Iris Gomez-Lopez, Geospatial Analyst

Iris Gomez-Lopez joined SRC-Social Environment and Health as a Geoinformatics Data Analyst. Iris has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of North Texas. Her work in Computational Epidemiology integrates disciplines such as Geoinformatics, Data Mining, Natural Language Processing, Data Analytics, and Modelling. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan SI, with the Neighborhood Effects Project research group. Most recently, she was employed by Miami University for one academic year as a VAP in the Computer Science and Software Engineering department. Iris enjoys spending time with her family, pets, and friends. She is involved in community projects and organizations in A2 to help and support immigrants and other population minorities.

Joy Jang, Data Analyst

With a PhD in Human Development from Ohio State University, my research interests lie at the intersection of human development, family demography, health and social contexts. First, I have examined the variation in the life course of young adults and its predictors and health outcomes, including union formation, education, moving, co-residence with parents, and substance use. I’m particularly interested in whether, how, and to whom the change in social contexts via migration/residential mobility during young adulthood is an “opportunity” for better outcomes or a “chain” that shackles in certain environments. Second, I have started looking into the effects of social/economic structure and social/built environments of neighborhoods on health, specifically cognitive function among older adults and disease progress among patients.

Robert Melendez, Geospatial Data Specialist

Robert is a data analyst who has expertise in the data we use in order to understand neighborhood context. For example, he takes all of the data from the US Census to create measures of neighborhood poverty, affluence, and segregation.

Megan Chenoweth, Data Manager/Curator

Megan is a librarian with experience in information management, technical writing, training, and technical support. She helps SEH researchers create and preserve datasets of neighborhood contextual measures in NaNDA and provides data management support for wave 6 of Americans’ Changing Lives. Megan has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Hamilton College and a master’s degree in library and information science from Drexel University.

Amanda Donovan

Amanda Donovan is a project coordinator for the Social Environment and Health Program, where she assists with post-award project management, financial documentation, social media activity, and website maintenance. She received her BA from Michigan State University in 2008.

Michelle Downer

Michelle Downer is the administrative assistant for the Social and Environmental Health program. She has her Associates in Applied Science and is currently working toward her Bachelors in Psychology through the University of Michigan. Michelle spends most of her time with her husband and son, she enjoys boating in the summer and reading & staying warm in the winter.

Nick Prieur

Nicholas Prieur is a Research Process Senior Manager in the Social Environment and Health Program, where he serves as SEHI’s overall research administrator. In his role he manages all pre-award research activities, financials, HR transactions, restricted project data contracts, IRB’s, and other program needs. He also leads the program’s shared administrative team, with specializations in post award, editing, publication production, social media, website maintenance and computing support. He received his BS from Michigan State University in 2002.

Michael Esposito

PhD in Sociology
from University of Washington

Michael (Mike) Esposito is a postdoctoral fellow at the Survey Research Center, University of Michigan. Mike received his PhD in sociology from the University of Washington. His work is, generally, pointed towards advancing ideas of how race matters in population health. His work: (1) explicates how/why disparities in health outcomes are generated among the United States population (rather than in only quantifying the size of said inequalities); (2) connects larger structural features that are related to race (e.g., mass incarceration; racial residential segregation; socio-cultural environments) to health outcomes and disparities; and (3) examines how other socio-locational features that organize US society—e.g., gender; skin-tone—intersect with race to stratify health.

Jessica Finlay

PhD in Geography
from University of Minnesota

Jessica Finlay is a postdoctoral research fellow. She received her PhD in Geography and Gerontology from the University of Minnesota in 2018. Her work is based primarily in qualitative and geospatial methods with expertise centering on the role of built, social, natural, and microbial environments for health in later life. For her postdoctoral research, Jessica collaboratively investigates socio-environmental factors linked to changes in cognitive function, and is developing a new area of applied clinical geography. When not at her desk, Jessica enjoys running, gardening, cooking, and spending time outdoors with family and friends.

Personal website: www.jessicafinlay.com
Book website: www.wholebodymicrobiome.com

Ketlyne Sol

PhD in Psychology
from Loma Linda University

Ketlyne Sol a clinical psychologist with a clinical training emphasis in rehabilitation psychology, which focuses on the holistic assessment and treatment of individuals with chronic/progressive disabling illness and acquired/traumatic physical disability. Trained within a scientist-practitioner framework, she is interested in evaluating psychosocial factors, contextual factors such as sociocultural and physical environment, and processes to help improve coping and quality of life of individuals with physical disabilities. Due to the disproportionate amounts of older adult ethnic minorities who develop Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD), she is further leveraging her clinical training and research experiences to additionally develop her skill and expertise in conducting research in disparities in ADRD to inform culturally relevant points of intervention and policy changes to reduce this disparity in aging.

Regan Patterson

PhD in Environmental Engineering
from University of California, Berkeley

Regan Patterson is a postdoctoral research fellow. She received her PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation research focused on the air quality impacts and equity implications of diesel truck emission control regulations and freeway rerouting. Regan is interested in understanding air pollution in relation to the larger sociospatial processes that produce disparities in air pollution and associated health risks. In addition to her research, Regan is passionate about volunteering with environmental justice organizations and increasing access to STEM education.

Shanice Battle

Epidemiology

Shanice Battle is a PhD student at the School of Public Health in the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health. She previously worked at the CDC, Morehouse School of Medicine and Emory School of Medicine on various research projects focusing on the prevention of HIV/AIDS, childhood obesity, cardiovascular disease and maternal substance abuse. Her current research focuses on structural factors as a predictor of depression in black women and the ways social supports or stressors can impact that relationship.

Anam Khan

Epidemiology

Anam is a Doctoral student pursuing her degree in Epidemiology at the School of Public Health. She received her MPH degree in Epidemiology from the University of Toronto (Canada) in 2016 and has experience using large health administrative and vital statistics databases to examine socio-demographic and geographic disparities in health care utilization and outcomes. Her research interests include chronic disease epidemiology, the role of social determinants of health in explaining health disparities, including for diseases of aging, and access to care and health systems functioning. Anam is currently working on projects assessing socio-environmental and health-related factors that influence cognitive decline and aging.

Dominique Sylvers

Health Behavior and Health Education

Dominique Sylvers is a doctoral student in the department of Health Behavior and Health Education (HBHE) at the School of Public Health. She received her Master’s of Public Health from HBHE in 2017, after which, she was involved with various aspects of chronic disease intervention research. As a pre-doctoral trainee in Social Environment and Health (SEH), her interest center around cognitive aging in African American adults, specifically the contextual influence of environmental factors such as neighborhood residential segregation and education inequality. Dominique also has an interest in Population Health and is a Population Studies Center Trainee.

Min Hee Kim

Social Work and Sociology

She is a doctoral candidate in the Joint Program in Social Work and Sociology. She studies health and aging with an emphasis on understanding extra-individual forces (i.e. built environment) that influence dynamic processes of disablement in later life. Her dissertation examined how the amenities and aging services, which redistribute resources across geographic locations, shape in later life cognitive health. She is interested in developing and implementation of innovative place-based policies and programs to reduce mental and cognitive health risk among older adults with mobility disability and chronic conditions.

Megan Mullins

Epidemiology

Megan is a doctoral candidate in the Epidemiology Department at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She received her MPH from the University of Michigan in 2015. Her research interests include cancer epidemiology, clinical epidemiology, social determinants of health, implementation science, decision science, and health disparities. Drawing on her background in clinical settings, she is excited to apply novel epidemiology methods to health services questions. Her current work focuses on social determinants of racial disparities in care among women with ovarian cancer. Megan is an active member on several projects evaluating neighborhood drivers of cognition and cognitive decline in the Social Environment and Health group at the Institute for Social Research. She also works with the Michigan Oncology Quality Consortium on analytics and reporting.