Claudia Buss, Ph.D.
Claudia Buss, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) School of Medicine; a senior investigator at the UC Irvine Development, Health and Disease Research Program; and a Professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany. Her research interest is in developmental programming of health and disease risk, with an emphasis on the effects of stress and stress-related biological (maternal–placental–fetal endocrine, immune, genetic) and behavioral (nutrition, physical activity, smoking/drug use) processes during human pregnancy and fetal brain development. She also studies general health and disease susceptibility. Dr. Buss’s research has been continuously supported by several grants from the National Institutes of Health and other agencies.

April Idalski Carcone, Ph.D., M.S.W.
Dr. Carcone is a member of the Behavioral Sciences Division of the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences. Dr. Carcone is a social worker by training with over 20 years’ experience in behavioral health research. Her research has three main foci. First is the development and testing of behavioral interventions, primarily eHealth interventions, to improve health outcomes with an emphasis on pediatric and emerging adults with chronic illnesses, including type 1 diabetes, asthma, obesity, and HIV. Second is the study of patient-provider communication in clinical contexts with a specific emphasis on examining the mechanisms of effect in Motivational Interviewing. This research also includes the use of machine learning algorithms to automate the qualitative coding process and facilitate treatment delivery. And, finally, the use of implementation science to study the translation of efficacious interventions from the academic to the real world.

Sannisha K. Dale, Ph.D., Ed.M.
Dr. Sannisha Dale is an Associate Professor with tenure in Psychology and a secondary appointment in Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami (UM). She is also a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and the Founder and Director of the SHINE (Strengthening Health through INnovation and Engagement) Research Program. Her primary research interests are (a) enhancing our understanding of the relationships between resilience, trauma, and health outcomes among individuals with HIV and those placed at risk for HIV, (b) investigating psychosocial and structural factors that relate to HIV health inequities, (c) developing effective prevention, intervention, and implementation strategies to promote resilience and good health outcomes amongst survivors of trauma and individuals with or placed at risk for HIV, especially individuals minoritized due to interlocking systems of oppression, and who are heavily burdened by the HIV epidemic, and (d) engaging community members and stakeholders in research. She has been a PI of 15 grants in the area of HIV treatment and prevention. Dr. Dale values community engagement and view strong community partners as the bedrock to conducting impactful HIV health equity research and her efforts have been recognized by three awards (e.g., Rhoda Johnson-Tuckett Award for Commitment to Community-Engaged Research and a Community Hero Award) and several certificates/plaques of appreciation from community partners. In addition to her noted research projects, she has given over 150 presentations of her work domestically and internationally, authored over 80 publications, received four early career researcher awards and three mentorship awards, and serve as an associate editor, consulting editor, and reviewer across several peer-reviewed journals.

Negar Fani, Ph.D., ABPP 
Dr. Negar Fani is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University and investigator at the Grady Trauma Project, an ongoing trauma study in Atlanta, Georgia. Her multimodal research centers around investigating and treating diverse cognitive and affective sequalae of interpersonal trauma, including racial trauma, with a particular focus on attention and interoception. She augments existing interventions, such as breath-focused mindfulness, with technologies such as sternal vibration and electrical stimulation to enhance treatment engagement and efficacy, and also partners with community organizations to assess intervention acceptability.

Sandro Galea, M.D., Dr.P.H., M.P.H.
Sandro Galea, a physician, epidemiologist, and author, is dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. He previously held academic and leadership positions at Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He has published extensively in the peer-reviewed literature and is a regular contributor to a range of public media, about the social causes of health, mental health, and the consequences of trauma. He has been listed as one of the most widely cited scholars in the social sciences. He serves as chair of the Boston Board of Health, is past chair of the board of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health and past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. Galea has received several lifetime achievement awards. Galea holds a medical degree from the University of Toronto, graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Glasgow and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In 2025, Galea will become the inaugural Margaret C Ryan Dean of the School of Public Health and the Eugene S and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis.

Derek Griffith, Ph.D.
Derek M. Griffith, PhD is the Risa Lavizzo-Mourey Population Health and Health Equity University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. At Pennsylvania, he also is a Fellow and Senior Advisor on Health Equity and Anti-Racism for The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, while outside of Penn he serves as the Chair of Global Action on Men’s Health and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Men’s Social and Community Health. Trained in psychology and public health, Dr. Griffith’s research focuses on achieving racial, ethnic, and gender equity in health. He specializes in interventions to promote Black men's health and well-being, and anti-racism interventions to mitigate and undo the effects of structural racism on health. He has been the principal investigator of research grants from the American Cancer Society, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and several institutes within the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Griffith is a contributor to and co-editor of four books, including - Racism: Science and Tools for the Public Health Professional, 2nd Edition that was published in October 2024. Dr. Griffith has received four noteworthy honors: (a) Tom Bruce Award from the Community-Based Public Health Caucus of the American Public Health Association for his research on “eliminating health disparities that vary by race, ethnicity and gender”; (b) a Fellow of the American Academy of Health Behavior for his significant contributions to the field of health behavior research; (c) one of 1,000 Inspiring Black Scientists in America by the Cell Mentor’s Community of Scholars; and (d) a citation from the president of the American Psychological Association “For his extraordinary leadership in addressing the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of the nation and specifically for African American and Latino men”.

Brenda Heaton, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Brenda Heaton, Ph.D., M.P.H. is the Associate Dean for Research and an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Health Services Research at the University of Utah School of Dentistry. She is also Adjunct Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences in the University of Utah School of Medicine. She received her PhD in Epidemiology from Boston University School of Public Health where she also maintains an adjunct position as Associate Professor of Epidemiology. Dr. Heaton’s primary research interests include a focus on the social production of oral health, with an overall goal of addressing the complex mechanisms responsible for the emergence of oral health disparities. In addition, she also maintains significant scholarship in the area of periodontal disease epidemiology with interests in the relationship between periodontitis and other chronic inflammatory diseases, periodontitis and reproductive outcomes, and the validity of clinical and self-report measures for population-level research. Her research has been funded by multiple awards from the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research, including most recently by the Sustaining Outstanding Achievements in Research (SOAR) R35 mechanism in recognition of her research productivity, mentoring track record, and service to the professional research community.

Pei-Jung  Lin, Ph.D., M.S.
Dr. Lin is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health at Tufts Medical Center and Tufts University School of Medicine. She is a health economist specializing in outcomes research, value measurement, and cost-effectiveness analysis. Her work focuses on the health and financial impacts of Alzheimer’s disease on individuals, caregivers, and the healthcare system. Dr. Lin’s recent NIA-funded research examined racial and ethnic disparities in Alzheimer’s diagnosis, treatment, end-of-life care, and healthcare costs, highlighting systemic inequalities. She served on the Steering Committee for the 2023 NIA Dementia Care and Caregiving Research Summit. She is a Review Editor for Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, a Section Editor for Alzheimer's & Dementia: Behavior & Socioeconomics of Aging, and a Guest Editor for Value in Health’s Themed Section on the Health Economics of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias.

Justin Parent, Ph.D.
Dr. Parent received his Ph.D. in Clinical and Developmental Psychology at the University of Vermont and completed his clinical psychology internship at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Dr. Parent is the Director of the Kids Development & Stress Lab in the College of Health Science at the University of Rhode Island. He is the author of over 80 peer-reviewed studies; his research has been supported by grants from NIMHD, NICHD, and NIGMS and has been recognized through several awards (e.g., APS Rising Star).

Anita Raj, Ph.D., M.S.
Dr. Anita Raj is the Executive Director of the Newcomb Institute and the Nancy Reeves Dreux Endowed Chair in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University. She is a research scientist trained in developmental psychology and public health with a multi-disciplinary research focus on gender equity in global health and development. She has led federal grant and foundation-funded studies on gender theory and measurement science, sexual and reproductive health, maternal and adolescent health, women’s empowerment, and gender inequalities, including gender-based violence and child marriage. She created and leads the EMERGE platform, which provides open access evidence-based measures on gender empowerment, built indicators on gender empowerment in national surveys for global tracking of SDG5, and offers technical assistance to survey researchers and implementers working on gender empowerment.

Jennifer Lyn Shaw, Ph.D.
Dr. Jennifer Shaw is a Research Associate Professor in the Center for Alaska Native Health Research in the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She has expertise in the development, adaptation, and implementation of evidence-based, culturally centered, and community driven health programs. She earned a Ph.D. in medical anthropology from Case Western Reserve University in 2013 and spent the subsequent decade working as a senior investigator at Southcentral Foundation, an Alaska Native-owned health care organization. Her research involves partnering with Indigenous communities to improve health equity through strengths-based, translational research, with a specific emphasis on advance care planning, health communication, and suicide prevention. In 2023, she received the Erickson Foundation Research Award in Positive Aging from the American Public Health Association Aging and Public Health Section for her collaborative work to promote advance care planning among Indigenous adults with serious illness. Her research has been funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute of Drug Abuse, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Karandeep Singh, M.D., M.M.Sc.
Karandeep Singh, M.D., M.M.Sc., is the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Digital Health Innovation and Associate Professor of Medicine in Biomedical Informatics at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego). He also serves as Chief Health Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer for UC San Diego Health. In these roles, Dr. Singh leads AI initiatives within the Jacobs Center for Health Innovation and oversees AI strategy and governance for the health system.

Dr. Singh completed his internal medicine residency at UCLA Medical Center, where he served as chief resident, and a nephrology fellowship in the combined Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital program. He completed his medical education at the University of Michigan Medical School and holds a master’s degree in medical sciences in Biomedical Informatics from Harvard Medical School.

Vanessa V. Volpe, Ph.D.
Dr. Vanessa V. Volpe is an Associate Professor of psychology at North Carolina State University and a Diversity Scholar at the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan. She is also the founding director of the Black Health Lab, a group that aims to inform efforts to reduce racial health disparities and work toward equitable Black wellness and thriving through research. Dr. Volpe is a developmental health psychologist and stress researcher whose research focuses on racism and gendered racism as social determinants of health disparities for Black communities in the US, especially Black women. Her current projects focus on 1) health consequences of racialized and gendered experiences in online and technological environments, 2) state, neighborhood, and area-level exposures to structural racism, and 3) facilitators of and barriers to healthy behaviors at the intersections of race and gender. She is the recipient of the Early Career Professional award from the Cardiovascular Disease group of the Society for Behavioral Medicine and a NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Early Stage Investigator Paper Competition honoree. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Health Psychology, Psychological Science, and Journal of Adolescent Health. She earned her B.S. in Applied Psychology from New York University and her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and received additional training from the Michigan Integrative Well-Being and Inequality Training Program and the National Institutes of Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Institute.

Joy Wan, M.D., M.S.C.E.
Joy Wan, M.D., M.S.C.E. is an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She received her MD from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also completed dermatology residency and obtained a Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology. She completed her pediatric dermatology fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia followed by postdoctoral research training in epidemiology. Her clinical and research interests include atopic dermatitis and pediatric dermato-epidemiology. The mission of her research program is to improve health, social, and life outcomes for children with chronic skin disease.

William H. Warren, Ph.D.
Bill Warren is Chancellor’s Professor of Cognitive and Psychological Science at Brown University and Director of the Virtual Environment Navigation Lab (VENLab), where he pioneered the use of mobile Virtual Reality technology to study human perception and action. He received his undergraduate degree from Hampshire College (1976), his Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut (1982), did post-doctoral work at the University of Edinburgh (1983), and has been at Brown ever since, where he served as Department Chair (2002-10). Warren is the recipient of a Fulbright Research Fellowship, Brown's Teaching Award for Excellence in the Life Sciences, and the 2023 Ken Nakayama Medal for Excellence in Vision Science from the Vision Sciences Society. He is an elected fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and current President of the International Society for Ecological Psychology.