RESEARCH
TEAM
The
Global
ARC
San
Ysidro
Health
UC San Diego
Investigators
UC
San Diego
Research
Staff
Interns
The Global ARC
Paul serves as the President/CEO of the Global Action Research Center located in San Diego, California. Paul has over 40-years’ experience in community organizing, non-profit management, and education & training. Paul has taught in four universities and colleges and currently is a consultant to numerous community-based organizations and coalitions. For further information regarding Paul and The Global Action Research Center please review the Global ARC’s Website by clicking here.
Global ARC
CB Org
Paul Watson
Bill received his Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island, where he studied Community Psychology. His work is focused on supporting communities in finding their voice, becoming civically engaged, and inserting that voice into the public dialogue. With over thirty years of experience his work has ranged from direct organizing to providing training and technical assistance to community leaders to conducting participatory research in support of community campaigns. To learn more about The Global Arc, click here.
Global ARC
CB Org Lead
Bill Oswald
Global ARC
Tech Lead
Raphael Lagoc
Marina has been with the Global ARC since 2015, starting as a volunteer at Ocean View Growing Grounds. Later, she started working as the Community Outreach Coordinator at the OVGG, promoting health and connecting community members to the Global Food Justice Movement through the urban garden and giving them the opportunity to connect with professors, researchers, students, community knowledge, and residents. Marina has also helped with teaching UCSD students interested in community organizing, taking them to do field work canvasing the community, creating surveys, and more. Additionally, Marina works as an advocate for residents, students, and parents, informing them about the opportunities that the San Diego Unified School District has for our children in school and giving advice to parents on advocating for their children's education. As the only member of the Global ARC who is fluent in both English and Spanish, Marina helps with translation on projects with San Diego’s Hispanic populations making alliance with different community organization as PSRO and Education Coalition. For 16 years, Marina has been a member of a non-profit organization, Latinos y Latinas EnAccion, and currently serves on their board of directors, promoting the immigrant vote, filling out immigration forms, providing citizenship classes, and more.Right now, she is working on the Board of Assessors of STOP – COVID19 and CO-CREATE, giving support to the Spanish speaker’s members to advocate for the Latino community.
Global ARC
Translation Facilitator
Marina Castelo
San Ysidro Health
Jeannette L. Aldous, MD is the Clinical Director of Infectious Disease at San Ysidro Health, a large Federally Qualified Health Center serving the US-Mexico border region in San Diego County. She received her medical degree from UCSD, completed residency in Internal Medicine at University of Colorado and returned to UCSD for a Fellowship Infectious Disease. Dr. Aldous has a career focus on health disparities in historically underserved communities and serves as the director for San Ysidro Health’s HIV, Tuberculosis, Infectious Disease, and Gender-affirming Medicine programs. Since March, Dr. Aldous has been directing San Ysidro Health’s COVID-19 response; providing education and engagement on COVID-19 prevention, testing, treatment, and community impact.
SYH
Partner Co-Investigator
Jeannette Aldous
Fatima is the Director of the Department of Research and Health Promotion at San Ysidro Health (SYH) a high performing Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that provides safety net care to over 97,000 patients annually in the South Bay region of San Diego. She is a Mexican physician native of the San Diego/Tijuana border region, have a Medical Degree and a Masters in Public Health with over 15 years of clinical experience focused on research and health prevention programs specifically among underserved populations. Herresearch over the last years has focused on infectious disease epidemiology, border health research, and elimination of health disparities, with an emphasis on chronic diseases, HIV care and prevention, tuberculosis (TB), specifically vulnerable groups (i.e., racial/ethnic minorities, such as Hispanic/Latino population), both domestically and internationally. She has also initiated research activities examining health services utilization and the potential of mHealth technology integration into existing health services in order to improve treatment adherence and reduce the burden of high priority diseases, such as diabetes, TB and HIV. In 2016, SYH was awarded a NIH pilot grant the ‘All of Us Research Program’ and Fatima is the PI at SYH. Most recently, by the recommendation of the California State Senate she was selected to be a Member of the new Advisory Council for the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine (CIAPM). She is committed to expanding the mission of SYH to further address health disparities and access to care issues among our most underserved communities.
SYH
Partner Co-Investigator
Fatima Munoz
As a board-certified OB/GYN and the Department Chair at San Ysidro Health Center, I have focused my career on developing programs to improve resources for women and children to ultimately improve clinical, quality of life and health outcomes during pregnancy. At San Ysidro Health Center, we have offices at multiple locations in San Diego county. I am involved in the teaching and mentorship of residents, medical students while also participating in clinical conferences and educational activities for our staff. As the Medical Director for Scripps Mercy Chula Vista OB/GYN Department, I have been fortunate to deliver many babies while offering dedication and continued commitment to reduction of perinatal complications such as perinatal infections, premature birth, and preeclampsia.
SYH
Partner Co-Investigator + CSAB Member
My Dinh
Linda received her Master in Public Health with an emphasis in Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences from San Diego State University (SDSU) and received her “Certified in Public Health” credential in 2015. Linda has over 10 years of experience working with underserved populations focusing on STI/HIV prevention, nutrition and chronic disease prevention. Soon after earning her degree, Linda began to work for San Ysidro Health overseeing a new 5-year CDC-funded grant in HIV prevention in the South San Diego Region. Since then, Linda has managed multiple grant-funded research programs including the NIH funded All of Us Research Program formerly known as the Precision Medicine Initiative. Her expertise specifically encompasses qualitative research methods, program and protocol development, program implementation, evaluation and data management and analysis in the context of FQHCs.
SYH
Partner Co-Investigator
Linda Salgin
Since finishing the UCSD Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency Program in 2012, I have worked providing full time primary care to adults and children near the border of Mexico in southern San Diego.
First, with the Imperial Beach Community Clinic and currently with San Ysidro Health, I've worked for federally qualified health centers, while continuing to perform inpatient hospital care at Scripps Mercy Chula Vista,
where we largely take care of the patients admitted to the hospital from the south bay FQHCs. My teaching efforts include the hospital work at Scripps where I attend for the Scripps Family Medicine Residency Program
inpatient medicine team and as a UCSD Voluntary Clinical Instructor for the Med-Peds Residency Program.
SYH
Partner Co-Investigator + CSAB Member
Benedict Dillon
Norma Porras is a Program Coordinator for the Research and Health Promotion (RHP) Department at San Ysidro Health. She has an Associate’s Degree in General Studies/Bilingual Paralegal Studies from Southwestern Collage. Norma has over 9 years of experience working in healthcare services, specifically facilitating access to care among underserved population. She began her journey in research as a Research Assistant at UCSD for the Salud research study based on a curriculum developed by Stanford University in 2013. In 2018, Norma joined San Ysidro Health working on the 211 for Healthy Kids project and was subsequently invited to join the All of Us Research Program. In 2019, she began working on the HRSA Health Center Patient Survey and has engaged with over 1,000 SYHealth patients from different clinic sites. Most recently, in July 16th, Norma was promoted as a Program Coordinator for the COVID19 Testing grant, Co-Create. In her free time, Norma’s volunteers as an animal rescuer in Tijuana Mexico.
SYH
Program Coordinator
Norma Porras
Pablo is a Research Assistant with San Ysidro Health. They were born and raised in South Bay, spending most of their life between Tijuana and San Diego. They received their Bachelor’s Degree in Women’s Studies from San Diego State University in 2021. During the pandemic, Pablo worked with SD County HHSA in their public health efforts against COVID-19 and at ARCHES LGBTQ+ Public Health Research Lab. Their passion is to continue to work addressing health disparities among members of marginalized and vulnerable communities. Outside of work, they like to ride motorcycles and volunteer with organizations like Detention Resistance and UCSD Student Run Free Clinic.
SYH
Research Assistant
Pablo Cuellar
UC San Diego Investigators
Work in our laboratory is directed toward understanding he impact of 1) environmental toxicants on the development and progression of liver fibrosis and 2) the role of naturally occurring antioxidants such as serum bilirubin in the regulation of gene expression. Through the Superfund Research Center (SRC), which I currently Direct, our biomedical programs focus on the underlying mechanisms associated with Toxicant Associated Steatohepatitis (TASH), while the Environmental and Engineering group focuses on the development of unique biologically orientated bioremediation tools. This expertise is leveraged in our Outreach and Community Engagement programs in South San Diego where efforts have been developed through community gardens and education to improve healthy living and reduce existing health disparities. The organizational structure of our SRC helped to quickly structure the working groups that resulted in the formulation of the UC San Diego RADX-UP program.
UCSD
Co-Principal Investigator
Robert Tukey
Louise Laurent, MD/PhD is a Professor and the Vice-Chair for Translational Research in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, and Co-Director for the UCSD Center for Perinatal Discovery. She received her medical and doctoral degrees from the University of California, San Francisco, and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology and her fellowship in Maternal Fetal Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Her basic science research centers on using stem cell and genomic approaches to understand early embryo development and normal and complicated pregnancy, and her translational research focuses on discovery of biomarkers for prediction and diagnosis of pregnancy complications.Dr. Laurent and Dr. Tukey are the multi-PIs for the CO-CREATE project, and Dr. Laurent is the Technical Supervisor and Clinical Consultant for the UC San Diego EXCITE COVID-19 Testing Lab. For more information about Dr. Laurent click here. For more information about the UCSD Center for Perinatal Discovery click here.
UCSD
Co-Principal Investigator
Louise Laurent
Dr. Nicole Stadnick, PhD., MPH., is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego, Director of Dissemination and Evaluation of the UC San Diego Dissemination and Implementation Science Center, researcher at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center and a licensed psychologist. Her program of federally, state and privately funded research focuses on evaluating the effectiveness and implementation of evidence-based practices intended for individuals seeking community-based health or mental health services. She has received NIH-funded fellowships from the Child, Intervention, Prevention, and Services Research Mentoring Network (2015-2016, the Implementation Research Institute (2017-2018) and the Mixed Methods Training Program for the Health Sciences (2019-2020). She currently leads several implementation projects focused on community-engaged, cross-system health services and implementation research for individuals, with complex health clinical presentations served in a variety of community settings including federally qualified health centers, low-and-middle income countries, publicly-funded mental health services and HIV/AIDS care programs. For more information about Dr. Stadnick click here.
UCSD
Co-Investigator
Nicole Stadnick
Dr. Borsika Rabin, PhD, MPH, PharmD is an Assistant Professor at the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, the Co-Director of the UC San Diego Dissemination and Implementation Science Center (DISC) and the San Diego CFAR Implementation Science Hub, and an Implementation Science (IS) expert on a number of large NIH and VA Center grants and research projects including the VA San Diego Center of Excellence for Stress and Mental Health and the Quadruple Aim QUERI Program (Denver VA). Dr. Rabin’s research focuses on improving population health outcomes in real-world clinical and public health settings through increasing the equitable reach, adoption, implementation, and sustained use of evidence-based interventions. She does this through the development of models, methods, and measures for dissemination and implementation science and their application across diverse topic areas, populations, and settings in order to demonstrate their wide utility and broad generalizability. Dr. Rabin also has extensive expertise in developing and implementing novel and diverse capacity building approaches for dissemination and implementation research. Click here to learn more.
UCSD
Co-Investigator
Borsika Rabin
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Marva Seifert, PhD MPH is an assistant professor at University of California San Diego in the Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine. Dr. Seifert’s research has focused primarily on the development and evaluation of rapid diagnostics for pulmonary infectious diseases, specifically tuberculosis and associated drug-resistant variants. She is particularly interested in leveraging novel technologies to develop innovative point-of-care solutions for traditionally difficult to detect pathogens. Most recently her work has focused on the uptake of SARS-CoV-2 testing in underserved communities. Click here to visit her UCSD page.
UCSD
Co-Investigator
Marva Seifert
Ilya Zaslavsky is director of Spatial Information Systems Lab at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California San Diego. His research focuses on distributed information management systems, spatial and temporal data integration, spatial data science, and online visual data analysis. Zaslavsky received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington (1995), and earlier a Ph.D. equivalent from the Russian Academy of Sciences (1990). He has been leading design and technical development in several large cyberinfrastructure projects supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and other agencies.
UCSD
Co-Investigator
Ilya Zaslavsky
Rob Knight is the founding Director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation and Professor of Pediatrics, Bioengineering, and Computer Science & Engineering at UC San Diego. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Microbiology. He was honored with the 2019 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for his microbiome research and received the 2017 Massry Prize, often considered a predictor of the Nobel. He is the author of “Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes” (Simon & Schuster, 2015), coauthor of “Dirt is Good: The Advantage of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System (St. Martin’s Press, 2017), and written over 700 scientific articles. He spoke at TED in 2014 which is viewed over 2 million times. His lab has produced many of the software tools and laboratory techniques that enabled high-throughput microbiome science, including the QIIME pipeline (cited over 23,000 times as of this writing) and UniFrac (cited over 9500 times including its web interface). He is co-founder of the Earth Microbiome Project, the American Gut Project, and the company Biota, Inc., which uses DNA from microbes in the subsurface to guide oilfield decisions. His work has linked microbes to a range of health conditions including obesity and inflammatory bowel disease, has enhanced our understanding of microbes in environments ranging from the oceans to the tundra, and made high-throughput sequencing techniques accessible to thousands of researchers around the world. Dr. Knight can be followed on Twitter or on his web site
UCSD
Co-Investigator
Rob Knight
Gene Yeo, PhD MBA is a Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), a founding member of the Institute for Genomic Medicine and member of the UCSD Stem Cell Program and Moores Cancer Center. Yeo is a Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator and has received numerous awards for his research in RNA biology, computational biology and therapeutics in the area of neuromuscular diseases, including the inaugural Early Career Award (2017) and Elisa Izaurralde Award (2021) from the international RNA Society. Yeo is a co-founder of Locanabio, Eclipse Bioinnovations, Enzerna and Proteona and is on multiple scientific advisory boards in life sciences companies and venture funds. Yeo has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a BA in Economics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from the UCSD Rady School of Management. Click here to see his lab website.
UCSD
Co-Investigator
Gene Yeo
Keith Pezzoli is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego where he serves as Director of the Bioregional Center for Sustainability Science, Planning and Design. Pezzoli also leads the Community Engagement Core and Research Translation Core of UC San Diego’s Superfund Research Center supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Click here for more information.
UCSD
Co-Investigator
Keith Pezzoli
UC San Diego Research Staff
Shashank received his Bachelor of Technology degree in Bioinformatics from the Dr. D.Y. Patil University in Mumbai, India in 2010. He moved to USA to pursue graduate studies in Bioinformatics at the San Diego State University in 2011 and achieved his Master’s degree in 2015.Shashank started his Bioinformatics career in 2013 as an Intern at the Allen Lab in J.Craig Venter Institute, where he performed transcriptomic analyses on marine species such as diatoms. In 2014, Shashank joined Dr. Yeo’s group as a Bioinformatics staff member, focused on analyzing RNA processing data using computational methods. Currently, Shashank works on studying RNA subcellular localization and RNA-RBP interactions under stress, developmental and diseased conditions.
UCSD
Programmer/Developer
Shashank Sathe
Kelli Cain is a Senior Research Manager in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego. She has a master’s degree in health psychology from San Diego State University and a research background in public health, built environment and physical activity. She has been managing research studies for 20 years including numerous NIH grants focused on health outcomes in all age groups. She also manages the IPEN international coordinating center for built environment and physical activity research that includes partners from over 15 countries. Click here for more information.
UCSD
Senior Research Manager
Kelli Cain
Maria Linda Burola is a bilingual Clinical Research Coordinator for the CO-CREATE Project with UC San Diego Health. She graduated from UC Davis in 2012 with a degree in Spanish and Chicano/a Studies, then received her MS in Nutrition from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Maria Linda’s research focus is in childhood obesity interventions and has extensive experience working with women’s health, diabetes in pregnancy, and group pregnancy care within FQHC and non-profit organizations.
UCSD
Clinical Research Coordinator
Maria Linda Burola
Breanna Reyes is an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator for the CO-CREATE project with UCSD Health. She graduated from UC San Diego in 2018, then received her MPH in Health Promotion and Health Education from Cal State San Marcos. She has experience working with diverse communities in the San Diego region in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, mental health and migrant health. Her passions include addressing health inequities and hopes to one day become a Physician Assistant.
UCSD
Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator
Breanna Reyes
Arleth is a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in General Biology and Global Health. As an aspiring physician, her goal is to make an impact through both direct patient care and by minimizing health disparities through public health policy.
UCSD
Student Research Employee
Arleth Escoto
Stephenie Tinoco Calvillo is a Clinical Research Coordinator Assistant for the CO-CREATE Project with UC San Diego Health. She graduated from UC San Diego in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Public Health. She has been involved in clinical research since 2018 and previously worked in a pediatric
gastroenterology lab. She is passionate about advocating for equitable healthcare for women and children, and bridging research and health care in communities of color.
UCSD
Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator
Stephenie Tinoco Calvillo
Angel graduated from UC San Diego in the Summer of 2022 with a B.S. in Public Health - Epidemiology. He is currently completing his Master of Public Health Epidemiology degree at UC San Diego. His goal is to complete his education and complete a PhD in Epidemiology/Biostatistics. His interests include health behavior and infectious diseases.
UCSD
Student Researcher
Angel Lomeli
Isabel is a fourth-year Global Health major, minoring in Human Rights and Migration. She is interested in pursuing a career in the medical field as a physician assistant, to give back to her community and in hopes of minimizing health care disparities in underserved communities. With Co-Create Isabel is hoping to gain more knowledge and help understand any barriers with COVID-19 prevalent in the San Ysidro community.
UCSD
Intern
Isabel Villegas
Maria is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UC San Diego majoring in Public Health. Her current career goals are attending PA school and ultimately having a career in medicine.
UCSD
Intern
Maria Balbuena-Bojorquez
Melody is a second-year Public Health Major. She is interested in pursuing a career in the medical field as a physician assistant. She is a student research intern with UCSD's CO-CREATE team working to help understand how to minimize the health disparities caused by COVID-19 in the San Ysidro community.
UCSD
Intern
Melody Torres
Ariel is a third year undergraduate student at UC San Diego majoring in Global Health. As a research intern for CO-CREATE, he is eager to learn and work towards minimizing health disparities among underserved populations, especially during these times of crisis. He aspires to become a compassionate, conscientious, and devoted physician. Click here to learn more
UCSD
Intern
Ariel Cohen
Clara is an intern working on website design for the CO-CREATE project. She graduated from the National Circus School of Montreal 2021.
UCSD
Intern
Clara Laurent
Elodie is an intern working on graphic design for the CO-CREATE project. She is a junior at La Jolla High School.
UCSD
Intern
Elodie Laurent
Keira is a second-year undergraduate student studying Public Health at UC San Diego. She is an intern at CO-CREATE and is helping them collect COVID-19 samples and entering data.
UCSD
Intern
Keira Beltran-Murillo
Starla is a fourth-year Public Health: Medicine Science major. She plans on pursuing a career as a Physician Assistant as well as in Public Health and preventative health working with Spanish speaking communities.
UCSD
Intern