Raymond C. Maietta, Ph.D., is president of ResearchTalk Inc., a qualitative research consulting company based in Long Island, New York and Cary, North Carolina. A Ph.D. sociologist from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, with postdoctoral training at Indiana University, Ray’s interests in the art of qualitative research methods motivated him to start ResearchTalk in 1996. ResearchTalk Inc. provides project consultation and co-analysis services on all phases of qualitative analysis to university, government, not-for-profit, and corporate researchers. Ray has co-authored two recent articles with the ResearchTalk consulting team that provide an overview of the Sort and Sift approach: “Sort and Sift, Think and Shift: Let the Data Be Your Guide: An Applied Approach to Working with, Learning from, and Privileging Qualitative Data” – 2021 (https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol26/iss6/20/) and “The Sort and Sift, Think and Shift Analysis Method” in Richards, K. A., Hemphill, M. A., & Wright, P. M. (Eds.) (2024) Qualitative research and evaluation in physical education and sport pedagogy, Jones & Bartlett Learning. More than 30 years of consultation with qualitative researchers informs Dr. Maietta’s publications.

Alison B. Hamilton, Ph.D., M.P.H., a VA Research Career Scientist and Professor-in-Residence in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, received her Ph.D. in medical and psychological anthropology from UCLA in 2002, and her M.P.H. in Community Health Sciences from UCLA in 2009.

Dr. Hamilton is the Director of the VA-funded EMPOWER (Enhancing Mental and Physical Health of Women through Engagement and Retention) Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI), focused on improving women Veterans’ health and health care through implementation science. She is the Associate Director for Implementation Science at the VA Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D) Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation and Policy at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, specializing in women Veterans’ health, mental health services research, and implementation science. She is also PI of a large-scale NIH study of enhancing organizational and individual readiness to address cardiovascular risk among individuals living with HIV. She was a fellow in the inaugural cohort of the NIMH/VA Implementation Research Institute and she serves as an Associate Editor for Implementation Science Communications and on the editorial boards of Implementation Science (BMC), Women’s Health Issues (Elsevier), and Implementation Research and Practice (Sage).

Dr. Hamilton has been a consultant with ResearchTalk for over 20 years, providing direct support to clients as well as serving as faculty for several of the Qualitative Research Summer Intensives and mentor at ResearchTalk’s Qualitative Methods Camps. At recent Intensives, she has taught courses on qualitative methods in implementation research, rapid qualitative research methods, qualitative grant-writing, qualitative interviewing, integrated mixed methods research, and enhancing the usefulness of qualitative research. Dr. Hamilton is a co-author on two recent articles that provide an overview of the Sort and Sift approach: “Sort and Sift, Think and Shift: Let the Data Be Your Guide: An Applied Approach to Working with, Learning from, and Privileging Qualitative Data” – 2021 (https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol26/iss6/20/), and “The Sort and Sift, Think and Shift Analysis Method” in Richards, K. A., Hemphill, M. A., & Wright, P. M. (Eds.) (2024) Qualitative research and evaluation in physical education and sport pedagogy, Jones & Bartlett Learning. She is also a co-author on Dr. Ray Maietta’s Sort and Sift, Think and Shift book (forthcoming, Guilford).

Kevin Swartout (PhD from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the School of Public Health at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA and he leads Rankin Climate, an agency focused on assessing and improving organizational climate. His research focuses on social influence of harassment and violence, as well as trajectories of violent behavior and victimization across the lifespan. He has received early-career awards from the International Society for Research on Aggression, Southeastern Psychological Association, and Georgia State University.

Dr. Swartout has published numerous peer-reviewed research articles and frequently speaks at national and international conferences. He has been a qualitative research consultant with ResearchTalk Inc. for over ten years. In this capacity, he has regularly taught short courses on qualitative and mixed methods research and frequently serves as a scholar at ResearchTalk’s Qualitative Research Summer Intensive and as a mentor at ResearchTalk’s Qualitative Data Analysis Camps. Dr. Swartout is a co-author on two recently published articles that provide an overview of the Sort and Sift approach: “Sort and Sift, Think and Shift: Let the Data Be Your Guide: An Applied Approach to Working with, Learning from, and Privileging Qualitative Data” – 2021 (https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol26/iss6/20/) and “The Sort and Sift, Think and Shift Analysis Method” in Richards, K. A., Hemphill, M. A., & Wright, P. M. (Eds.) (2024). Qualitative research and evaluation in physical education and sport pedagogy, Jones & Bartlett Learning. He is also a co-author on Dr. Ray Maietta’s Sort and Sift, Think and Shift forthcoming publication.

Kristin Z. Black, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Maternal and Child Health and Department of Health Behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She received her MPH and PhD in Maternal and Child Health from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Black is committed to utilizing community-based participatory research, mixed methods, and racial equity approaches to understand and address inequities in reproductive health and chronic disease outcomes. Her research merges 3 key components. First, Dr. Black explores the connections between reproductive health, maternal health, and chronic diseases, and if these outcomes differ by race/ethnicity or other social identities. Second, she focuses on understanding what individual- and systems-level factors may hinder or facilitate birthing people’s journey through maternal healthcare services. Third, she is committed to transforming research into action by engaging community stakeholders in implementing and sustaining interventions that tackle health inequities and structural racism.

Dr. Black is a part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s first cohort of Health Equity Scholars for Action, a career development award that funded her project, Mapping and Analyzing Pressure Points and Structural inequities in Maternal Healthcare (MAPPS-MH) Project. She partners with investigators around the country and is a co-investigator on funded grants at the Ohio State University, Washington University in St. Louis, and East Carolina University. Additionally, she is a Qualitative Research Consultant for ResearchTalk and Deputy Director of the UNC Center of Excellence in Maternal & Child Health Education, Science, and Practice. Through her research and teaching, Dr. Black mentors students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She teaches courses on qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Dr. Black’s work has been published in Qualitative Health Research, Social Science & Medicine, Frontiers in Public Health, Ethnicity & Health, JAMA Oncology, Breast Cancer Research, and Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action. Her array of published work includes leading a chapter about using anti-racism organizing in cancer care in the pivotal and timely book, Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional, published in 2019.

Dr. Black is dedicated to serving the public health profession and community organizations in the pursuit of health equity. She is a member of the Greensboro Health Disparities Collaborative (a community-medical-academic partnership) and president of the Society for the Analysis of African American Public Health Issues.

She lives in Durham, North Carolina with her 6-year-old daughter.