HDRI 2024 Scholars

Dr. Gloria Aidoo-Frimpong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. She received her Ph.D. in community health and health behavior from the University at Buffalo (2022), an M.P.H. (2018), and an M.A. in international studies (2017) from Ohio University, Athens. She recently completed a two-year National Institute of Mental Health T32 postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS at Yale University (2024). Dr. Aidoo-Frimpong is a dedicated health equity scholar whose research focuses on (1) exploring HIV risk, intersectional stigma, and the challenges faced by socially vulnerable groups in accessing HIV and sexual health services; (2) developing innovative, theoretically-backed HIV prevention continuum interventions tailored for minority populations, specifically Black men who have sex with men and African immigrants; and (3) leveraging technology to implement and disseminate HIV prevention programs within these communities.

Her research is grounded in social and implementation science theories, cultural perspectives, and a mixed methods approach to understand, develop/adapt, and implement culturally accommodating interventions for HIV prevention among underserved minority groups.

As a community-engaged health equity researcher, Dr. Aidoo-Frimpong emphasizes community involvement, technology integration, and collaboration, employing community-based participatory and community-engaged methods. Her overarching goal is to generate knowledge that informs comprehensive intervention strategies spanning behavioral, biomedical, social, and structural approaches, all aimed at achieving significant population-level impacts in HIV prevention. Dr. Aidoo-Frimpong serves on the editorial board of BMC Public Health and is a member of the Black Caucus of the HIV Prevention Trials Network.

Dr. Elinette Albino is an Associate Professor in the School of Health Professions at the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus (UPRMSC). After shifting her career focus from teaching to research, she earned a postdoctoral M.S. in Translational Research from UPRMSC. As a Latina and first-generation Ph.D., her work is inspired by her personal identity, academic endeavors, and empathy for the challenges faced in diagnosing rare diseases, especially in underrepresented communities. Dr. Albino's research focuses on genetic diagnostic algorithms, functional studies, ethical, legal, and social implications research, and identifying health disparities in families experiencing diagnostic odysseys. Recently, under the mentorship of renowned researchers, Dr. Albino has spearheaded a pioneering project aimed at unraveling the genetics of hearing loss in Puerto Rico. Her ultimate goal is to establish herself as an independent investigator in genetics, dedicated to narrowing health disparities through genetic insights.

Dr. Albino has multiple accreditations, having graduated with a B.S. in biology from the University of Puerto Rico Cayey Campus in 2001 and completing a professional Certificate in Medical Technology in 2003. She earned an M.S. in clinical laboratory sciences from UPRMSC in 2008. Dr. Albino received her Ph.D. in biomedical sciences with an emphasis in genetics from Ponce Health Sciences University in 2014. She joined UPRMSC in 2016, serving as a Teaching Professor for the M.S. in Clinical Laboratory Sciences Program. Her expertise includes molecular diagnostics, genetics, and biomarker discovery.

Dr. Yohualli B. Anaya is Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She earned her M.D. and M.P.H. from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and completed her residency at the UCLA Family Medicine Residency Program. Dr. Anaya is Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture (CESLAC) Accelerating Latinx Leadership Institute. She is an Associate Editor for the journal Family Medicine, a faculty expert for the Latino Policy and Politics Institute, and a Physician Board Director for the University of Wisconsin Health Accountable Care Organizations’ Board of Directors. Dr. Anaya’s research interests include Latinx and immigrant health, investigating and addressing aspects of health care delivery that act as barriers to health care equity, and issues of physician workforce diversity. She is particularly interested in the application of research to promote policies and programs that address health equity.

She has collaborated on research and policy efforts with organizations such as the California Health Care Foundation and has been a featured expert for the California Legislature Assembly Health Committee, California Latino Legislative Caucus, and Hispanas Organized for Political Equality.

Before joining the UW-Madison Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Dr. Anaya was Assistant Professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, in the Department of Family Medicine and was Family Medicine Core Clerkship Co-Chair. She is a UW-Madison Centennial Scholars and Clinicians Program awardee and was a visiting scholar at the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Isibor J. Arhuidese is an Assistant Professor of Surgery (Vascular), Epidemiology (Chronic Diseases), Biomedical Informatics and Data Science at Yale University School of Medicine and School of Public Health. Dr. Arhuidese obtained his M.D. from the University of Benin and his M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University. He completed advanced clinical and research training in vascular surgery from the University of South Florida and Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Arhuidese provides clinical care to patients in the Yale New Haven Health System. He incorporates these unique perspectives to study and proffer solutions to public health problems.

Dr. Arhuidese's research is focused on improving understanding of biological mechanisms that contribute to the disparities in incidence and vascular disease treatment outcomes by patients’ sex and race. He is particularly interested in the data upon which clinical practice guidelines are based, which are often not generalizable to minority populations. He applies principles of epidemiology and data science to generate evidence-based inferences that are better tailored to minority groups.

Beyond his clinical and research practice, Dr. Arhuidese believes that a potent strategy to eliminate disparities in health care is to inspire and mentor generations at an early stage. Dr. Arhuidese actively engages with high school and college students from diverse backgrounds. He introduces them to concepts at the intersection of individual and population health, disparities, evidence-based practice and patient centered outcomes. Dr. Arhuidese's work has received awards and recognition from the American College of Surgeons, University of South Florida, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University.

Dr. Donte Bernard is an Assistant Professor of child clinical psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is a licensed clinical psychologist with a research program that examines how and why racism operates as a social determinant of health to undergird, perpetuate, and sustain racial disparities in mental health in the United States. The overarching goal of his work is to improve developmental trajectories in mental and behavioral health among Black youth through informing intervention development targeting the reduction of racism-related stress and trauma and their related health consequences. His research aims specifically to 1) characterize the prevalence and psychological consequences associated with racism-related stress and trauma among Black youth and emerging adults; 2) investigate culturally relevant pathways of risk and resilience that link or disrupt the connection between racism and mental health; and 3) elucidate how structural racism informs mental health trajectories among Black youth.

In support of his research, Dr. Bernard has been awarded funding from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) to examine culturally relevant mechanisms that explain the link between racial discrimination and trauma sequelae among Black youth.

In 2023, he was also awarded the Early Career Contributions to Diversity Science Award from the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. Dr. Bernard graduated with a B.A. in psychology in 2013 from Kansas State University and earned his Ph.D. in child and family clinical psychology in 2019 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Marissa Boeck is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG), where she is an acute care and trauma surgeon and surgical critical care intensivist. She is an Associate Director of the UCSF Center for Health Equity in Surgery and Anesthesia. Her research involves partnering with communities in resource denied settings and with vulnerable and underserved populations to address global public health challenges as they relate to surgical and trauma system access, quality, capacity building, outcomes, and injury prevention—including firearm violence. She employs epidemiology, mixed-methods, patient-reported outcomes, implementation science, human centered design, and community engagement in her work, informed by the biopsychosocial model of health.

She has a KL2 career development award to explore injury survivorship, including long-term patient medical and social needs, and to co-design and implement a public, safety-net hospital intervention to empower survivors to thrive. Her research spans both domestic in California and the United States and abroad including Bolivia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Dr. Boeck received a B.A. in philosophy from the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College, City University of New York (2006), and her M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College (2011). She completed general surgical residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia (2018), during which she obtained an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a Global Health Scholar (2015). She completed her surgical critical care and trauma fellowship at UCSF/ZSFG (2020).

Dr. Natasha Renee Burse is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and National Cancer Institute (NCI) K00 Fellow in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Burse's research interests include behavioral medicine, cancer survivorship, cancer health disparities, culturally relevant approaches, social determinants of health, community health, and behavioral interventions.

Her current research focuses on investigating how behavioral factors (e.g., physical activity) influence cancer survivorship (e.g., quality of life) among breast cancer survivors in the Black Women's Health Study. Her goal is to design, test, implement, and disseminate culturally tailored behavioral interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of Black women diagnosed with breast cancer. She was previously awarded two other NCI-funded fellowships—first from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Cancer Prevention Research Training Program in 2017 and second from the NCI Introduction to Cancer Research Careers Program in 2019. Dr. Burse won the Central Pennsylvania Coalition United to Fight Cancer Barbara Davenport Loving Souls Community Service Award in 2019.

She was selected by the American Association for Cancer Research to participate in the Early Career Hill Day to advocate for sustained and increased biomedical and cancer research funding in 2024. She graduated with a B.A. in biopsychology from the University of Cincinnati, an M.S. in kinesiology and health with a concentration in health promotion from Miami University of Ohio, and a Dr.P.H. with a concentration in community and behavioral health from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.

Dr. Shanting Chen is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida. She received a Ph.D. in human development and family sciences from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in psychology from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Her research interests have broadly centered on the intersection of stress, family, and cultural contexts in understanding the development of racial and ethnic minoritized adolescents. Specifically, she explores the social-cultural and physiological mechanisms (e.g., Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis, allostatic load) of the effects of stress (e.g., perceived discrimination) on ethnic minority adolescents' well-being. In addition, she takes a strength- (rather than risk-) based approach to explore the adaptive and protective factors (e.g., parental/peer cultural socialization, psychological resilience) that promote ethnic minority adolescents' academic outcomes and psychosocial and physical development. Her research is theoretically driven by ecological theory, the integrative model of minority child development, and the biopsychosocial model of health.

Dr. Shawn Chiang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Behavior at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. He is a social behavioral scientist focusing on reducing health disparities in cancer control related health behaviors through translational digital health and communication science. Dr. Chiang utilizes mixed methods in his research and his early research has centered on leveraging digital communication strategies (e.g., social media) to influence psychosocial and socio-structural factors in cancer prevention, particularly HPV-related cancers in populations disproportionately affected by the disease. More specifically, he has developed and tested theory-driven (e.g., framing, narratives), HPV-related communication, through a community-based participatory approach with parents and young adults in the U.S. He is currently engaging with young men from sexual minority groups to develop culturally responsive HPV prevention messages. Before starting his doctoral training, Dr. Chiang was an Evaluation Fellow at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he was awarded the Early Career Innovator Award in Communications.

Dr. Chiang holds a Ph.D. in health behavior and health promotion from the University of Arkansas, an M.P.H. in public health communication and marketing from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, and a B.S. in biochemistry/chemistry from the University of California, San Diego.

Dr. Mark Costa is a Research Scientist at the Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Program for Recovery and Community Health. Dr. Costa has completed his M.D. at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Faculty of Medicine, Brazil. He completed his Residency in Psychiatry at the Hospital Foundation of the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. He also completed an M.P.H. at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and a postdoctoral degree at the Yale School of Medicine. His research focuses on health disparities and the social determinants of health in Black and Latine populations with psychiatric disabilities, substance use disorders, and other intersecting marginalized identities. His research also focuses on the cultural adaptation of recovery-oriented strategies and research to Latine populations. He has been involved in many NIH-funded research projects at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health in different capacities, such as collaborator, co-investigator, and site coordinator.

In July 2022, he was granted a Diversity Supplement to the Imani Breakthrough U01 parent grant (U01 OD033241-01) to study the social network of Black and Latino people with opioid and alcohol use disorders. In 2023, Dr. Costa received an award from the Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, recognizing his service, effort, and continuing support for the Anti-Racism Task Force at the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Costa is also a member of the Coordinating Council of the CT Keep the Promise Coalition advocacy group.

Dr. Jackie K. Dawson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). Her research interests include the development of technology-facilitated exercise interventions to reduce cardiometabolic disease risk, especially in minority, underserved and aging populations. She has contributed to studies investigating the use of exercise therapy to improve cardiometabolic health outcomes in cancer survivors, individuals with neurologic disorders, older adults, and gold star families living in vulnerable neighborhoods in Los Angeles County, with funding from internal grants and the National Strength and Conditioning Association.

As an educator, Dr. Dawson is committed to mentoring student investigators from underrepresented backgrounds and is particularly interested in educating trainees on reducing rehabilitation disparities. She designs and instructs curricula for doctoral students of physical therapy in pathophysiology, exercise science and pharmacology. Dr. Dawson earned her Ph.D. in biokinesiology from the University of Southern California (USC), her M.S. in kinesiology from California State University, Los Angeles and a B.S. in computer science from University of California, Los Angeles.

Her research and teaching have been recognized by awards, including the Research Mentorship Recognition award from CSULB, Jacquelin Perry Scholar award and Outstanding Teaching award from USC, Distinguished Thesis award from the Western Association of Graduate Schools and the Chancellor's Doctoral Incentive Program Scholar award from the California State University.

Dr. Cristina Dominguez De Quezada is an early career Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her research is driven by her personal and clinical experience. As an English-as-an-additional-language college student and now faculty, she understands the many challenges faced by those with limited English proficiency when interacting in a predominantly English-speaking environment. As a cardiovascular registered nurse, she has witnessed the struggles many Hispanic and Latino patients face when managing their hypertension. Her research focuses on creating tailored, cultural, and linguistic interventions for patients diagnosed with hypertension who have language limitations. She has previously explored the role of language proficiency in nursing students along the U.S.-Mexico border, and she is currently working on a qualitative study titled "Life Experiences of Limited English Proficiency Patients with Chronic Cardiovascular Disease Living in the U.S.-Mexico Border."

Dr. Dominguez De Quezada obtained her B.S. in nursing in 2008 from New Mexico State University and her M.S. from the University of Texas at El Paso. She earned her Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Texas at Tyler. Dr. Dominguez De Quezada is the President of the Paso Chapter and currently serves as a Board Member for the National Association of Hispanic Nurses.

Dr. Kelsey Egan is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Boston University (BU) Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center (BMC). She is a health services researcher and general pediatrician who is dedicated to decreasing inequities in food insecurity for children and families. Dr. Egan is interested in the design and implementation of scalable health information technology (HIT) strategies to improve linkages between primary care and community-based resources and programs (i.e., clinical-community integration). She is currently funded by a KL2 award from the BU Clinical and Translational Science Institute to conduct (1) a quantitative analysis of factors associated with retention in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and (2) a qualitative analysis to inform development of clinic-based HIT tools to increase WIC retention. She is a co-investigator on an NIH-funded implementation study of clinic-based HIT tools that facilitate childhood obesity treatment in the context of unmet social needs. Dr. Egan leads the BMC Department of Pediatrics Early Career Research Group and co-leads the BMC Department of Pediatrics Food Security Task Force.

Dr. Egan completed her undergraduate studies in Human Biology, Health, and Society at Cornell University in 2011, her M.D. at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2016, and an M.Sc. in Epidemiology at the BU School of Public Health in 2021. She completed her residency in clinical pediatrics at the Boston Combined Residency Program (Boston Children's Hospital/BMC) in 2019 and participated in a T32-funded General Academic Pediatrics fellowship at BU/BMC in 2021.

Dr. Marc Emerson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He is interested in meaningful research that focuses on integrating biology and access to care in addressing cancer care disparities and improving American Indian and Alaska Native cancer outcomes. Dr. Emerson teaches advanced cancer epidemiology and methods of cancer health equity at UNC and Tribal Epidemiology at the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board. He completed his Ph.D. in epidemiology at UNC and holds an M.P.H. in epidemiology from San Diego State University. He is Diné (Navajo) and Jemez from the Navajo Nation.

Dr. Chuka Emezue is an Assistant Professor and Nurse Scientist in the Department of Women, Children and Family Nursing at Rush University Medical Center. His research focuses on youth mental health, firearm and youth violence prevention, and co-occurring substance use among young Black boys and men using technology-enhanced and community-based interventions, such as the BrotherlyACT™ and FatherlyACT™ programs. As a mixed methods researcher, Dr. Emezue's work also investigates individual and contextual level determinants of program uptake, service and experiential avoidance, and (mal)adaptive coping strategies among rural, Black, and immigrant boys and men who use and survive violence. Dr. Emezue has partnered on research initiatives with governments and civil society organizations, including the UNICEF Innocenti Office of Research and the Brady and Anne Deaton Institute for University Leadership in International Development.

His research is currently funded by NIMHD through the Chicago Chronic Conditions Health Equity Network (C3EN), and by the Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM) through the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA). Additionally, he has received foundation grants from the Cohn Family Foundation and Rush-BMO Health Equity Institute. Dr. Emezue earned his Ph.D. in nursing science (2021), M.P.H. (2016), and M.P.A. (2016) from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a B.Sc. in biochemistry from Niger Delta University (NDU), Nigeria. In 2023, he was named a Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project and has been a Contributor-In-Residence with Synapsis: A Journal of Health Humanities. His op-eds on fatherhood and masculinity have appeared in Ms. Magazine and New Thinking Magazine.

Dr. Shekinah Fashaw-Walters is a health equity and aging tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Policy & Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She earned her Ph.D. in health services research from Brown University, an M.S.P.H. from UNC Chapel Hill's Health Policy and Management Department at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, and her B.S. from the University of Central Florida. Dr. Fashaw-Walters' program of research focuses on understanding the inequities in aging while elucidating and explicitly naming racism as a fundamental determinant of health inequities within aging care. She conducts research across the post-acute and long-term services and support continuum to dismantle structural inequities and provide equitable, high-quality care for all, especially the most marginalized.

Her NIH-funded work has been published in numerous high-impact journals, featured in several national news outlets such as the Associated Press and the New York Times, and has directly impacted recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services nursing home quality strategies. Dr. Fashaw-Walters is Academy Health's 2024 Alice S. Hersh Emerging Leader, a 2024 Health Disparities Research Institute Scholar, a 2022 National Institute on Aging Butler-Williams Scholar, the 2022-2023 UMN Fesler-Lampert Chair in Aging Studies, a faculty scholar with the NIA IMPACT Collaboratory, and a member of the Academy Health Board of Directors.

Dr. Higinio Fernández-Sánchez is an Assistant Professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center Houston Cizik School of Nursing. He graduated with an A.S. from Tyler Junior College (2008), then earned a B.S.N. (2013) and an M.N. (2016) from the Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico, and most recently received a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta (2023). Dr. Fernández-Sánchez specializes in addressing social inequities and injustices, particularly in migrant communities. As both a researcher and activist, he confronts discrimination and oppression, acknowledging the deep roots of these issues in race, gender, and immigration status. He advocates for migrant rights and works to dismantle systemic barriers to inclusivity and justice. Guided by an intersectional perspective, Dr. Fernández-Sánchez’s work provides a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by migrants in accessing healthcare. His research emphasizes equity in migration and health policies and practices, with a focus on global health, policy, social justice, and equity.

With over 30 peer-reviewed articles in nursing and non-nursing journals, Dr. Fernández-Sánchez is also a reviewer for esteemed journals such as The Lancet Regional Health – Americas and the International Journal of Qualitative Methods. His dedication has earned him several awards, including the 2024 Emerging Researcher Award by Sigma Theta Tau International, recognition as a Top 200 Nurse by the Houston Chronicle in 2023, and the Bronze Good Samaritan Award.

Dr. Cristina Gago is an Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), where she studies public health approaches to address inequities in nutrition outcomes among parents and young children living in poverty. More specifically, her current program of research focuses on identifying and addressing drivers of under-enrollment in federal nutrition assistance programs, through novel intervention approaches. In doing this work, her ultimate goal is to support healthy growth and development in early childhood through the design and evaluation of family-based interventions for nutrition promotion.

Prior to joining BUSPH in 2023, she trained as a postdoctoral researcher at New York University Langone's Institute for Excellence in Health Equity, where her research focused on the evaluation of health behavior change interventions within the context of a large, Brooklyn-based federally qualified health center. Prior to that, she earned her Ph.D. at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she examined key facilitators and barriers faced in accessing healthful nutrition and health promotion resources for young children by parents receiving benefits and services through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children or WIC and Head Start programs.

Dr. Thania Galvan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia. She completed an APA-approved clinical internship in the child track at the University of Illinois at Chicago before going on to earn her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Denver. After graduation, she participated in a National Institute of Mental Health-funded T32 postdoctoral fellowship in traumatic stress at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Galvan’s research interests lie in identifying and examining the factors that contribute to, maintain, and/or exacerbate mental health disparities among Latinx youth and families. Within these interests, she leverages the ecological systems and developmental psychopathology theoretical frameworks to examine the risks and/or resilience mechanisms that influence Latinx youths’ mental health trajectories. She is also interested in the development, implementation, and dissemination of innovative service delivery models that can be leveraged to more effectively reduce mental health disparities in Latinx youth and families.

To date, she has over 30 peer-reviewed publications, has presented at over 20 national and local conferences, and has received funding support from several organizations. Dr. Galvan is also a longstanding member of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, National Latinx Psychological Association, the Latinx Immigrant Health Alliance, and the Society for Research in Child Development. Dr. Galvan joined the psychology department at UGA in 2022 where she currently directs the FUERTE lab.

Dr. Samantha Garcia is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. Dr. Garcia's research focuses on improving cancer care delivery among Latina populations disproportionately affected by cervical cancer. Her NIMHD-funded dissertation explored multilevel barriers and facilitators to HPV vaccine uptake and completion among young adult Mexican American women. Her postdoctoral training is focused on 1) becoming proficient in the use of large population-level data to inform health equity research; 2) gaining expertise in implementation science frameworks, measurement, and study design; and 3) investigating multilevel sociocultural determinants of cancer outcomes to inform clinic-based interventions to address cancer disparities in Latinx communities. She earned her Ph.D. in public health from the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Joshua L. Gills is a Postdoctoral Fellow at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine. In 2022, Dr. Gills received his Ph.D. in health, sport, and exercise science (exercise science concentration) from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He also has received additional training in gerontology, cognitive neuroscience, sleep, and health disparities. The focus of Dr. Gills' current and future research lies at the intersection of lifestyle modifications, aging, health disparities, and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). His research investigates how fitness, sleep, and vascular risk impact cognitive decline, ADRD risk and health disparities in mid-to-late life, underrepresented adults using novel neuroimaging and field-based approaches.

Ultimately, Dr. Gills would like to utilize evidence-based mitigation strategies to improve cognition and quality of life in underrepresented populations. Dr. Gills has been funded by private organizations and government agencies, such as the NIH and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. He has received several awards, including NYU’s ADRC's REC Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Research Education Component Scholar, University of Arkansas' Outstanding Ph.D. Student in Exercise Science Award, and was an American Kinesiology Association Outstanding Master Scholar.

Dr. Alexandrea R. Golden is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Memphis. She earned her Ph.D. in clinical-community psychology at the University of South Carolina and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Cleveland State University, at the Center for Urban Education. Dr. Golden's scholarship focuses on the resilience and positive development of racially minoritized youth who experience racism with a focus on Black adolescents. Her work focuses on three interdisciplinary lines of research including 1) school racial climate, 2) peer racial socialization, and 3) critical consciousness. Dr. Golden is committed to empowering youth who have been marginalized and amplifying their voices and experiences through her translation and community-engaged research and practice.

Dr. Maxine Lylvette Simmons Harlemon is an Instructor of Mathematics at Clark Atlanta University. She holds an M.S. in mathematics and Ph.D. in biological sciences with a focus on computational biology. She was a recipient of the 2022 Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award. She has also served on a number of scientific committees, including the NIH Junior Investigator's Atlas Builders Meeting where she participated as a committee member and panelist. Dr. Harlemon is a member of the African Caribbean Cancer Consortium (AC3), where she has collaborated on projects involving Whole Exome Sequencing. She has also worked on projects that describe the genetic architecture of germline and somatic variants in prostate cancer tissues, which includes investigation of risk alleles and expression profiles that have helped in learning and discovering the mutational landscape of prostate cancer.

Her most notable paper, "A Custom Genotyping Array Reveals Population-Level Heterogeneity for the Genetic Risks of Prostate Cancer and Other Cancers in Africa," was published in the high-tiered publication, Cancer Research. Understanding the interaction of social environment with genetic risk, Dr. Harlemon seeks to further her investigations by including socioenvironmental factors to identify unique epigenetic patterns that are enriched in prostate cancer among men of African descent. Her well-versed background joins socioenvironmental effects and genetics in prostate cancer health disparities.

Dr. Cellas Ari'ka Hayes is a Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford Propel Postdoctoral Scholar, BRAINS Fellow, and 2024 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Postdoctoral Diversity Enrichment Program (PDEP) recipient in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Hayes received his B.A. in biology, classics, and Latin (2019) and his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacology (2022) from the University of Mississippi (UM). As a first-generation college graduate, Dr. Hayes achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first African American male to earn a Ph.D. from this program at UM. Dr. Hayes has also secured an NIH F31 fellowship as the first trainee at UM in 37 years, and the first Black trainee in the University's history to receive this award.

Dr. Hayes' ongoing postdoctoral work includes 1) exploring longitudinal shifts in neurodegenerative biomarkers with cognitive impairment and white matter hyperintensities; 2) investigating education as a moderator between social determinants of health and cardio/cerebrovascular disease incidence in African American populations; 3) determining how systemic inflammation is a marker for stroke incidence in African American populations; 4) evaluating subjective sleep changes' correlation with cerebrovascular health disparities in African American groups compared to White American groups. His ultimate goal is to establish an interdisciplinary laboratory that uses advanced epidemiological and biostatistical research methodologies with high-dimensional biological data to elucidate the concomitance of vascular and AD pathologies on aging outcomes. Dr. Hayes is extremely passionate about increasing and maintaining diversity and inclusion in STEM fields through mentorship, service, and opportunity.

Dr. Xiaoning Huang is a Research Assistant Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Huang is a social epidemiologist with expertise in social determinants of racial and ethnic disparities in cardiovascular health outcomes. He is the recipient of the American Heart Association's (AHA) Career Development Award (2024-2027), supporting his research on the pathways between psychosocial stressors in early pregnancy and postpartum cardiovascular health. Dr. Huang is also the principal investigator of AHA's Get with the Guidelines Data Science Research Award (2024-2025), focusing on social determinants of racial and ethnic disparities in heart failure outcomes. Additionally, he is a Heart Share Research Skills Fellow, which emphasizes the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence in clinical research and data science. Dr. Huang earned his Ph.D. in social work from Columbia University and his M.S.W. from the University of Southern California.

Dr. August Jenkins is a Vice Chancellor's Distinguished Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed her graduate education in human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University, earning her M.S. in 2018 and her Ph.D. in 2022. Dr. Jenkins's research explores how racism operates as a multi-level, intersecting system to impact Black Americans' psychological health, intimate relationships, and the ways they are connected over time. Further, she studies how Black individuals and families leverage available sociocultural and ecological capital and coping resources to maintain their health and well-being. Her work falls primarily along three lines—investigating the connections between racism and mental health, between racism and intimate relationships, and the connections between psychological health and intimate relationships as informed by the larger racial context. The ultimate aim of Dr. Jenkins's work is to elucidate opportunities to enhance psychological health and intimate relationships among Black Americans by mitigating the negative impacts of racism, leveraging sociocultural resources, and informing prevention and policy efforts related to these domains.

In recognition of her work, Dr. Jenkins has been awarded multiple prestigious grants and honors, including the NIMHD National Research Service Award F31 Pre-Doctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Research, the John L. and Harriette P. McAdoo Dissertation Award, and the International Association of Relationship Research Dissertation Award. Dr. Jenkins will begin as an Assistant Professor in Human Development and Family Studies at Auburn University in fall 2024.

Dr. Ada T. Kwan is a Postdoctoral Scholar and Pulmonary T32 Fellow at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. As a health economist and applied econometrician, she focuses on using experimental and quasi-experimental causal inference methods to evaluate the impacts of health interventions and policies that target poverty-related issues. Working towards improving quality of care and health equity measurement, she seeks to elucidate: (1) mechanisms behind what occurred in intervention and policy implementation and (2) what might work better under different circumstances. Globally, she examines how individual, provider, and place characteristics influence care quality, informing quality improvement programs in settings without established health records. In the U.S., she evaluates health-related efforts aimed at reducing disparities, informing resource allocation approaches that can effectively achieve more equitable outcomes.

Dr. Kwan has over 15 years of experience conducting research in at-scale or multi-site evaluations and has worked at the Mexico National Institute of Public Health and the World Bank Development Research Group. She graduated with a B.S. in neuroscience in 2006 from the University of Michigan and earned her M.H.S. in international health and health systems from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2009. In 2020, Dr. Kwan completed a Ph.D. in health policy and health economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Eric K. Layland is an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences with a joint appointment in the School of Education. Their research objective is to uncover mechanisms that improve the health and development of LGBTQ+ young people. Dr. Layland’s specific research interests include LGBTQ+ within-group differences in mental health and unhealthy substance use, queer socialization and joy across the lifespan, and LGBTQ+ affirmative interventions and policy. Across all areas of research, he uses advanced and innovative analytical methods to reflect intersecting systems of oppression and stigma that shape LGBTQ+ health across the life course, especially at intersections of race or ethnicity and sexual identity.

Dr. Layland has developed and taught courses on LGBTQ+ youth, families, and lifespan development at undergraduate and graduate levels. They are the director of the Queer Development Lab where they mentor student research on the positive development of queer and trans youth and their families. They earned a B.S. in recreation management and youth leadership in 2011 and an M.S. in youth and family recreation in 2013 from Brigham Young University. Dr. Layland graduated with an M.S. in 2018 and a Ph.D. in 2020 in human development and family studies from The Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Elly Leavens is an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center in the Department of Population Health and a psychologist in the Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Leavens graduated with a B.A. in psychology from Saint Louis University. She received an M.S. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Oklahoma State University and completed her clinical internship at the Charleston Consortium at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Leavens completed a TL1 postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Kansas Medical Center prior to joining the faculty. Her research focuses on tobacco regulatory science and investigates mechanisms that contribute to tobacco use and tobacco-related health inequities. Dr. Leavens uses combined human laboratory and clinical trial methods to assess the impact of tobacco control policies on tobacco and nicotine use patterns and health inequities. Recent and ongoing projects include an ongoing study to investigate optimization of e-cigarette training to facilitate switching and reduce tobacco-related harm among smokers with COPD, a human laboratory study of the effects of ethanol in e-cigarettes on nicotine delivery, and a pharmacokinetic assessment of the comparative abuse liability of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and heated tobacco products among Black and White adults who smoke.

Dr. Leavens’ ongoing K01 award assesses the impact of a potential e-cigarette nicotine standard on compensatory use, toxicant exposure, changes in cigarette smoking, and improvements in lung and cardiovascular functioning among diverse smokers. The goal of this work is to inform effective regulation of emerging tobacco and nicotine products that function to reduce tobacco-related health disparities and protect public health.

Dr. Cynthia N. Lebron is an Assistant Professor at the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Miami. Her research focus lies at the intersection of racial and ethnic health disparities in obesity and maternal and child health. Examples include studies dedicated to learning more about breastfeeding resources available as well as the influence of baby-friendly hospitals. She is currently funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute K01 to develop an early childhood obesity intervention targeting Hispanic mothers and grandmothers. She was also selected to participate in the Society for Prevention Research's Early Career Prevention Scientist Training Program as well as the NHLBI PRIDE Program. She is serving in her second term as the President of American Public Health Association (APHA)'s Latino Caucus for Public Health where they support members with job opportunities, webinars, a podcast (Sana Sana: Latinos en Public Health), and by allocating time for the dissemination of findings about Latino health research at the APHA annual meeting. She is also currently serving as a guest editor of AJPH's special issue on Latino/Hispanic Health Issues.

Her long-term goal is to serve as a research-oriented faculty member with an independently funded program of research focused on reducing disparities in MCH affecting underserved communities, especially Hispanic communities. In addition, she looks forward to providing more undergraduate and graduate students with high-quality mentorship and resources to prepare a new generation of health disparities researchers.

Dr. Minghui (Sam) Li is an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Pharmacy. His research interests include health disparities, health policy, and prescription drugs, with a focus on transitioning from basic science to intervention development. Dr. Li is an expert in quasi-experimental design, particularly in difference-in-difference and interrupted time series methods, used in health policy analysis. He has extensive experience using big data to generate scientific evidence among populations that have been marginalized, informing clinical and policy decision-making. Dr. Li’s research focuses on developing and adapting interventions to help minority populations and their caregivers obtain appropriate prescription drug coverage. With the goals of increasing access, improving quality, reducing costs, and achieving equity, he plans to develop and adapt caregiver-centered interventions to improve prescription drug coverage for vulnerable populations.

Dr. Li received his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical and health outcomes sciences from the University of South Carolina and completed a fellowship in artificial intelligence and machine learning at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Dr. Li has received several research awards, including Best Paper Awards from the Journal of Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy and the Journal of Personalized Medicine. His research findings have been featured in major media outlets, such as The New York Times.

Dr. Susanna V. Lopez is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Indigenous Health Research and Policy at the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences. Her broad research interests aim to improve mental health and substance use behaviors in American Indian and Alaska Native communities through improvements in diet and cultural connectedness. Specifically, her interests include the impact of food insecurity on depression, alcohol use, and smoking; the effectiveness of Indigenous food sovereignty programs on psychological stress, resilience, and cultural connectedness; and the impact of traditional Indigenous foods and food practices on mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Dr. Lopez received her B.S. in psychology from Arizona State University in 2016 before earning her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Oklahoma State University in 2022.

Dr. Luis E. Maldonado is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Division of Cardiology within the Department of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He earned a Ph.D. in nutrition with a focus on epidemiology from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.P.H. in chronic disease epidemiology from the Yale School of Public Health at Yale University, and a B.S. in health promotion and disease prevention, with a minor in sociology, from the University of Southern California. His research aims to investigate the genetic, dietary, environmental, and psychosocial risk factors for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in racial and ethnic groups and underserved populations, as a framework to explain health disparities.

Dr. Christina X. Marea is an Assistant Professor in the Midwifery/ Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner Program at Georgetown University School of Nursing. Dr. Marea's research is at the intersection of reproductive justice, perinatal health disparities, and health system opportunities to transform sexual, reproductive and perinatal care and outcomes for people who have been structurally marginalized. As a clinical educator, Dr. Marea seeks to increase the capacity of reproductive health care providers to provide excellent care to people who have been structurally marginalized. Dr. Marea is currently partnering with a federally qualified health center to develop and implement a 12-model of postpartum care informed by patient priorities. Her team will evaluate its feasibility, acceptability and impact on clients. Dr. Marea’s background includes measurement, instrument development, health professional education and development, maternal mortality reviews, health care policy at the intersection of pregnancy and social determinants of health, and curricular design to improve structural competence among health professionals.

Dr. Marea graduated with a B.S. in foreign service in 2002 from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She obtained an M.A. in conflict resolution from the University of Bradford, funded by the Rotary World Peace Fellowship. She earned her M.S.N. at the Yale University School of Nursing, then her Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. She later completed her postdoctoral TL1 fellowship at the Georgetown-Howard Consortium for Clinical and Translational Sciences, and is now a KL2 faculty scholar.

Dr. Allison Neal Martin is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine and the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She serves as the Associate Program Director for the Complex General Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Duke. Her research focus has previously included global health disparities and quality improvement for patients undergoing operations for benign and malignant tumors affecting the liver, pancreas and upper gastrointestinal tract. Dr. Martin's current academic focus is surgical quality and health services research with an emphasis on health disparities in cancer surgery. Her research centers on investigating systems of inequity that limit access to guideline concordant cancer care for medically underserved, rural populations in the United States. Her long-term goal is to generate data that will drive interventions to improve clinician support for at-risk rural patient populations with liver cancer.

Dr. Martin graduated with a B.S. in chemistry and a B.A. in psychology from the University of Louisville. She received her M.D. from Vanderbilt School of Medicine and her M.P.H. from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She completed residency in general surgery at the University of Virginia and fellowships in hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery and surgical oncology at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. She was a 2016-2017 NIH Fogarty Global Health Fellow (Kigali, Rwanda) and completed an National Cancer Institute Surgical Oncology T32 postdoctoral research fellowship.

Dr. Kiara L. Moore is an Assistant Professor at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. Her research examines strategies to enhance mental health services for youth during their transition to adulthood. Focused on youth from under-resourced communities who are from racial, ethnic, sexual or gender minority groups, she studies how identity development and social positions interact to shape participation in mental health care. She is interested in identifying novel targets and designing interventions to eliminate major barriers to treatment involving access, stigma, mistrust, and cultural competency. Dr. Moore was recently awarded a Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award by the National Institute of Mental Health to adapt and test an arts-based program to engage and retain racial and ethnic minority young adults in community mental health settings. She is also an investigator on a new study of intersectional minority stress and protective factors that influence suicide risk among Black sexual and gender minority youth in the U.S. Dr. Moore brings over a decade of experience as a clinician for underserved adolescents and young adults to her research. She earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University and her M.S.W. from the University of Southern California.

Dr. Kimberly O'Neill is a Pediatric Neurologist and Clinical Instructor in Neurology at the New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. O'Neill's research focuses on social and environmental factors like poverty and neighborhood features that may impact the developing brain and put individuals at risk for neuroinflammatory disorders like multiple sclerosis (MS). Dr. O'Neill graduated with a B.S. in biology from Wake Forest University and an M.D. from Georgetown School of Medicine where she completed extra coursework in patient advocacy and graduated as a Health Justice Scholar. She completed pediatric neurology training at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY where she received multiple teaching awards for her dedication to the medical training of students and residents. She completed fellowship training in pediatric MS and neuroimmunology at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, NY. In addition to seeing children with neurologic illness in her clinic, she is a scholar in the NYU Population Health Science Scholars program and will obtain an M.S. in Clinical Research with a special focus on health disparities and health equity research.

Dr. Lilliam M. Pinzon is an Associate Professor at the University of Utah School of Dentistry and a Visiting Scientist at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Pinzon holds a D.D.S. from the University of Antioquia, an M.S. in dental materials from the University of Texas-Houston, and completed advanced training in microscopy at the University of Missouri Kansas City. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical translational research and clinical research at the University of California – San Francisco, and training at the University of California – San Diego to treat people who are underserved. She also holds an M.P.H. from the University of California – Berkeley, and completed training in teaching methodologies at Harvard University.

Her research includes leading global health projects and clinical studies to improve dental care for vulnerable populations in collaboration with universities in Mexico and Colombia. Dr. Pinzon has secured grants from NIDCR, Fogarty International Center, Health Resources and Services Administration, and CDC SHEPheRD, supporting her work in oral and public health.

As an educator and mentor, Dr. Pinzon has directed courses and seminars, impacting over 800 students and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration across eight universities in the Americas. She has initiated community-based programs addressing the oral health needs of underserved populations, including Latino pre-diabetic and refugee communities. Dr. Pinzon's excellence is evident in her extensive publication record and leadership roles, such as co-founding and serving as President of the American Association for Dental Research, Utah Section. Her work embodies the values of leadership, diversity, innovation, and excellence.

Dr. Sonyia Richardson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a secondary appointment in the School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Richardson's research interests include identifying and removing barriers (practical, systemic, organizational, and cultural) to mental health treatment for Black youth and developing interventions to support their persistence in mental health treatment. She has expertise as a community-engaged, mixed methods researcher and focuses on developing culturally informed and affirming interventions, advancing racial and social equity, and reducing mental health disparities. Currently, Dr. Richardson serves as a principal investigator of a National Institute of Mental Health R34 feasibility study testing a culturally adapted care coordination suicide detection and intervention model for Black youth.

As a respected scholar in the field of social work, she was appointed to the Andrea Harris Social, Economic, Environmental, and Health Equity Task Force by North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper in 2020. In her second appointed term, she serves as Chair of the Wellness Outcomes subcommittee. Additionally, Dr. Richardson received the National Association of Social Workers North Carolina Chapter Award for the 2021 Social Worker of the Year for her leadership and advocacy efforts. Dr. Richardson graduated with a B.A. in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, an M.S.W. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Ph.D. in education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Dr. William E. (Billy) Rosa is an Assistant Attending Behavioral Scientist, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Dr. Rosa’s research focuses on health inequities in the context of serious illness. His research streams address inclusive communication for LGBTQ+ people and their families, cancer pain disparities among Black and African-American people with cancer, and global palliative care access disparities in low- and middle-income countries. As faculty in MSK’s Communication Skills Training Program and Research Laboratory, Dr. Rosa seeks to improve serious illness communication and promote health service delivery that is concordant with patient/caregiver goals, values, and preferences. He recently served on the writing committee for The Lancet Breast Cancer Commission and on the expert panel for the American Society of Clinical Oncology Palliative Care Guideline. Dr. Rosa is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Psycho-Oncology and Associate Editor of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. He is a Cambia Health Foundation Sojourns Scholar and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Harold Amos Scholar.

Earlier in 2024, he was named a Visionary in Hospice and Palliative Care by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Dr. Rosa holds a B.S. in nursing from New York University (2009), an M.S. in nursing from Hunter College at The City University of New York (2014), and a Ph.D. and an M.B.E. from the University of Pennsylvania (2020). He completed MSK’s Hospice and Palliative Medicine Interdisciplinary Clinical Fellowship (2016) and was Chief Fellow of MSK’s NIH/National Cancer Institute T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Psychosocial, Palliative, and Community Research in Cancer (2020-2022).

Dr. Lalaine (Lainey) Sevillano is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Portland State University. As an interdisciplinary minority health and education scholar, she integrates theories and methodologies from social work, education, and ethnic studies to explore how socio-historical experiences impact the health and well-being of minoritized populations, particularly for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities. Her research, grounded in an indigenist perspective, examines the interplay between traumatic life stressors such as racism, coloniality, and discrimination and adverse health outcomes like substance misuse, psychological distress, and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Sevillano’s scholarship advances health equity by investigating resilience-promoting factors such as cultural community wealth. She earned her Ph.D. in social work from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was awarded the 2021-22 University Graduate Student Fellowship.

Her dissertation, a mixed-methods study, investigated the relationships between internalized colonialism, psychological distress, and academic success, earning her the 2022 Asian & Pacific Islander Social Work Educators Association's Doctoral Scholarship. She also holds an M.S.W. from California State University Northridge and a B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Sevillano is a Fellow of the NIH-funded Indigenous Substance Use and Addictions Prevention Interdisciplinary Research Education (INSPIRE) program, as well as a Scholar of the NIH-funded Center for Health Equity Research Institute. Additionally, she received a highly competitive internal grant to develop a psychometric scale to measure kapwa, an indigenous Pilipino cultural value. Ultimately, she aims to develop culturally tailored prevention and intervention strategies to address health disparities.

Dr. Nilay S. Shah is an Assistant Professor of Cardiology and Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Shah’s research program focuses on cardiovascular disease prevention earlier in the life course. Overarching goals of Dr. Shah's research are to identify, adapt, implement, and scale effective cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention strategies with particular attention to earlier-life cardiovascular health promotion among young adults. Three major focus areas are: 1) cardiovascular health disparities in Asian populations in the U.S., 2) pregnancy-related cardiovascular risk factors in women and offspring, and 3) application of digital health and AI tools for risk assessment in young adulthood. This research program leverages methods in epidemiology, trials, implementation science, and community engagement, in pursuit of equitable prevention of CVD for all. Dr. Shah completed an M.D. and M.P.H. from Northwestern University, an internal medicine residency at Stanford University, a cardiovascular diseases fellowship at Northwestern, a certificate in health equity and advocacy in the McGaw Clinical Scholars Program, and a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular epidemiology at Northwestern.

His research is funded by career development awards from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the American Heart Association (AHA). He is a member of the AHA Journal Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Editorial Board, and serves on the Community Equity Research Council of the South Asian American Policy & Research Institute. He is a Fellow of the AHA, a 2023 World Heart Federation Emerging Leader, and was recognized among the National Minority Quality Forum’s 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health.

Dr. Michael R. Sladek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Oklahoma where he is affiliated with the Applied Social and Developmental Psychology doctoral program, the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, and the Institute for Community and Society Transformation. Dr. Sladek’s research draws from cultural-ecological models that situate youth development in context, with the goal of emphasizing strengths-based identity-affirming approaches to inform supports for youth facing the adverse consequences of social marginalization. He is particularly interested in grounding the research process in community-based approaches and using multiple methods (e.g., daily diaries, ambulatory sleep and physiological stress measures, longitudinal surveys, interviews) to better understand how the everyday experiences and identities of ethnoracially diverse sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth uniquely shape their health and well-being. Dr. Sladek directs the Contexts of Health, Adolescent Resilience, and Measuring Stress (CHARMS) Lab, which is currently engaged in a longitudinal mixed methods study of LGBTQ+ young adults’ resilience and a daily diary study of adolescents’ ethnic-racial identity development in the context of a school-based health promotion intervention.

His collaborative work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the William T. Grant Foundation. Dr. Sladek completed his B.A. with honors in psychology at Northwestern University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in developmental psychology at Arizona State University. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Dr. Erin Lally Thompson (she/her) is a Research Assistant Professor at Florida International University’s Center for Children and Families. Her research is focused on the interactive effects of community and school-based drivers of health, with a particular focus on upstream drivers of exclusionary discipline within schools, including structural racism and interpersonal discrimination. In addition, her research explores the roles of childhood adversity and neurobiological functioning on the long-term effects of school discipline (e.g., school push out, mental health conditions, and substance use disorders). To support her research agenda, Dr. Thompson is funded through a career development award (K01, 2022-2027, NIMHD) and is a co-investigator on the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States. Dr. Thompson was previously a National Institute on Drug Abuse T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at FIU. She earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2020, and previously earned an M.P.P. from Georgetown University in 2012.

Dr. Monica Tincopa is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Tincopa obtained a B.S. from the University of Southern California in 2005 and her M.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2009, where she also completed her residency in internal medicine. Dr. Tincopa completed a fellowship in gastroenterology and transplant hepatology at the University of Michigan, where she also obtained an M.Sc. in Health and Health Care Research. Dr. Tincopa's research interests include metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and steatohepatitis (MASH), cirrhosis, liver transplantation and health disparities in chronic liver disease. She has a particular focus on health disparities impacting individuals with liver disease in her Latino/Hispanic community. Dr. Tincopa was the recipient of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) Advanced Transplant Hepatology Fellowship Award in addition to the AASLD Clinical and Translational Outcomes Award, a two-year career development award. She was also recently granted an Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute Pilot Research Grant to investigate the association of social determinants of health factors and MASLD and MASH disease prevalence and severity.

Dr. Dante Anthony Tolentino is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is committed to an academic career in biobehavioral research to improve the health outcomes of minoritized groups, particularly Filipino Americans. His research interests center on the sociocultural (e.g., colonialism, SDOH) and biobehavioral factors (e.g., allostatic load, self-management) of health. He applies both qualitative and quantitative methods. His current research, funded internally by the UCLA-University of California, Irvine Center for Eliminating Cardiometabolic Disparities in Multi-Ethnic Populations (NIH/NIMHD P50-MD017366), aims to fill a critical gap in our understanding of the factors that underlie the dis/engagement of Asian Americans participating in diabetes self-management programs and to map where these programs exist in Los Angeles to identify high/low resource needs.

Before joining academia, he worked as a nurse informaticist, supporting the development, implementation, and optimization of electronic health records for a health system in California. He is an Inclusivity for Impact, Equity, and Engagement (I2EyE) scholar of the Society of Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine (American Psychosomatic Society) and a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association (FAMIA). Dr. Tolentino graduated with a B.S. in nursing and an M.A. in education from San Francisco State University. He earned his Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Arizona. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with the National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP), where he also received an M.S. in health and healthcare research. Dr. Tolentino joined UCLA in 2022.

Dr. Nguyen Tran is an assistant Professor of Oncology in the Department of Oncology at the Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN. Dr. Tran's research interests include biomarkers assessment/development from cancer interception to assessment of therapeutic response, particularly hepatobiliary cancers among minority and underserved patients. Examples of current projects include assessment of novel biomarker-based imaging in advanced liver cancer patients receiving systemic treatments and biomarkers assessment during the perioperative period in biliary and liver cancer patients. Another interest is to assess the barriers to receiving systemic treatments among minority patients. Dr. Tran currently leads several investigator-initiated studies and trials, as well as co-lead industry trials. She is the Community Outreach and Engagement Liaison for the Mayo Clinic Gastrointestinal Disease Group.

Dr. Tran graduated with a B.S. in zoology in 2003 from the University of Michigan. She earned an M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of Michigan and an M.D. from the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She completed her residency training at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, followed by fellowship training in hematology/oncology from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Laura Vargas is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She was a T32 Postdoctoral Fellow with the Developmental Psychobiology Research Group at the University of Colorado School of Medicine (National Institute of Mental Health, T32MH015442) and a Vice-Provost Postdoctoral Fellow at the Penn Injury Science Center and School of Nursing in the University of Pennsylvania.

She received her M.S.W. and Ph.D. from Columbia University School of Social Work, and her M.P.A. from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. She earned a B.A. in political science and fine arts from the University of Notre Dame.

She is funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD, K01MD015768) and researches exposure to trauma and the mental health of Latinx immigrants who recently arrived in the United States. She focuses on understanding how phenotypes of depression, anxiety and PTSD are shaped by traumatic experiences, individual characteristics, and symptom severity among Latinx adult immigrants. She is a Mexican/American bi-cultural researcher and clinician focused on mental health and health service utilization among Latinx populations. Dr. Vargas has regional expertise on violence and health policy issues in Latin America through past professional and research experience in Mexico and Brazil. She is an advisory council member for the University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center and a member of the Issue Advisory Committee for the Nationwide Public Awareness and Education Campaign Aimed at Reducing Firearm Deaths, Injuries and the Impact of Gun Violence on Youth in America by the Ad Council.

Dr. Brandon M. Varilek is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing. Dr. Varilek’s program of research is focused on mitigating health disparities and addressing social determinants of health that affect minoritized populations in the Great Plains. Much of this work centers around American Indian and Alaska Native persons with cancer or end-stage kidney disease. Dr. Varilek is also passionate about palliative and end-of-life care research and aims to develop palliative care interventions for American Indian and Alaska Native persons on dialysis in rural and frontier settings. Dr. Varilek is an active member of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association and is serving a three-year appointment on the Research Committee. This group of nurse researchers is tasked with identifying gaps in knowledge in current research and establishing the hospice and palliative care nursing research agenda for the association.

Dr. Varilek is a multi-methodology researcher and has received grant funding for projects from hermeneutic phenomenology to big data analytics and developing machine learning algorithms based on social determinants of health. Dr. Varilek graduated with a B.A. in nursing from Augustana University in 2013. He earned his Ph.D. in nursing from South Dakota State University in 2020. Prior to starting his role at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in May of 2024, he was an Assistant Professor of Nursing at South Dakota State University, where he was awarded the 2024 Dr. Sherwood and Elizabeth Berg Research Young Faculty Award for his research efforts as a tenure-track faculty.

Dr. Michelle J. White is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine. The goal of her work is to reveal and eliminate the structures and processes that lead to disparities in child health outcomes. Her work engages families, children and communities, centering the voices and expertise of those who have experienced discrimination and marginalization. She uses a variety of research approaches including geographic and qualitative research methods to identify health disparities and develop interventions to mitigate health disparities. Her work spans multiple conditions including child obesity, children with complex chronic conditions and parent/caregiver mental health.

Dr. White's honors include receiving the Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute KL2 award and the Academic Pediatric Association Young Investigator Award. Her work has been featured in The New York Times and Pediatrics on Call, the official podcast of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. White received her B.A. in history of medicine and science from Yale University, her M.D. from Duke University School of Medicine, and her M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is board certified in pediatrics and pediatric hospital medicine. She also serves as Associate Director of the Duke Pediatric Research Scholars Program where she oversees the research training of residents and fellows.

Dr. Randi M. Williams is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Oncology and a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program within the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center. Her research focuses on methods to promote the adoption of evidence-based lung cancer control practices to advance health equity. Dr. Williams's program of research utilizes multilevel approaches to promote equitable care within the health care setting. In her ongoing R00 grant funded by the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Dr. Williams is targeting provider and patient behavior, two key levels of influence in the health care setting, to promote patient-provider communication about lung cancer screening, and to advance equity in rates of screening between Black and White patients.

She received her Ph.D. in behavioral and community health from the University of Maryland, College Park, School of Public Health in 2019 and her M.P.H. in behavioral sciences and health education from the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. Prior to attending Emory, she received her B.A. in psychology from Syracuse University. Dr. Williams is originally from Takoma Park, Maryland.