has been involved with the NACDD CVH Council since 2018, primarily serving as a NACDD Epidemiology and Evaluation Collaborative/Evaluation Peer Network co-lead and liaison (2018-2022) and most recently as a CVH Area Network (CAN) liaison (2023-2024). In Fall 2024, she was honored to accept the role as CVH Council Chair Elect. In this role, Nicole will identify and support professional development opportunities for CVH Council members.

Prior to DHS, Shelby primarily worked in research. She grew up in Arkansas and moved to Wisconsin in 2011. When away from her desk, you’ll likely find Shelby spending time with family, pretending to be a woodworker, watching sports, or relaxing with her dog, Gizmo. 

Jim Peacock was the prior chair of the CVH Council Leadership team and continues to serve by identifying leadership opportunities (i.e, conferences, relevant comment periods, etc.) relevant to states.

Jim currently serves as the Epidemiologist Supervisor Senior within the Minnesota Department of Health Cardiovascular Health Unit, a role he assumed in 2017 after many years as an epidemiologist in the CVH Unit. He has been responsible for coordinating our evaluation, epidemiology, and surveillance work for CDC-funded grants, with an eye toward integration with MDH’s Coverdell program. During his tenure, Jim has been the MDH lead for statewide workgroups focused on improving stroke care, heart attack care, and sudden cardiac arrest response. From 2017 until 2020 he was an Associate Editor for the Preventing Chronic Disease journal. More recently, he served as a public health practitioner reviewer for CDC DHDSP’s development of a new Health Equity Indicators Toolkit. Jim is passionate about using data with purpose, for the public and for our partners

Ashley Minaei works in collaboration with NACDD’s Health Equity Council to provide an equitable lens to the CVS Council. 

Ashley has served as a CVH Area Network (CAN) liaison since 2021. In her new role as Health Equity Liaison, she will work closely with NACDD’s Health Equity Council, the NACDD CVH team, and CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Prevention to provide an equitable lens to CVH Council peer support opportunities.