Dr. Sharla Smith completed her Ph.D. in Health Systems and Services Research with a concentration in Health Economics from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 2013. Sharla is a health services and systems researcher whose primary research is maternal and infant health disparities, women cancer disparities, and community engagement. She is the co-founder of Kansas Sisters and Brothers for Healthy Infants and the founder of the Kansas birth equity network. She has experience manipulating large datasets and performing descriptive, cross-sectional, and longitudinal data analysis using SAS and Stata, and conducting social network analysis. In addition, she has over four years of experience in clinical research. Dr. Smith is passionate about developing a culture of birth equity through community engagement, empowerment, and education.

Dr. Smith has experience teaching public health law, public health policy and law, introduction to public health, developing public health interventions, introduction to health policy and politics, and epidemiology. She advises students and has served as a faculty mentor on Master’s-level and PhD research projects.

Dr. Tura was appointed assistant commissioner for the Health Improvement Bureau in January 2025 by Commissioner Dr. Brooke Cunningham. As assistant commissioner, Dr. Tura oversees the department’s Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Division, Injury Prevention and Mental Health Division, and the Child and Family Health Division.

Prior to his current appointment, Dr. Tura served from March 2023 as assistant commissioner for the Health Equity Bureau, overseeing the department’s Health Equity Strategy and Innovation Division; the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging; the Office of American Indian Health; the Office of African American Health; and the Health Equity Performance and Research Section. Dr. Tura also served as the department’s lead for proactive and strategic health equity partnerships and led the department’s work to advance equity in its day-to-day services and programs.