Current Trainees

CURRENT POSTDOCTORAL TRAINEES

Jennifer Ailshire, Ph.D. (Preceptor, Eileen Crimmins)

Broadly my research focuses on understanding how inequality experienced over the life course produces differences in health trajectories and determining the extent to which the social and physical environments in which people live influence their health-related behaviors and overall health. I am particularly interested in examining how neighborhood environments shape social interactions and health behaviors that are related to healthy aging and investigating the biological mechanisms linking neighborhoods environment to individual health. My dissertation project documented changing social disparities in BMI over time among U.S. adults and assessed the influence of socioeconomic disadvantage over the life course and marital relationship quality on changes in BMI.

Hiram Beltran-Sanchez, Ph.D. (Preceptor, Eileen Crimmins)

Latrica E. Best, Ph.D.  (Preceptor, Eileen Crimmins)

As a trained social gerontologist and demographer, my research interests encompass race and gender differences in population health over the life course as well as the biodemography of aging.  Currently, my research explores the nature in which various socially defined trajectories initiate and sustain race disparities in the health of African-American and white women from emerging adulthood to later life.  Additionally, I am interested in the role that educational achievement serves in creating distinct health trajectories for different race groups.  Other research interests include examining both biomarker and survey data to establish potential between- and within-group variation in health among older diverse populations.  Here, my goals are two-fold; I am interested in 1) evaluating the maturation process of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease and their social and biological implications toward longevity and 2) examining whether biomarker/gold standard thresholds should be re-examined along more demographically defined lines throughout the life course. 

CURRENT PREDOCTORAL TRAINEES

Jason Arimoto (Preceptor:  Caleb Finch)
Department of Molecular Biology
USC

Carrie Donoho (Preceptor, Eileen Crimmins)
Davis School of Gerontology
USC

My research interests lie in relatively broad topics: social structure (age, race, socioeconomic status, gender), the social environment (social stress, social support, social networks), and personality and their relationships with health through the lifespan. I am particularly interested in socioeconomic status and racial disparities in health, how social factors exert their effects on the human organism over the course of a lifetime, and if there are periods when physiological regulatory processes are more vulnerable to (mal)adaption to environmental stressors. I recently finished a project examining the relationship between diurnal cortisol rhythms, psychosocial stress, and abdominal adiposity in Hispanic children. Our preliminary findings indicate that children with a high cortisol increase upon awakening combined with stressful school experiences, have a greater volume of fat interspersed in the abdominal cavity, placing them at a greater risk for cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders later in life.

Nichole Kryla Lighthall (Preceptor, Mara Mather)

My research attempts to integrate perspectives from psychiatry, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience in order to understand how cognitive processing changes with age. Before transferring to the Davis School, I used experimental design to investigate the impact of stress on emotional memory and decision making in younger and older adults. Specifically, my studies looked at how physiological responses to stress (such as increased cortisol and alpha amylase secretion) may influence 1) how details are bound together in memory, 2) how much risk people are willing to take when gambling, and 3) whether the effect of stress on memory binding and risk taking varies with age. At USC, I am following up on these research questions by using fMRI to monitor brain activation during decision making under stress.

Kevin Petway (Preceptors: Elizabeth Zelinski and Jack McArdle)
Department of Psychology
USC

My research focuses predominately on the quantitative measurement of personality.  This includes validation of current measures used to assess a set group of personality attributes as well as examination of how these measures perform across demographics such as gender, age, and ethnic identity.  Much research in personality attempts to understand how personality changes over the lifespan – this is another aspect of personality measurement which I am interested in.  Ultimately, my goal is to identify ways in which personality measures can be improved to garner consistent quantitative properties within and across various demographics. 

Ricardo Reyes (Preceptors:  Merril Silverstein and Jack McArdle)
Department of Psychology
USC

My research interests include studying the application of quantitative methods in identification of factors that lead to feelings of hopelessness, chronic depression and/or anxiety. More specifically, I’m interested in the development and refinement of applicable psychometric instruments used to both make inferences about and diagnose aging and minority populations. By taking a diverse set of methodology courses, I hope to further narrow my area of concentration.

Carlos Rodriguez (Preceptor, Margaret Gatz)
Department of Psychology

My research interests include identifying modifiable risk factors of dementia, and improving the assessment of neurocognitive functioning in culturally diverse elders. My current study documents perceptions of dementia among Latinos in an effort to understand help-seeking behaviors and barriers to its care in this population. This data will also inform the development and evaluation of a fotonovela (a comic-book style literary format with soap-opera themes) to educate Latino families on dementia symptoms and treatment.

Bernard Steinman (Preceptor, Jon Pynoos)
Davis School of Gerontology
USC

My research examines how vision impairment in late life influences other health dimensions to result in secondary health outcomes such as falls.