Mitchell Wong, M.D. Ph.D.
Principal
Investigator. Dr. Wong is an
Associate Professor of Medicine at UCLA in the Division of General Internal
Medicine and Health Services Research. He received his undergraduate
degree from Williams College in 1989 and his medical degree from UC San
Francisco in 1994. He obtained his clinical training in General Internal
Medicine at The New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center. After
completing a PhD in Health Services Research from the UCLA School of Public
Health, he joined the UCLA faculty in 2001. Dr. Wong mentors and oversees the research training for over 60 fellows
and junior faculty members across the spectrum of science including basic
science, clinical trials and translational research, and health services
research. His research focuses on racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities
in health care and outcomes, population health, demography and how disparities
arise over the life course. His most recent research,
funded by NIH/NIDA, examines the impact of successful public schools on
adolescent health and health behaviors among low income, minority adolescent
Kulwant Dosanjh, MA
Kulwant Dosanjh is the RISE UP Study Director. She has 15 years of research experience in various capacities and began contributing her efforts to RISE UP in June 2013. She holds a BA in Psychology, a minor in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies from UCLA, and she completed her M.A. in Clinical Psychology at California State University, Northridge in 2006. Prior to joining RISE UP, her primary research focus was aging and Alzheimer's Disease. Her current research interests include better understanding health and social disparities among underserved minority populations.
Lenore Arab, Ph.D.
Since 1980 Dr. Arab has been engaged in the development and testing of novel web based approaches to data collection with specialization on the complex area of dietary assessment. At UNC, she was the program director for nutritional epidemiology and leader of a training program and NCI-sponsored training grant in that field. She served as the director of the Clinical Nutrition Research Core for Nutritional Epidemiology at UNC which supported web based assessment in population studies across the campus. She has published over 170 original papers as well as numerous book chapters and monographs. She is also a nutrition adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO) for 10 years and a founding director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Nutritional Epidemiology in Berlin. She is also the founding North American Editor of the journal Public Health Nutrition, Associate Editor of Nutrition and Cancer and sits on numerous other editorial boards.
Nazleen Bharmal, M.D. Ph.D.
Nazleen Bharmal is an internal medicine physician and health services researcher in the Department of Medicine at UCLA. She received her undergraduate degree from Brown University and M.D./M.P.P. from Harvard Medical School/JFK School of Government. She completed a primary care internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, and completed her PhD in Health Services with postdoctoral support from the RWJ Clinical Scholars Program, the National Research Service Award, and the American Heart Association fellowships at UCLA. Her research interests include understanding how social networks influence health behaviors in adolescents and young adults.
Richard Buddin, Ph.D.
Dr. Buddin has a broad range of expertise in analyzing educational programs and their effects on student outcomes. In the past five years, he has published several articles evaluating various dimensions of charter school performance. He recently conducted a study of teacher merit pay. In addition, he has led an investigation of how employer-sponsored tuition assistance for part-time college enrollment affected employee retention. He is currently working on a student of magnet middle and high schools. The research uses an intention-to-treat framework to examine whether students in magnet schools have better academic and behavioral outcomes than comparable students in other schools. Dr. Buddin has expertise in educational programs and sophisticated econometric/statistical techniques.
Paul Chung, M.D.
Paul Chung is an associate professor of pediatrics and Chief of General Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine and Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, an associate professor of health services at the UCLA School of Public Health, and a senior natural scientist at RAND. He is also Research Director of the UCLA/RAND Prevention Research Center, associate director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at UCLA, and Public Policy and Advocacy Chair of the Academic Pediatric Association. Dr. Chung was the recipient of the 2009 Nemours Child Health Services Research Award, given annually to a single emerging child health services researcher in the United States. His personal research interests include family leave policy for vulnerable families, well-child care quality and redesign, adolescent health risks, child development and education, and childhood obesity.
Rebecca Dudovitz, M.D.
Rebecca Dudovitz received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, at Davis with a major in philosophy. Afterwards, she attended UCLA medical school where she earned her MD. She completed her pediatrics residency at UCLA in the Community Health and Advocacy Training (CHAT) Program and stayed on as chief resident before entering the Clinical Scholars Program. Her research interests include investigating the relationship between academic achievement and health outcomes and adolescent substance use prevention.
David P. Kennedy, Ph.D.
Dr. Kennedy has a broad range of expertise in examining how the social networks of adolescents influence health outcomes and risky behaviors. In his current position at RAND Corporation he has been examining the role that in-school social networks play in adolescent smoking, drug and alcohol use and risky sexual behavior. He has published several articles from this work and has several more under review at various health-related journals. He has also collaborated with RAND colleagues on studies of homeless people in Los Angeles, including homeless adolescents. He also recently published articles related to social networks and health of adolescents, including the impact of social networks on the process of parents who are HIV+ disclosing their HIV status to their children and the decisions adolescents and parents make regarding well-adolescent primary care visits. Dr. Kennedy has a record of successful and productive research projects related to adolescent peer relationships, including romantic relationships, and risky behavior including substance use.
Dr. Kennedy has a broad range of expertise in examining how the social networks of adolescents influence health outcomes and risky behaviors. In his current position at RAND Corporation he has been examining the role that in-school social networks play in adolescent smoking, drug and alcohol use and risky sexual behavior. He has published several articles from this work and has several more under review at various health-related journals. He has also collaborated with RAND colleagues on studies of homeless people in Los Angeles, including homeless adolescents. He also recently published articles related to social networks and health of adolescents, including the impact of social networks on the process of parents who are HIV+ disclosing their HIV status to their children and the decisions adolescents and parents make regarding well-adolescent primary care visits. Dr. Kennedy has a record of successful and productive research projects related to adolescent peer relationships, including romantic relationships, and risky behavior including substance use.
Steve Shoptaw, Ph.D.
Steven J. Shoptaw is a licensed psychologist and Professor in the UCLA Departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. Dr. Shoptaw joined the Department of Family Medicine as full professor in 2005. Prior to this, Dr. Shoptaw was a Research Psychologist with the Integrated Substance Abuse Program in the Dept. of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science since 2003. Dr. Shoptaw earned his BA (1982) in Psychology and MA (1985) and Ph.D. (1990) in Psychology at UCLA. Dr. Shoptaw completed his postdoctoral training in Psychophysiology at the UCLA NPI/VAMC in Sepulveda, CA in 1991. Following that, Dr. Shoptaw worked for 10 years as a Principal Investigator with Friends Research Institute, Inc., during which time, his program of clinical research with substance abusers supported opening several treatment research clinics in Rancho Cucamonga, Hollywood, South Los Angeles, and West Hollywood. In 1996, Dr. Shoptaw opened Safe House, a 24 bed facility that provides emergency, transitional and permanent housing to persons living with HIV/AIDS, chemical dependency, transitional and permanent housing to persons living with HIV/AIDS, chemical dependency, and mental illness who are homeless or at risk for homelessness. He continues with this program as a volunteer Executive Director.
Joan Tucker, Ph.D.
Dr. Tucker is a Senior Behavioral Scientist at RAND and Deputy Director of the UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion. Over the past 10 years, she has published extensively on the developmental patterns, risk factors and consequences of adolescent substance use. Over the past five years, Tucker has been project investigator (PI) or Co-PI of five grants focusing on social network influences on alcohol, tobacco marijuana and other drug use among adolescents and adults. Tucker has also led or co-led three studies focusing on the personal networks of homeless youth, men, and women. She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and Society for Experimental Social Psychology, has been on the editorial board of several peer review journals including Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, and is a current member of the Risk, Prevention, and Intervention for Addictions (RPIA) NIH study section.
