Our Alumni

Dr. Glymour leads the E4A Methods Laboratory and reviews letters of intent and full proposals. Dr. Glymour's research focuses on how individual and contextual social factors experienced across the lifecourse, from infancy to adulthood, influence cognitive function, dementia, stroke, and other health outcomes in old age. A separate theme of her research focuses on overcoming methodological problems encountered in observational epidemiology, in particular analyses of social determinants of health and dementia risk.

Cultural anthropologist Adonia Lugo (she/hers) lives, works, and thinks about mobility justice in traditional and unceded Tongva territory (Los Angeles). Her book, Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance, came out in 2018. Adonia is the Equity Research Manager at the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies, based at UCLA. In May 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her to the California Transportation Commission.

Dr. Gilbert C. Gee is a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. His research focuses on understanding the social determinants of racial/ethnic health inequities, with a particular focus on the effects of racism at multiple levels over the life course. 

Dr. Winder supports the aims of E4A in reviewing and recommending applications for funding. Dr. Winder’s research focuses on racial and sexual stigma, sexual health, and experiences of racial and sexual inequality across social institutions. He is a specialist in qualitative methods including ethnography, interview, and focus group techniques.

Dr. Lea focuses his research on educational and health equity for emerging adult Black men who have experienced incarceration. He employs qualitative, participatory, mixed, and art-based methods to examine how racism and carcerality shape young Black men's post-release health behaviors and outcomes. He also explores how to implement radical healing interventions to promote health and wellbeing.

Dr. Fish is a Licensed Psychologist and owner of Fish Psychotherapy & Consulting, as well as an assistant professor of psychology at Macalester College. Her interdisciplinary scholarship focuses on promoting Indigenous peoples well-being across the lifespan. She is particularly interested in how Indigenous peoples' histories and cultures support healthy lives and communities.

Dr. Ryan J. Petteway, associate professor in the OSHU-PSU School of Public Health, is a public health scholar, educator, and poet who integrates social epidemiology, participatory research, and creative arts to advance health equity. He engages critical, Black feminist, and decolonial theory and methods pursue procedural and epistemic justice and advance antiracist praxis within public health pedagogy, research, and practice, including via  satire/humor, music, and  poetry. His applied research  integrates social epidemiology and CBPR/YPAR to improve empirical and conceptual understanding of place and health.

Dr. McLester-Davis is a citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and is based on the ancestral homelands of the Ho-Chunk Nation in Teejop. Dr. McLester-Davis' research focuses on neurological and metabolic disorders in minoritized populations, as directed by community, with emphasis on serving Indigenous communities in Wisconsin. She has expertise in working for Tribal Nations through research and centering Tribal sovereignty in research praxis.

As Founder and Principal of The Policy Gap, Rodríguez aligns government and community leaders around the U.S. to take collective action toward a range of affordability crises. He has mobilized hundreds of impacted communities around historic climate justice investments, partnered with immigrants to strengthen their protections in Denver, co-designed a healthcare system with and for public housing residents in Austin, and convened tribal leaders and federal administrators for land justice in Montana. Rodríguez has dedicated his life to shifting transactional moments into transformative movements.

Xavier Morales, (he/him) is the executive director of The Praxis Project, a national non-profit dedicated to supporting and collaborating with grassroots community organizations engaged in basebuilding and powerbuilding, working with institutions and agencies to collaborate with community organizations more authentically, and with funders to have greater collective impact on transforming systems, structures, policies, and practices toward improved health, equity, and racial justice. Originally from Sanger, CA, Xavier earned his Ph.D. and Master of Regional Planning degrees in Community Development/City and Regional Planning at Cornell University and a BA in Environmental Sciences from UC Berkeley.

Jennifer is the director of the National Equity Atlas, a joint effort between PolicyLink and USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute. Her work is focused on democratizing data and producing research that equips policymakers, advocates, and other community change-makers to make informed decisions and advance racial and economic equity.

Dr. Adler was the inaugural director and founder of Evidence for Action. We recently lost Nancy, but will hold her in our thoughts. Her own research identified pathways by which social and behavioral factors influence health and well-being, with a particular focus on the role of socioeconomic status.

Dr. Galea was the chair of the E4A National Advisory Committee. In this role, he led a group of research experts that provided valuable insights on strategies for achieving E4A’s mission and expanding outreach efforts to potential applicants and decision-makers. He also reviewed a selection of Full Proposals. Dr. Galea is a physician and an epidemiologist. He is Dean and Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Galea is interested in the social causes of health, mental health, and the consequences of trauma.

Dr. Carroll is the President and CEO of AcademyHealth, Associate Dean for Research Mentoring and a Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Carroll's current research interests include the use of information technology in pediatric health care, decision analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis, and health policy; and investigating differences in the way people value different health states. He also translates health policy research and data into the public sphere through his blog, The Incidental Economist, his YouTube show Healthcare Triage, and his column The New Health Care at the Upshot at the New York Times.

Dr. Chin is a general internist with extensive experience improving the care of vulnerable patients with chronic disease. He is Co-director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Advancing Health Equity: Leading Care, Payment, and Systems Transformation Program Office and the Merck Foundation Bridging the Gap: Reducing Disparities in Diabetes Care National Program Office.

Dr. Cintron was a postdoctoral scholar for the E4A Methods Laboratory. Dr. Cintron’s research focused on the application, development, and assessment of quantitative methods in the social and behavioral sciences. His areas of research interest include topics such as item response theory, latent variable and structural equation modeling, longitudinal data analysis, hierarchical linear modeling, and causal inference. With the E4A Methods Laboratory, Dr. Cintron contributed to the promotion and development of quantitative methods that support the creation of rigorous evidence that improves population health and reduces health inequities and disparities. 

Dr. Duncan spent the first 25 years of his career at the University of Michigan working on and ultimately directing the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data collection project. He has investigated the roles families, peers, neighborhoods, and public policy play in affecting the life chances of children and adolescents. Dr. Duncan’s research has highlighted the importance of early childhood as a sensitive period for the damaging influences of economic deprivation as well as for the beneficial impacts of policy-induced income increases for working families. The focus of his more recent research has shifted from these environmental influences to the comparative importance of the skills and behaviors developed during childhood.

Dr. Johnson Dias is an Associate Professor of Sociology and a Graduate Faculty in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College. Her research focuses on mothers and children who grew up and/or are living in poverty. Johnson Dias has extensive experience working with, evaluating and building collaborations among social service and community organizations. Johnson Dias is also the Founder and President of the GrassROOTS Community Foundation, a national public health and social action organization that supports, develops, and scales community-driven solutions to the health challenges facing women and girls living in poverty. Dedicated to making structural level changes, Johnson Dias works closely with policymakers to infuse academic research into public policy and advocate for more attention to be paid to the health and well-being of women and girls.

Dr. Jones is an Associate Professor with appointments in Sociology, Epidemiology, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, and Africana Studies at The George Washington University. As an urban sociologist, he is particularly concerned about socio-environmental processes that affect health and well-being during various stages of the life course. Engaged in national and international research, Dr. Jones examines how residential processes and neighborhood contexts  are essential to the study of adult cardiovascular disease, child obesity, and disability among the elderly. 

Dr. Jones is on a temporary leave from the NAC due to other professional commitments.

Dr. Krieger is founding Executive Director of Healthy Food America (HFA), Clinical Professor at University of Washington, and was chief of Chronic Disease Prevention at Public Health-Seattle & King County. His obesity prevention work using policy, communications and systems change strategies has led to improvements in school nutrition and physical activity, implementation of the nation’s second menu labeling regulation, reduction in exposure to sugary drinks, and increased access to healthy foods for low income people. 

Dr. Matthay was the inaugural postdoctoral scholar for the E4A Methods Laboratory and a frequent contributor to the E4A blog. Her work focused on methodological challenges that arise when seeking to generate rigorous evidence on how systems, programs, and policies influence population health and health inequalities. She worked to identify these issues, provide relevant evidence and tools to overcome them, and spark attention to these challenges in the broader community of quantitative researchers. Dr. Matthay’s research interests and areas of expertise include social determinants of population health, causal inference and epidemiologic methods, evaluation of large-scale social and economic programs and policies, and self-directed and interpersonal violence.

Dr. Ramirez, an internationally recognized cancer and chronic disease health disparities and communications researcher, is chair and professor of Population Health Sciences and founding director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio. She has vast experience conducting behavioral and communications research studies and interventions to reduce cancer, increase screening rates and patient navigation, prevent tobacco use, and improve healthy lifestyles among U.S. Latinos. Dr. Ramirez currently directs the Salud America! national multimedia program to drive policy and system changes to promote health equity.