People
Faculty
Director
Briana Mezuk
Briana Mezuk is the Director of the Michigan Integrative Well-Being and Inequality (MIWI) Training Program. She co-directs the Center for Epidemiology and Population Health (CSEPH), and is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She is also a faculty affiliate with the Institute for Social Research (ISR) and is a mentor with the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research (MCUAAAR), where she co-directs the Analysis Core. She holds a PhD in Mental Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and her training is in psychiatric epidemiology. Her research focuses on investigating the intersections between mental and physical health, with a focus on depression and chronic medical conditions in mid-and late-life such as type 2 diabetes and frailty. A core feature of her research is the integration of conceptual and analytical approaches, methods, and models from social science and clinical disciplines with the aim of arriving at a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the ways in which mental and physical health interrelate. Dr. Mezuk has extensive experience conducting epidemiologic field research and analyzing large population-based data sets, as well as training junior investigators in public health, psychology, and related social sciences.
Co-Directors
Cleopatra Howard Caldwell
Cleopatra Howard Caldwell is Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education and Director of the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture, and Health (CRECH) at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She is also a Faculty Associate with the Program for Research on Black Americans (PRBA) at the Institute for Social Research and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan. Her research addresses how psychosocial and environmental factors influence health and well-being of African American populations, and her methodologic expertise encompasses both intervention and survey research techniques. She also has expertise conducting community-based participatory research (CBPR) and developing community-academic partnerships to design and evaluate health interventions for youth and families. Dr. Caldwell has led or otherwise been involved with several federally funded studies designed to reduce racial health disparities among African American adolescents and adults. She serves as a mentor for junior faculty of color through multiple national training programs including the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN), the Robert Wood Johnson's New Connections Mentoring Program, and the American Psychological Association's Cyber Mentoring Program.
Robert Joseph Taylor
Robert Joseph Taylor is the Sheila Feld Collegiate Professor and the Harold Johnson Endowed Chair of Social Work at the University of Michigan. He also is the Director of the Program for Research on Black Americans (PRBA) at the Institute for Social Research, and is the Co-Director of the Research Education Core of the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research (MCUAAAR). He holds an MSW and a PhD in Sociology and Social Work from the University of Michigan. His research focuses on two major areas: African American support networks and African American religious participation. He is currently on the editorial board of Society and Mental Health, the Journal of Marriage and the Family, and the Journal of Race and Social Problems, and has served on the editorial boards of Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences and Family Relations. A major aspect of Dr. Taylor's career has been the mentoring of doctoral students and junior faculty, most of whom have been African American both through MCUAAAR and PRBA. He has been involved with several federally-funded studies examining the role of religion in the lives of Black and White older adults.
Founding Co-Director, In Memoriam
James Jackson
James S. Jackson is the Daniel Katz Distinguished University Professor of Psychology, Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, and Research Professor, Institute for Social Research (ISR), all at the University of Michigan. He holds a PhD in Social Psychology from Wayne State University. His research centers on ethnic and racial influences on the social determinants of both physical and mental health across different population groups, with a special focus on adults and adolescents of black descent. He is the Director of the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research (MCUAAAR) and the founder of the Program for Research on Black Americans (PRBA) at ISR. Previously, he served as the Director of ISR and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, and was the national president of the Association of Black Psychologists, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the Consortium of Social Science Associations. Additionally, he has led several large population-based studies of mental health in African American and Afro-Caribbean populations, including the National Survey of Black Americans and the National Survey of American Life. Dr. Jackson has extensive experience mentoring and training junior investigators in minority health and aging research.
Affiliated and External Faculty
More Bios Coming Soon.
James Abelson
James L. Abelson is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical School. He co-directs a Neuroscience Lab focused on the neurobiology of Trauma, Stress and Anxiety. He carries responsibility for faculty development within Ambulatory Services in Psychiatry as that Service's Academic Director and has a particular interest in mentoring and career development. He holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Michigan State University and an MD from the University of Michigan, where he also completed his residency training and a fellowship in Anxiety Research. His research focuses on stress biology, with particular interest in the impacts of psychological and social processes on the regulation of one of the body's main stress response systems -- the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. Major recent projects funded by NIH include (1) methodological work on optimal use and biological meaning of cortisol measurement (in saliva and hair), to better inform their utility for epidemiological and other public health studies, and (2) a large, neuroimaging study of the impact of cortisol and HPA axis regulation on the brain and associated cognitive processing deficits with relevance to PTSD.
Jimi Adams
jimi adams is an Associate Professor of Health & Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Denver. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the Ohio State University. Broadly, his research revolves around addressing how networks constrain or promote the diffusion of information and/or diseases through populations. Much of this work has focused on HIV/AIDS in "high risk" populations in the US and Sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, he has spent more time examining the integrative patterns and processes in problem-focused areas of science that draw from many academic disciplines (e.g., HIV/AIDS, demography, the environment). In addition, he has a primary interest in using social network theory to improve strategies used in the design and implementation of primary data collection projects. Past training/mentoring has focused primarily on social network analyses, data collection, and health disparities broadly.
Allison Aiello
Allison Aiello is Professor of Epidemiology, Social Epidemiology Program Leader, Director of Graduate Studies, and Carolina Population Center Fellow, with the Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Aiello’s research program examines how socioeconomic status influences a range of health outcomes, with a focus on infection, Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), and mental health. She has published over 200 peer reviewed journal articles on these topics. Her Google Scholar H-index is 60 and has over 11,500 citations to date (11/29/2019). Her study findings suggest that socioeconomic disadvantage perturbs the immune system via increased susceptibility to infection, thereby hastening the onset of immune related conditions, including AD and mental health conditions. Dr. Aiello has mentored 13 post-doctoral scholars/early stage faculty and 19 PhD mentees (13 have graduated and six in progress). Over the past five years, four of Dr. Aiello’s post-doctoral mentees/junior faculty have been funded on NIH K grants.
Kristine J. Ajrouch
Kristine J. Ajrouch, PhD is Director of the Michigan Center for Contextual Factors in Alzheimer’s Disease (MCCFAD), located at the University of Michigan. She is also Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University. Her research has focused, for over twenty years, on Arab Americans beginning with ethnic identity formation among adolescent children of immigrants followed by the study of social relations, aging and health. Dr. Ajrouch is currently leading two research projects around Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in the Arab American community. The first, funded by the National Institute of Aging, aims to establish prevalence levels of AD among Arab Americans aged 65 and older in the metro Detroit area. The second, funded by the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, will adapt an AD caregiver intervention program to meet the needs of Arab American families. She has mentored junior investigators at various points in their career, partnering with them to advance and develop skills in their particular areas of interest.
Roger L. Albin
Dr. Albin's primary research interest is non-treatable aspects of Parkinson disease, including cognitive impairment. He is Director of the University of Michigan Udall Center and Parkinson's Foundation Research Center of Excellence. He is also Director of the University of Michigan Clinical Neuroscientist Training Program and University of Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Research Education Component.
Marco Annoni
My research deals with bio-ethics and science. My main interests concern bioethics, moral philosophy, the ethics of clinical trials, research integrity, the ethics of the doctor-patient communication and placebo effects. Currently, I am a researcher in bioethics at the National Research Council (CNR), Coordinator of the Ethics Committee of Fondazione Umberto Veronesi, Editor-in-chief of the scientific journal The Future of Science and Ethics, and ethics consultant for the Human Technopole Foundation.
Lisa Barnes
Lisa L. Barnes, PhD is the Alla V. and Solomon Jesmer Professor of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine in the department of Neurological Sciences at Rush University Medical Center, and a cognitive neuropsychologist in the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center. She also has a joint appointment in the department of Psychiatry, division of Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Barnes earned her B.A. from Clark Atlanta University and received her PhD from the University of Michigan in the biopsychology department. Her research focus is on racial disparities in chronic diseases of aging including Alzheimer’s Disease and HIV. She is the Principal Investigator of two community-based cohort studies of older African Americans, and the Director of the Rush Center of Excellence on Disparities in HIV and Aging. Dr. Barnes has been recognized for her contributions to minority aging and health disparities by many professional organizations and has received numerous awards including the Centennial Scholar Award by the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, and the Steve Whitman Research Award by Health and Medicine Policy Research. She was named a Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology Fellow in 2011 and completed the Hedwig van Amerigen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) fellowship in 2018. She has published extensively on risk factors for cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease in older African Americans with close to 200 manuscripts to date.
Fabrizio Benedetti
Fabrizio Benedetti has been working on placebo and nocebo effects for several years, including their relationship with the clinician-patient interaction. He has described many mechanisms of placebo and nocebo across different medical conditions and therapeutic interventions in pain, motor disorders, dementia, hypoxia. He is involved in several programs as a mentor and tutor, e.g. with medical and psychology students as well as doctors in residency.
Martha Bruce
Martha L. Bruce, PhD, MPH is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Department of Community and Family Medicine, and the Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. She is the Director of Education, Training, and Career Development (including the KL2 program) for Dartmouth’s SYNERGY/CTSA, Scientific Director of the Dartmouth Primary Care Practice-Based Research Network, and Research Director for the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Academic Support Hub. Dr. Bruce has served on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) and Chaired the Board of Directors of AAGP’s Geriatric Mental Health Foundation. She has served on the Board of Directors for the National Network of Depression Centers, the Scientific Advisory Board for VA Blue Ribbon Panel on Suicide Prevention, and the Overview Expert Panel for the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention’s Research Prioritization Task Force. Dr. Bruce been funded consistently as PI for NIH grants since 1989, including R01, R24, R25, R29, K02 and T32 awards. The goal of her research has been to improve the care and outcomes of hard-to-reach, vulnerable, medically complex patients with mental health problems. She uses a public health approach to develop interventions and implementation strategies in partnership with community-based practice settings that care for these individuals.
Mercedes Carnethon
Dr. Carnethon is the Mary Harris Thompson Professor and Vice Chair of Preventive Medicine and Professor of Medicine (Pulmonology and Critical Care) at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. She is a cardiovascular disease epidemiologist whose research has focused broadly on cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes and lung health in the population subgroups defined by race/ethnicity, geography, socioeconomic status, gender and sexual orientation/gender identity. Dr. Carnethon and her team have examined how health behaviors and psychological health contribute to the onset and management of chronic diseases. She and her team have produced over 300 publications supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association. Dr. Carnethon is a leader in postdoctoral training and faculty development, having successfully mentored junior investigators who have subsequently earned their own grants and prestigious research awards. For her accomplishments in faculty development, she was named the Faculty Mentor of the Year in 2018 by the Medical Faculty Council at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.
Ivo Dinov
Dr. Dinov is the Director of the Statistics Online Computational Resource (SOCR) and is a professor of Health Behavior and Biological Sciences, and Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics at the University of Michigan. He is also Director of the Integrative Biostatistics and Informatics Core, University of Michigan Nutrition Obesity Research Center (MNORC), Director of the Biostatistics and Data Management Core, University of Michigan Udall Center for Excellence in Parkinson's Disease, Co-Director of the Center for Complexity and Self-management of Chronic Disease, Co-Director of the multi-institutional Probability Distributome Project, Associate Director of the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS), and Associate Director of the Michigan Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP). He is an expert in mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, computational processing and scientific visualization of large datasets (Big Data). His applied research is focused on nursing informatics, multimodal biomedical image analysis, and distributed genomics computing.
Stephanie Fitzpatrick
Stephanie Fitzpatrick is an Investigator with Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, OR. She holds a PhD in clinical psychology with a specialization in health psychology from the University of Miami. Her research focuses on embedding behavioral interventions for obesity and chronic disease management in primary care practices. She has expertise in development, implementation, and analysis of behavioral interventions, including the use of advanced statistical modeling including structural equation modeling and item response theory. Dr. Fitzpatrick was the principal investigator on a National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK)-funded R21 study that involved applying latent class analysis to data from two multi-site behavioral intervention trials (PREMIER and Weight Loss Maintenance) in order to identify individuals who successfully maintained health behavior changes for a year or more, and to establish demographic and baseline psychosocial predictors of behavior change maintenance. She is also co-principal investigator on a NIDDK-funded R01 to evaluate the implementation of the Diabetes Prevention Program at Kaiser Permanente Northwest. Dr. Fitzpatrick is also the principal investigator on a NIDDK-funded R34 to test the feasibility of a community health worker-led intervention to address diabetes self-management and unmet basic needs among racial/ethnic minority and low-income patients. She has extensive experience mentoring including nursing students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career investigators.
Joseph Gallo
Dr. Joseph J. Gallo MD MPH is a Professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research concerns the form and presentation of depression in late life in community settings, particularly primary health care in the context of medical comorbidity. A major focus of his research concerns the form and course of depression among older adults. Based on clinical experience, he noted that depressed older persons in primary care settings often did not assent to sadness. A second focus area has involved mental health treatment in primary care settings including medical comorbidity. He is the PI for a long-term follow-up of PROSPECT (Prevention of Suicide in Primary Care Elderly – Collaborative Trial), a randomized trial of depression management in primary care practices. The follow-up studies have examined mortality as an outcome in the context of medical comorbidity. He teaches a course in the School of Public Health called “The Intersection of Physical and Mental Health.” A third research focus involves the use of mixed methods in health services research. Mixed methods can bridge the gap between evidence generated from interventions under “ideal” conditions and the application of evidence-based practices for diverse populations in various contexts. He is the Principal Investigator for a new Mixed Methods Research Training Program for the Health Sciences, bringing Scholars and mentors in mixed methods together to advance the research employing mixed methods in the health sciences.
Richard Gonzalez
Research focuses on judgment and decision making, well-being, and dyadic interaction; also develop statistical models for longitudinal data and dyadic data; have supervised 38 PhD dissertations, served on over 120 dissertation committees, mentored 16 post docs, and served on over 20 mentoring committees of assistant professors.
Deborah Gross
Deborah Gross is the Leonard and Helen Stulman Professor in Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She is also holds joint appointments in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Mental Health. She holds a DNSc from the Rush University College of Nursing. Dr. Gross' research focuses on young children growing up in poverty and designing scalable interventions for strengthening parenting and parent-child relationships in under resourced communities. She led the development of the Chicago Parent Program, an evidence-based parenting program that has been implemented in more than 20 states and the District of Columbia and reached more than 7600 parents. Dr. Gross has served on numerous NIH review panels and mentored more than 30 PhD students and post-doctoral fellows.
Nao Hagiwara
Dr. Hagiwara is a leading researcher in the field of healthcare providers’ bias (i.e., prejudice and stereotyping) and racial disparities in healthcare and health. With training background in basic experimental social psychology, she grounds her applied disparities research in social psychology theories of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. To date, she has obtained multiple NIH grants on provider implicit bias and published over 45 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Her most recent work investigates how healthcare providers’ implicit racial prejudice manifests in their communication behavior during patient-provider communication, particularly in racially discordant medical interactions. Dr. Hagiwara has been also active in mentoring student trainees (NSF GRFP, NIH F31) and junior investigators. She is the Associate Director of the Faculty Development Program, the Center for Cultural Experiences of Prevention at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Rebecca Hasson
Rebecca Hasson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Schools of Kinesiology and Public Health and Director of the Childhood Disparities Research Laboratory at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Dr. Hasson received her Doctoral degree from the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Dr. Hasson has developed a nationally recognized cross-disciplinary research program that takes an environmental, behavioral, and biological perspective to understand racial/ethnic disparities in the development of obesity and obesity-related health complications in children and adolescents. Throughout her academic career, Dr. Hasson has been extensively involved with the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and American Public Health Association affiliate organizations. She serves on ACSM’s Board of Trustees and is Chair of ACSM's Strategic Health Initiative on Health Equity. Dr. Hasson is also a Past President of the Society for the Analysis of African-American Public Health Issues. Over the past 7 years while Dr. Hasson has been a faculty member at the University of Michigan she has trained and mentored 40 junior investigators.
Darrell Hudson
Dr. Darrell Hudson is an Associate Professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Hudson holds courtesy appointments with the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Sociology and is a Faculty Scholar with the Institute for Public Health. Dr. Hudson’s career is dedicated to the elimination of racial/ethnic inequities in health. His research agenda centers on how social determinants of health, particularly racism, affect multiple health outcomes. Dr. Hudson is also striving to develop researchers and professionals who are both well trained and passionate about achieving health equity.
Tene Lewis
Tene T. Lewis is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology with a minor in Health Psychology from the University of California Los Angeles. Her primary area of research is in the area of health psychology/psychosocial epidemiology, with an emphasis on cardiovascular health in women. She has a particular interest in understanding how psychological and social factors contribute to the disproportionately high rates of cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality observed in African-American women compared to women of other racial/ethnic groups. Dr. Lewis has two primary projects: one focused on psychosocial stress, resilience, and ambulatory blood pressure in healthy African-American women, and the other focused on psychosocial stress, inflammation and atherosclerosis in African-American women with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.
Spero Manson
Spero M. Manson, Ph.D. (Pembina Chippewa) is Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry, occupies the Colorado Trust Chair in American Indian Health, and directs the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health in the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Denver’s Anschutz Medical Center. His programs include 10 national centers, which pursue research, program development, training, and collaboration with 250 Native communities, spanning rural, reservation, urban, and village settings across the country. Dr. Manson has acquired $250 million in sponsored research to support this work, and published 260 articles on the assessment, epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of physical, alcohol, drug, as well as mental health problems over the developmental life span of Native people. His numerous awards include the American Public Health Association’s prestigious Rema Lapouse Mental Health Epidemiology Award (1998); 3 special recognition awards from the Indian Health Service (1996, 2004, 2011); election to the National Academy of Medicine (2002); 2 Distinguished Mentor Awards from the Gerontological Society of America (2006; 2007); the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Nickens Award (2006); the George Foster Award for Excellence from the Society for Medical Anthropology (2006); the National Institutes of Health Health Disparities Award for Excellence (2008); the Bronislaw Malinowski Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology (2019), and the Carl Taube Lifetime Award for Lifetime Contribution to Mental Health from the American Public Health Association (2019). Dr. Manson received his baccalaureate degree in Anthropology from the University of Washington (1972), as well as masters (1975) and doctoral degrees (1980) in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota. He is widely acknowledged as one of the nation’s leading authorities in regard to American Indian and Alaska Native health.
Michelle M. Mielke
Dr. Mielke works as a translational epidemiologist to further understanding of the etiology and epidemiology of neurodegenerative diseases. One focus of her research is the identification of fluid biomarkers for the diagnosis, prediction, and progression of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. Another focus of Dr. Mielke’s research is on understanding sex and gender differences in the development and progression of Alzheimer’s disease and of other aging-related conditions. She directs the Mayo Clinic Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) on Sex Differences. Dr. Mielke is co-Chair of the Sex and Gender Diversity Significant Interest Group for the Alzheimer’s Association Professional Interest Area. She received the John R. Raymond Mentor Award from the Women Scholars Initiative and has mentored over 30 students, fellows, and junior faculty. She is the PI of several NIH- and Foundation-funded clinical- and epidemiological-based grants and has published over 320 manuscripts.
Mahasin S. Mujahid
Mahasin S. Mujahid is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health and Chancellor's Professor of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also the Director of the MPH Program in Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Co-Director of Master of City Planning/Master of Public Health (MCP/MPH) Program at UC Berkley. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. Her primary area of research is the area of social epidemiology with a particular interest in investigations of neighborhood health effects, cardiovascular health disparities, and racial/ethnic health inequities over the life course. Using data from several U.S. based cardiovascular cohorts, Dr. Mujahid seeks to improve the measurement of structural and contextual measures, including specific features of neighborhood physical and social environments, and employ novel statistical methods to estimate the contribution of structural and contextual factors to cardiovascular health and health disparities. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published in leading public health and medical journals.
Marta Pecina
Dr. Peciña received her medical degree and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Navarra (Spain). Dr. Peciña also pursued postdoctoral work with Dr. Jon-Kar Zubieta in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan and was promoted to Research Assistant Professor. In 2016 – after receiving a K23 Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) – Dr. Peciña’s current research focuses on examining individual differences in mechanisms of antidepressant treatment response in order to identify new targets for therapeutic interventions. In particular, she is interested in understanding how expectancies and learning mechanisms impact mood improvement using placebos as experimental probes. Finally, Dr. Peciña is a dedicated mentor supervising trainees across multiple career stages. She fulfills her mentor role as an affiliated faculty of the Center for the Neural Bases of Cognition, the Bioengineering Psychiatry Training Program, the Physician Scientist Incubator Program, the Center for Neuroscience, the Medical Scientist Training Program, and as the co-director of the Behavioral Medicine MS1 course at the School of Medicine.
Norman Sartorius
Norman Sartorius, MD, PhD, FRCPsych, is the President of the International Association for the Improvement of Mental Health Programs. In the early years of his career he was interested in and studied psychopharmacotherapy and the standardization of assessment instruments for use in psychiatry and psychology. Later he conducted major international collaborative studies on schizophrenia, depression, quality of life, effects of female sterilization on mental health and the impact of HIV on psychological functioning. He has also conducted studies on the functioning of health services and the provision of mental health care in primary health services. A topic of particular interest in many of the studies which he conducted was transcultural comparisons and methods of measuring psychological functioning in different contexts. Most recently he has been engaged in research on comorbidity of diabetes and depression, and on the stigma of mental illness. Over the years he has also conducted special courses for young investigators and early career psychiatrists with particular emphasis on their acquisition of professional and leadership skills. These courses were by now held on all continents and were attended by more than 3000 participants from more than 50 countries.
Amy Schulz
Amy J. Schulz is a Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She received her PhD in Sociology and her MPH in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan. She has expertise in the joint contributions of social and physical environmental exposures to health inequities, and is a leading scholar in the field of community based participatory research (CBPR), with a focus on working collaboratively with community, practice and academic partners to conduct both etiologic and intervention research. She serves as PI for Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments, a community based participatory research (CBPR) partnership conducting etiologic research on air pollution and health, estimating health impacts of mitigation strategies, and strategic actions to reduce air pollution and improve health and health equity, since 2014. She has also served as PI for the Healthy Environments Partnership, a CBPR partnership focused on understanding and designing, implementing and evaluating interventions to address social determinants of cardiovascular disease in Detroit since 2000. Her extensive experience as a mentor and trainer encompasses more than twenty-five successful doctoral and post-doctoral scholars, extensive service as a trainer in community and academic venues on CBPR, social and environmental determinants of health inequities, and intervention design and evaluation.
Mario Sims
Dr. Mario Sims is a Full Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He is also the Chief Science Officer of the Jackson Heart Study (JHS), Co-Investigator in the JHS Field and Coordinating Centers. He is a Social Epidemiologist with specific training in population health and medical sociology. Dr. Sims holds a PhD in Medical Sociology and Demography from the University of Wisconsin. His current research focuses on understanding the social determinants of cardiovascular disease (CVD), with a specific interest in examining the extent to which psychosocial factors such as stress and racial discrimination influence CVD disparities. He is the chair of the JHS Ancillary Study Subcommittee, and co-chair of the JHS Social Determinants of Health Working Group. Dr. Sims has published over 140 papers in scientific peer-reviewed journals and have given over 120 professional presentations at scientific conferences, symposia and grand rounds. Dr. Sims is the chair of the American Heart Association (AHA) Epidemiology and Prevention Council Social Determinants of Health Committee, and is a member of the AHA EPI Leadership Committee, AHA EPI Council Publications Committee, and AHA Committee for Scientific Sessions Programming. He has mentored over 50 undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral students and early career scientists in CVD epidemiology.
Phyllis Sharps
Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN, FAAN, is the Elsie M. Lawler Endowed Chair, and Professor of Nursing and Associate Dean for Community Programs and Initiatives at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. She holds a doctorate in nursing research from the University of Maryland School of Nursing, and also completed a fellowship in adolescent health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The consistent focus Dr. Sharps’ research has been using translational research strategies to provide evidenced based nursing practices that effectively address and decrease risks that contribute to health disparities among low income, often African American women and children. She has successfully secured CDC, DOD and NIH funding to support research projects targeting interventions to reduce violence against pregnant women. Dr. Sharps has been the PI or co-investigator on projects related to intimate partner violence (IPV), and subsequent health consequences for women. Dr. Sharps has had a consistent long-term commitment to mentoring and proven productivity in launching graduate and doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty into clinical research careers.
Dara Sorkin
Dara H. Sorkin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, and Director of the Community Engagement Unit for UCI's Institute for Clinical and Translational Science. She holds a PhD in Psychology and Social Behavior from the University of California, Irvine. She is a health services researcher trained in lifespan and health psychology and sociology with extensive experience in developing and testing health promotion interventions for diverse populations, particularly ethnic/racially diverse adults, using social networks, innovative incentives and interventions, and the use of mobile technologies. Dr. Sorkin has extensive experience working with large interdisciplinary teams to design and implement large-scale, randomized controlled trials based in both primary care medical settings, as well as in community settings working with ethnically/racially diverse populations. Her work also includes incorporating dissemination and implementation science into the study of translation of evidence-based interventions for health care and community settings. She has been involved in training at the graduate, post-doctoral, and junior faculty level in the areas of public health, epidemiology, psychology, and medicine.
Wassim Tarraf
Dr. Wassim Tarraf is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Gerontology and in the Department of Healthcare Sciences at Wayne State University. He is a gerontologist, methodologist, health services researcher, and policy analyst. His research evaluates disparities in health, health behavior, and healthcare access and use among race/ethnic minorities in the United States, and investigates the social determinants of health and healthcare. His work relies primarily on analyses of large complex data sets. Currently, Dr. Tarraf is an affiliated investigator on the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL), the largest epidemiological study of diverse Hispanic/Latinos in the US. Additionally, he is the Analysis Core co-leader for the NIA-funded Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research (MCUAAAR) and a faculty affiliate with the Michigan Center for Contextual Factors in Alzheimer's Disease (MCCFAD). These two Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research are primarily focused on training the next generation of researchers in minority health and enhancing the diversity of the aging research community. His research career has been devoted to the analyses of population health data with a particular focus on minority populations, evaluating disparities in health, cognitive function, health behaviors, and use of healthcare among race/ethnic minorities in the US, and investigating the social determinants of health and healthcare use among minorities.
Daphne Watkins
Dr. Daphne C. Watkins is Professor of Social Work and Director of the Vivian A. and James L. Curtis Center for Health Equity Research and Training at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. Her research underscores the social determinants of health that explain within group differences among Black men; evidence-based strategies that improve the mental health of Black men; and the intersection of race, culture, and gender over the life course. After receiving a PhD from Texas A&M University, Dr. Watkins completed a NIMH T32 postdoctoral fellowship at the U-M Institute for Social Research Survey Research Center and a NIH K12 career development award in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Michigan Medicine. She has served as Principal Investigator on several university- and foundation-funded projects and Co-Investigator on two NIH R01 randomized controlled trials. Her current research involves working with stakeholders to design, implement, and evaluate community-based mental health interventions for marginalized groups of men. Dr. Watkins also has experience applying rigorous qualitative and quantitative research methods, using secondary data in mixed methods studies, and delivering mental health interventions via social media. She has mentored a host of students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty over the years and is eager to work with MIWI scholars interested in using mixed methods to explore health inequities among marginalized populations.
Advisory Board
William Eaton
William Eaton is a Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin. He is aleading expert in the field of psychiatric epidemiology,and led the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for nine years. Dr. Eaton uses the epidemiologic framework to explain the risk factors, natural history, and consequences of major mental disorders. He also takes the sociologic approach to understand the occurrence of the subset of bizarre behaviors that generally are labeled as psychiatric disorders.More recently, his work has focused on the epidemiology of autoimmune diseases and their relationship to risk for autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.
Laura Kubzansky
Dr. Laura Kubzansky is Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Society and Health Laboratory at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She also serves as co-Director of the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness and as co-Director of the JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Program. Dr. Kubzansky received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan. Dr. Kubzansky has published extensively on the role of psychological and social factors in health, with a particular focus on the effects of stress and emotion on heart disease. She also conducts research on whether stress, emotion and other psychological factors help to explain the relationship between social status and health. Other research projects and interests include a) studying the biological mechanisms linking emotions, social relationships, and health; b) relationships between early childhood environments, resilience, and healthy aging, and; c) how interactions between psychosocial stress and environmental exposures (e.g., lead, air pollution) may influence health.
Frans Pouwer
Dr. Frans Pouwer is a Professor of Medical Psychology at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). His research focuses on the psychological aspects of diabetes mellitus. His other research topics include the psychological impact of hypoglycaemia, appraisals of insulin therapy, eating problems, disturbed sleep, parent-child interactions, and stigma in diabetes. He leads the INSIDE Research Group at SDU, which is dedicated to research in the field of behavioral medicine. The research program is based on the premises that mind and body interact to influence susceptibility to disease and its course, and that patient centeredness is key to optimize the management and care of patients with somatic disease. The overall mission of INSIDE is to contribute to enhancing the management and care of patients with somatic disease through interdisciplinary research.
Rebecca Thurston
Dr. Rebecca Thurston is the Director of the Women's Biobehavioral Health Laboratory and a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. She holds a PhD in Clinical Health Psychology from Duke University. She leads an interdisciplinary research program focusing on cardiovascular risk and midlife women's health. Currently, she is conducting NIH R01-funded work testing the relations between menopausal hot flashes and cardiovascular disease risk in women. She is also PI of a K24 grant focused on interdisciplinary training and mentoring in women's cardiovascular health. A final line of Dr, Thurston's research focuses on psychosocial factors in cardiovascular disease risk in women, including socioeconomic and racial disparities in cardiovascular disease in women, as well as the role of psychosocial factors such as depression, anxiety, and violence exposure. Methodologically, her work integrates methods from health psychology, behavioral medicine, and epidemiology.
Staff
Monica Firestone
Monica Firestone is the Project Coordinator for the Michigan Integrative Well-Being and Inequality Training Program. In this role she organizes the logistics for the summer institute and the events before and after the institute. She maintains the program website and serves as a primary point of contact for the program. She holds a M.Ed in Elementary Education from The George Washington University. If you have any questions, please contact her at monicadf@umich.edu