Valentina A. Andreeva is a doctoral candidate in HBR. She came to California after spending several years in New York City where she worked as a research assistant in health and science policy at the New York Academy of Medicine. Valentina holds a B.A. in psychology (magna cum laude) from Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont. She has also completed studies in economics at Sofia University in her native Bulgaria, and in liberal arts in the School of Continuing Education at New York University. At IPR Valentina serves as a research assistant in Dr. Reynolds' group. Currently, she is completing her dissertation research on psychosocial predictors of sun safety.

Britni Belcher is a second year doctoral student in the PhD Program in Preventive Medicine/Health Behavior Research and a third year MPH student in the Health Promotion Track. She received her B.S. in Health Promotion Disease Prevention with a minor in Spanish from the University of Southern California.  Britni is currently a research assistant for Dr. Spruijt-Metz on the Transitions study, a longitudinal assessment of physical activity in girls through adolescence, as part of the Center for Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (C-TREC). Her research interests include studying the determinants of physical activity and obesity.

David S. Black is a first year HBR student. In his undergraduate study, David worked for several community based programs that aimed to increase the quality of life of seniors with developmental disabilities, schizophrenia, and paralysis. In addition, he assisted with the development and implementation of innovative exercise programs such as motorized wheelchair soccer and “Beep (sound-based) Baseball” for wheel-chair using and blind children at schools and community centers in Los Angeles. David obtained his M.P.H. from California State University, Northridge, focusing his studies on the correlates of intimate partner violence in emerging adulthood, and published a thesis titled “Parental Modeling and Violence in Emerging Adulthood: An Exploratory Study". David recently interned at the Alameda County Public Health Department where he implemented health behavior programs to incarcerated men at San Quinton Penitentiary and worked with youth in juvenile hall. He also assisted in the development of the Family Justice Center in Oakland, California. which provides a multitude of services to victims of intimate partner violence. David is currently working under Dr. Sussman and Dr. Rohrbach, studying adolescent drug abuse prevention as well as the correlates of intimate partner violence for injection drug users. David is a teaching assistant for HP 340 (Health Behavior Statistical Methods) in the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention program.

Lilia Espinoza is a doctoral candidate in HBR. Her undergraduate degrees are in psychology and comparative culture from the University of California at Irvine, and she has an M.P.H. degree specializing in epidemiology from UCLA. Currently Lilia is working  at the USC Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center as the Program Manager  for the Partnership for Health (PfH) Program, training health care providers on how to deliver prevention messages to their HIV-infected patients. She has guest lectured for several undergraduate and M.P.H. courses on HIV/AIDS and HIV health policy. In her spare time, Lilia has worked with UCLA on delivering intervention projects with HIV+ individuals, HIV+ mothers and their children, adolescents in probation schools and camps, and homeless youth. Under the advisement of Dr. Jean Richardson, Lilia is conducting  her dissertation study on sexual risk behaviors  among youth in continuation high schools.

Keosha Partlow is a fifth year HBR student and is also enrolled in the MPH program offered through the department. She received her B.A. in psychology from UC Berkeley. Before she joined the HBR program, Keosha taught high school biology for two years in Pomona, California. Currently, Keosha is a research assistant for Dr. Kim Reynolds where she is working on examining the relationship between social support and physical activity levels. She also is investigating the association between spousal support and diabetes self management using data from Prevention and Control of Diabetes in Families. This work will be the focus of her dissertation. Her interests are studying the relationships between culture, socioeconomic status, and types of support on diet and physical activity.

Enrique Ortega is a senior level HBR student. He received his BA in
psychology from San Jose State University, having transferred to San Jose
from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City where he was
studying social psychology. Currently he is working with Dr. Johnson and Dr.
Sun on identifying the intrapersonal and environmental predictors of the
onset and progression of alcohol use among Chinese adolescents from the
China Seven Cities Study. Enrique's primary interest is in adolescent
substance use, and chronic disease management.

Kate Coronges is a fifth year student HBR student. She received her B.A. in molecular biology from UC Santa Cruz in 1999. She joined the doctoral program after working for a year as a staff member for Dr. Michael Goran on research studies related to childhood obesity and diabetes. After exploring different research areas at IPR, Kate became interested in implicit cognition in the context of drug abuse prevention. She then joined the Transdisciplinary Drug Abuse Prevention Research Center group, under the direction of Dr. Alan Stacy, where she worked on the study "Memory and Implicit Cognition in Drug Abuse Prevention." In addition to her research in the area of cognitive processes, Kate's primary interest is in integrating social network analysis and implicit memory theories. In September she received a USC dissertation award which provides a year of funding for her to complete her study on the role of social connections in creating cognitive and behavioral changes. Kate has enjoyed exploring L.A.'s sprawling metropolis and has recently purchased a home in Mt. Washington, 15 minutes from the IPR campus.

Guneet Kaur is a 5th year student. She received her B.A. in political science from Delhi University in India and her master's degree in health policy from the University of Delaware. Guneet works with her mentor, Dr. Mary Ann Pentz, on drug abuse prevention projects, mainly the STEP project, a multi-state trial involving a distance learning approach to community organizations for alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse prevention using evidence-based prevention practices. Guneet is interested in understanding the relationship between adolescent smoking and depression as predictors of adult obesity. Currently she is working on her National Institute of Drug Abuse-funded dissertation study focusing on the cigarette smoking-depression-obesity relationship. Currently, she lives in Boston with her husband and two sons, ages 5 and 2.

Arianna McClain is a third-year PhD student in Health Behavior Research and is concurrently receiving her MPH with an emphasis in Health Communication. In 2005, she graduated from UC Berkeley where she majored in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a focus on Health and Society. Arianna is currently working as a research assistant for Dr. Donna Spruijt-Metz as part of the USC Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) team. She assists in the development of culturally appropriate and ethically sound recruitment and retention strategies for longitudinal and intervention research in African American and Latino populations. Arianna's main area of research centers around diet and food intake, with an emphasis on psychosocial and cultural factors that determine dietary intake in minority youth. She is currently interested in developing and validating her own culturally appropriate measure of meanings of food for both African American and Latino youth as part of the USC C-TREC research program. Arianna also helps to develop and direct the mentoring program that is an important component of Project 2 and is designed to empower the young minority girls who participate in the program to succeed in school.

Janet Okamoto is a fourth year HBR student. She has an undergraduate degree in Exercise Science from Arizona State University, and received her MPH degree from USC in the fall of 2001. Janet works with Dr. Tom Valente and is currently working on developing a smoking prevention program for 10th graders in China. Her research interests include development of effective smoking and drug abuse prevention programs, the influence of classroom support on the implementation and effects of prevention programs, and using social networks to explore the relationship between social competence and problem behaviors. Her past work has included working with the Transdisciplinary Drug Abuse Prevention Research Center on a project using social network theory to tailor drug abuse prevention curriculum; working on the STEP project also examining the effect of using social networks to assign peer leaders in a prevention program; and assisting in writing curriculum for a culturally-tailored smoking prevention program.

Lei Duan is a fifth year HBR student. She came to the U.S. from China four years ago after finishing her undergradute training in medicine. Lei joined the masters program in biostatistics at USC while pursuing her doctoral studies, and received her masters degree in 2007. Currently she is working with two mentors, Dr. Chih-Ping Chou and Dr. Leslie Bernstein. Her research with Dr. Chou focuses on statistical analysis methods that apply to health behavior science, while the studies with Dr. Bernstein concentrate on esophageal and gastric cancer. She is very happy that there are so many Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles that she doesn't miss her mom's cooking too much.

Pallav Pokhrel is a fifth year doctoral student. Pallav is from Nepal, and came to the U.S. for college in 2000. Pallav received his degree (BA, Biology) from Occidental College, Los Angeles. As a student at Occidental he obtained international research grants to do independent research projects in India and Botswana. At USC he works on various drug abuse prevention projects as a research assistant to Dr. Steve Sussman. Pallav's current research interests include self-control in relation to adolescent substance abuse. During his time at the Institute he has met and learned from excellent researchers. He likes Los Angeles.

Jerry L. Grenard is a fifth year student. He has a B.S. and M.S. in Agricultural and Chemical Engineering from Colorado State University, and he worked as a process engineer for food companies for 21 years. He received his M.A. in psychology from California State University, Los Angeles, in 2002, before being accepted into the Ph.D. program at the Institute for Prevention Research. He joined the Transdisciplinary Drug Abuse Prevention Research Center as a research assistant under the direction of Dr. Alan Stacy. Jerry passed his qualifying exams earlier this year and is working on his dissertation. His dissertation research will examine the influence of televised alcohol advertisements on underage drinking by analyzing longitudinal survey data collected from 3890 students from the greater Los Angeles area in the 7th through the 10th grades.

Melissa Gunning is a second year doctoral student in the PhD Program and a third-year MPH student in the Health Communication Track. She received her B.A in international relations and psychology with a minor in peace and conflict studies from the University of Southern California, and has been working for IPR since 2000. Melissa is currently a research assistant for Dr. Luanne Rohrbach on Project Towards No Drug Abuse (TND) Dissemination. TND Dissemination is a five-year project, which looks to examine the effects of TND, a 12-session drug prevention curriculum, when delivered by regular high school teachers across the United States. As part of her research duties, Melissa has collected data in Los Angeles, Northern California, and across the country in Louisiana, Washington D.C., Boston, Maryland, Kansas and South Carolina. Her research interests include Type II translation research focusing on the diffusion and sustainability of evidence-based programs. Melissa is also the president of the PhD student association, HBRSA.

Janice Hsu  is a second year HBR student. She received her B.S. in Health Policy and Management with a minor in Epidemiology from the National Taiwan University in Taiwan in 2003. She also obtained an MPH degree in the Health Communication track at USC in 2005. Currently, Janice is a research assistant for the Transitions study, a part of the USC C-TREC (the USC Center for Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer), and works for Dr. Donna Spruijt-Metz and Dr. Chih-Ping Chou in the areas of obesity, health behavior, and statistical analysis. With a variety of delicious cuisine from all over the world in Los Angeles, Janice certainly enjoys her life here.

Claradina Soto is a second year doctoral student in the Health Behavior Research program at USC. She received her B.A. in Community Studies from the University of California Santa Cruz and her MPH degree from USC. She is a recipient of the All-University Pre-doctoral Diversity Graduate Fellowship. Claradina has worked in tobacco control for over 6 years and has a special interest in the role of culture and American Indian communities in tobacco use. She works directly with Drs. Jennifer B. Unger and Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati on a grant titled, "Culture and tobacco use among American Indian adolescents," to identify the general and culturally specific risk and protective factors for tobacco use in the American Indian adolescent population. Claradina is very committed to working directly with the American Indian community to maintain the ongoing relationships she has built over the years and to institute positive outcomes for the community. She is very appreciative of her supportive husband and their 3 year daughter who keeps them motivated and active.

Claudia Toledo-Corral is a third year doctoral student in Preventive Medicine/Health Behavior and recently completed an M.P.H., specializing in Biostatistics & Epidemiology.  Claudia also received a B.S. in Psychobiology& Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and an M.S. in Biology from California State University, Northridge (CSUN).  Claudia received an NIH fellowship to complete her master's research and thesis entitled, "Differential regulation of the neuropoietic cytokine receptors, LIFR and GP130, in nerve and muscle of diabetic mice". During this time, Claudia presented her research at various national conferences and won several awards related to her research. Currently, Claudia works under the direction of Dr. Michael Goran and is involved in data collection and fieldwork on several studies of overweight Latino adolescents at risk for type 2 diabetes. Her dissertation work will focus on obesity -related cardiovascular risks in this high-risk cohort.

Recent Graduates

Cara Booker is a recent graduate of the HBR program, graduating in the summer of 2006. Cara received her B.A. in Chemistry in 1999, a B.S. in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Studies in 2000 and her M.P.H. from USC in 2002. She worked as a research assistant for Dr. Jennifer Unger and also as a teaching assistant for Dr. Unger's undergraduate class, Theoretical Principles of Health Behavior, for which she also delivered an occasional lecture. Cara also was a research coordinator for the Keck Diabetes Prevention Initiative at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Her interests include social support, culture, and the role of stressful life events on adolescent smoking. Currently, Cara is a post doctorial fellow at the Medical Research Council, Social & Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Scotland.

See video statement about this program while a 3rd year student

Raquel Fosados graduated in the summer of 2007. She has a B.S. in Health Science and a certificate in Healthcare Administration from the California State University at Long Beach. She received her MPH degree from USC in 2000, with an emphasis in biostatistics and epidemiology, prior to her start in the Ph.D. program. Raquel worked with Dr. Valente, who was also her advisor, in exploring the role of social networks on adolescent substance use. She also worked with him on the role of diffusion of innovations theory and its applicability to interpersonal communication in order to promote STD/HIV preventive health behaviors. As her interest in the intersection of public health and the law grew, she became involved in looking at the disparities in treatment services offered to California's Proposition 36 clients. Her other areas of interest include how westernization and acculturation protect or enhance risk of HIV/STD, and how the law can been used to promote health. Raquel is now attending law school, specializing in public health law, at the University of Utah.

Selena Nguyen-Rodriguez graduated in December, 2006. Currently she is a postdoctoral research associate in the Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, working with Dr. Donna Spruijt-Metz. Her main research interests revolve around stress and other psychological correlates of health behaviors as well as other health psychology issues, specifically the impact of psychological health/well-being on chronic disease management and survival. The majority of her current research is conducted for the USC C-TREC Transitions study, which aims to further understand the physiological and psychosocial determinants of the pubertal decline in physical activity in minority girls. In line with this research, she is interested in extending her expertise to include sleep research in her exploration of the interrelationships among stress, diet, physical activity and obesity.

See Anamara Ritt-Olson's Video Statement