Begin main content
Affiliated Faculty

The following UCLA faculty members are experts in their schools, departments and specialties and have focused much of their research and training experiences on either Latin America, health, or poverty and other social determinants of health. They will work in tandem with the UCLA Blum Center to advance knowledge and build solutions for improving health outcomes in Latin America.

Onyebuchi Arah, MD, DSc, MPH, PhD, Associate Dean for Global Health, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

 

Dr. Arah's research work has been in epidemiologic methodology and biostatistics; causal analysis of non-experimental studies; bias analysis; global context of health and healthcare with particular interest in developing countries; global socioeconomic context of chronic diseases; comparative effectiveness research.

Judy Baca, MA, Professor, Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCLA; Professor, UCLA World Arts and Culture/Dance

 

As a visual artist and one of the nation's leading muralists, Dr. Baca is best known for her large-scale public art works. In her internationally-known The Great Wall of Los Angeles, a landmark pictorial representation of the history of ethnic peoples of California from their origins to the 1950's.

Timothy Brewer, MD, MPH, Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary and Cross-Campus Affairs, UCLA

 

Dr. Brewer is an Infectious Disease Physician at Ronald Reagan and Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center. He has published extensively on using analytic methods to optimize the population-based control of infectious diseases, particularly tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Ronald Brooks, PhD, Co-principal Investigator, Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine

Dr. Brooks is a faculty member at CBAM, where he leads evaluation and capacity building projects to support HIV organizations, along with research that focuses on the acceptability of biomedical HIV prevention strategies among men who have sex with men. Dr. Brooks earned his PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA and completed his postdoctoral training here in the School of Public Health.

Carole H. Browner, PhD, MPH, Chair, Department of Anthropology at UCLA; Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Gender Studies at UCLA

 

Dr. Browner is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research interests lie principally at the intersection of gender, reproduction, and health. One of her major focus has been to explicate the ways that gender-based power relations shape women’s and men’s reproductive behavior.

Thomas Coates, PhD, MA, Professor in Residence in the Department of Epidemiology, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; Endowed Professor of Global Aids Research, Infectious Diseases; Director, UCLA Program in Global Health

 

Dr. Coates' areas of emphasis and expertise are HIV prevention, the relationship of prevention and treatment for HIV, and HIV policies. His domestic work has focused on men who have sex with men, and he is currently finishing a nationwide clinical trial of an experimental HIV preventive intervention focused on this population.

Brian Cole, PhD, MPH, Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

 

Dr. Cole is program manager and lead analyst for the Health Impact Assessment Group at the UCLA School of Public Health, conducting and providing technical assistance on HIAs on a wide range of public policies and projects, including Living Wage Ordinances, urban redevelopment, school programs and transportation projects.

Stephen Commins, PhD, Associate Director, Global Public Affairs; Lecturer in Urban Planning, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

Stephen Commins works in areas of regional and international development, with an emphasis on service delivery and governance in fragile states. Commins was Director of the Development Institute at the UCLA African Studies Center in the 1980s, and then worked as Director of Policy and Planning at World Vision International in the 1990s.

David Cutler, MD, Physician in Family Medicine, Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center; Assistant Clinical Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Cutler is active in the UCLA program in Global Health. He has led yearly missions to Haiti providing medical care and education at a rural primary care clinic. He has also explored international health during periods of practice in New Zealand and Myanmar (Burma).

Linda Delp, PhD, MPH, Director, UCLA Labor Occupational Safety & Health Program (LOSH)

 

Dr. Delp has more than 20 years experience creating bilingual health and safety education and research programs for workers in the U.S. and Mexico and developing union and labor-management programs in a variety of industries ranging from manufacturing to meatpacking to health care. She teaches cross-disciplinary UCLA courses with graduate and undergraduate students from public health, urban planning and labor and workplace studies.

Magali Delmas, PhD, Co-Investigator, CBRE Research Effort, Professor of Management, UCLA Institute of the Environment and UCLA Anderson School of Management

Dr. Delma's research interests are primarily in the areas of Business Strategy and Corporate Sustainability. She has written more than 60 articles, book chapters and case studies on business and the natural environment. Her current work includes the investigation of the barriers and incentives to the adoption of energy efficient solutions.

Robin Derby, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Modern Latin America & the Caribbean at UCLA

 

Dr. Derby's research interests include the Caribbean (esp. the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Cuba), Latin American political regimes, authoritarianism, state terror, U.S. imperialism, popular religion, and cultural history.

Alessandro Duranti, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UCLA; Dean, Division of Social Sciences at UCLA

 

Dr. Duranti's research projects have focused on the role of verbal and visual communication in political arenas, everyday life, and during music performance and rehearsals. Theoretically, he has been interested in agency, intentionality and intersubjectivity. Methodologically, he has favored participant-observation and audio-visual recordings of spontaneous interaction.

Sebastian Edwards, PhD, MA, Henry Ford II Chair and Professor of International Business Economics, UCLA Anderson School of Management

 

Dr. Edwards' research interests include emerging markets, currency crisis, capital markets, Latin America, monetary policy, and the Federal reserve.

David Eisenman, MD, MSHS, Co-investigator, Professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and Associate Natural Scientist at the RAND Corporation

 

Dr. Eisenman’s primary research interests are in community resilience to disasters, climate change and health, and trauma mental health. He is currently studying the interactions of social and built-environment predictors of heatwave mortality and morbidity, the mortality associated with winter-time extreme heat in Los Angeles, organizational networks in disasters, behavioral responses to wireless emergency alerts, climate change policy in public health, social cohesion and health, wildfires and mental health, and improving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in public safety-net clinics.

Christopher Erickson, PhD, Professor, UCLA Anderson School of Management; Senior Associate Vice Provost and Director, UCLA International Institute

 

Dr. Erickson's research focuses on comparative industrial relations systems, industrial relations and labor market transformation in different regions of the world, wage determination, collective bargaining, innovations in union organizing, and skills development.

Jose J. Escarce, MD, PhD, Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Professor of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; Senior Natural Scientist at RAND

 

Dr. Escarce has published extensively on a variety of topics including physician behavior, medical technology adoption, racial and socioeconomic differences in health care, and the effects of market forces on access, costs, and quality of care. His research interests and expertise include health economics, managed care, physician behavior, racial and ethnic disparities in medical care, and technological change in medicine.

Leobardo Estrada, PhD, Associate Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

 

Dr. Estrada's areas of expertise include ethnic and racial demographic trends, particularly in the Latino population of the southwestern United States, inner city redevelopment, and social policy analysis and research methods.

Cindy Fan, PhD, Vice Provost for International Studies, Professor of Geography and Asian American Studies at UCLA

 

Dr. Fan is internationally known for her research on migration and regional development in China and has published numerous articles. Her research interests are population, migration, regional development, gender, ethnicity and China.

Patricia Gándara, PhD, Research Professor, UCLA School of Education and Information Studies; Co-Director, The Civil Rights Project at UCLA

 

Dr. Gándara has been a bilingual school psychologist, a social scientist with the RAND Corporation, and a director of education research in the California State Legislature. She has written or edited seven books and more than 100 articles and reports on educational equity for racial and linguistic minority students, school reform, access to higher education, the education of Latino students, and language policy.

Juan Garay, MD, Head of Cooperation, Delegation of the European Union to Mexico

 

Dr. Garay is developing research on global health unmet challenges and a comparative analysis of the EU and United States policies in global health. He is a medical doctor from Spain specialized in internal medicine, tropical medicine, and public health. His career has combined clinical, public health, academic, policy and political work, all related to health of the most neglected.

Patricia Greenfield, PhD, Distinguished Professor in Developmental Psychology, UCLA Department of Psychology

 

Dr. Greenfield's central theoretical and research interest is in the relationship between culture and human development. She is a past recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Behavioral Science Research, the APA Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society, and the SRCD award for Distinguished Contributions to Cultural and Contextual Factors in Child Development.

David Hayes-Bautista, PhD, Professor of Medicine, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine; Director, Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture

 

Dr. Hayes-Bautista's research focuses on the dynamics and processes of the health of the Latino population using both quantitative data sets and qualitative observations. The Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture combines these research interests with teaching of medical students, residents and practicing providers to manage the care of a Latino patient base effectively, efficiently and economically.

Susanna Hecht, PhD, Professor in Urban Planning, UCLA School of Public Affairs

 

Dr. Hecht’s research focuses on political ecology but her results have major implications for climate change adaptation, mitigation and longer term rethinking of longer term resilience strategies. Her research on deforestation policy and the tropical livestock sector has had important impact for changing the incentive patterns that resulted in rampant deforestation in the 1980s.

Jody Heymann, MD, PhD, Dean, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

 

Deeply committed to translating research into policies and programs that improve individual and population health, Dr. Heymann has worked with government leaders in North America, Europe, Africa and Latin America as well as a wide range of intergovernmental organizations including the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization, the World Economic Forum, UNICEF and UNESCO. Central to her efforts is bridging the gap between research and policymakers.

Moira Inkelas, PhD, MPH, Co-Investigator, AltaMed Institute for Health Equity Research; Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

 

Dr. Inkelas’ research is primarily concerned with children’s access to health care, tailoring managed care and health care financing policies to the needs of children with chronic illness, the impact of systems on quality and performance, measuring quality of care, and quality improvement.

Richard Joseph Jackson, MD, MPH, Chair and Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

 

Dr. Jackson is a pediatrician who has done extensive work in the impact of the environment on health. Over the past decade much of his work has focused on how to 'built environment' including architecture and urban planning affect health.

Reza Jarrahy, MD, FACS, FAAP, Physician, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at UCLA; Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Co-Director, UCLA Craniofacial Clinic; Co-Director, UCLA Face Transplant Program; Assistant Chief of Plastic Surgery, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center

 

Dr. Jarrahy's clinical specialties include all aspects of advanced craniofacial surgery. He is a dedicated humanitarian, volunteering his time and efforts numerous times a year to travel abroad and provide free operations to children in developing nations who suffer from craniofacial deformities, but lack access to medical and surgical care.

Jorge Lazareff, MD, Neurological Surgeon, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center

 

Dr. Lazareff received his medical degree from University of Buenos Aires and has been practicing for 38 years. His primary focus is the treatment of children with neurosurgical disorder.

James Macinko, PhD, MA, Co-Investigator, AltaMed Institute for Health Equity Research; Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences and Department of Health Policy Management

 

Dr. Macinko's areas of research include assessing the impact of health reforms and policy changes, developing tools to evaluate health system performance, and exploring the role of health policies and services in the production and potential reduction of health inequities.

Carl Maida, PhD, MA, Adjunct Professor, UCLA School of Dentistry

 

Dr. Maida conducts studies of ethnic cultural disparities in health care and of health-related quality of life and self-care. His research focuses on the prevention and treatment of chronic and epidemic disease, and on the impact of community-scale trauma on children, adolescents, and their families.

David A. Mayer Foulkes, PhD, Professor, Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas, A.C. (CIDE)

 

Dr. Mayer Foulkes' interest involves understanding underdevelopment as a long-term, dynamic poverty trap.
 

Rashmita Mistry, PhD, MS, Associate Professor, UCLA School of Education and Information Studies; Division Head, Human Development and Psychology Program at UCLA

 

Dr. Minstry's teaching and research interests involved the consequences of poverty and economic stress on child and family well-being, young children's reasoning about social class and economic inequality, and children's social identity development.

Karin Nielsen, MD, MPH, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA

 

Dr. Nielsen's main area of research has been pediatric/perinatal HIV infection. She has conducted studies in the pathogenesis of transmission of HIV, studies of virologic and immunologic markers of pediatric long term survival in HIV infection, treatment trials and PK studies of protease inhibitors in children.

Adeline Nyamathi, PhD, ANP, FAAN, Distinguished Professor, UCLA School of Nursing; Associate Dean for International Research and Scholarly Activities; Associate Dean for Research

 

Dr. Nyamathi has led an impressive team of multidisciplinary investigators as Principal Investigator (PI) of eight NIH-funded RO1s, as well as a number of other NIH grants, funded by NIDA, NIAAA, NICHD and NIAID over the past 25 years related to HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, TB and other infectious diseases. She has disseminated her work nationally and internationally and has over 150 publications in leading interdisciplinary journals. She is also Principal Investigator on an R34 study in India currently and has had success in leading a team of investigators focused on improving the health of women with AIDS in India. Dr. Nyamathi has also successfully used cell phone technology in her studies.

Marjorie Orellana, PhD, Professor, UCLA School of Education and Information Studies

 

Dr. Orellana's teaching and research interests are in the experiences of the children of immigrants in urban schools and communities, with a focus on their work as language and cultural brokers.

Angie Denisse Otiniano, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Science and Human Ecology at California State University, San Bernardino

 

Dr. Otiniano's research explores the role neighborhood level factors may play on the relationship between discrimination and substance abuse. More specifically, her research focuses on the relationship between substance abuse and discrimination among Latinas/os in Latin America and the use of community-based participatory research techniques to engage community members in developing programs and policies aimed at addressing substance abuse and discrimination.

Francisco Ramos-Gomez, DDS, MS, MPH, Director of Pediatric Dentistry Preceptorship Program and Professor in the Division of Pediatric Dentistry, UCLA School of Dentistry

 

Dr. Ramos-Gomez has been a pediatric dentist for more than twenty years with specific focus and research in the areas of early childhood caries (ECC) prevention, oral disease risk assessment, and community health with an emphasis on underserved populations.

Adam Richards, MD, PhD, Clinical Instructor of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Postdoctoral Fellow, American Heart Association- Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research Center at UCLA

 

Dr. Richards is an Internal Medicine Physician at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. His research interest involves developing measurement tools and evidence based interventions to understand and address the social determinants of health among migrant and disadvantaged populations.

David Schaberg, PhD, Dean, Division of Humanities at UCLA; Professor, Asian Languages and Cultures Department at UCLA

 

Dr. Schaberd received his doctoral degree in comparative literature from Harvard University. His research interests include Pre-Qin Chinese historiography and thought, Chinese poetry, and Chinese, Greek and Latin comparative literature.

Judith L. Smith, PhD, Former Dean/Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education

 

Dr. Smith has been a tireless advocate for undergraduate education and has been instrumental in substantially improving education for all undergraduate students at UCLA.

Lara Stemple, JD, Director of Graduate Studies, UCLA School of Law; Director, Health and Human Rights Law Project

 

Lara Stemple teaches and writes in the areas of human rights, global health, gender, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, and incarceration. She has drafted legislation that was signed into law, lobbied members of Congress and United Nations delegates, and testified before legislative bodies.

Breena R. Taira, MD, MPH, Assistant Clinical Professor, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center

 

Dr. Taira is an Emergency Medicine Physician at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. She received her medical degree from Stony Brook University School of Medicine and has been practicing for 10 years.

Bonnie Taub, PhD, MPH, MA, Chair, Latin American Studies at UCLA; Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

 

Dr. Taub's research interests include international family health, mental health, health seeking behavior, combining of traditional medicine and shamanism with Western medicine, indigenous peoples, human rights, qualitative research methodology, video ethnography, diversity training and cultural competency for clinicians.

Paula Tavrow, PhD, MSc, MALD, Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; Director, Bixby Program in Population & Reproductive Health; Co-Director, UC Global Health Institute's Center of Expertise in Women's Health and Empowerment.

 

Dr. Tavrow's current research interests center on adolescent reproductive health, coerced sex and the quality of primary health care in East Africa.

Kevin B. Terraciano, PhD, MA, Professor in the Department of History at UCLA; Director, Latin American Institute at UCLA; Co-Director of the UCLA Latin American Studies Program; President, American Society of Ethnohistory

 

Dr. Terraciano's has been a distinguished faculty member of UCLA for 20 years. His interdisciplinary research focuses on the history of indigenous peoples in Mexico, based especially on their own writings.

Christopher Tilly, PhD, Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs; Director of UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

 

Dr. Tilly studies labor markets, inequality, urban development and public policies directed toward better jobs. He is particularly interested in understanding how combinations of institutions and markets generate unequal labor outcomes, and in how public policy and collective action can successfully be directed toward improving and equalizing such outcomes.

Cristina Tirado<, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

 

Dr. Tirado has been working on climate and environmental changes, sustainable development, food and health issues with the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, governmental and nongovernmental organization and universities worldwide for 20 years. Currently she serves as adviser for the Pan American Health Organization.

Abel Valenzuela profile picture

Abel Valenzuela, PhD, M.C.P, Professor of Chicano Studies and Urban Planning & Director of UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

 

Dr. Valenzuela has authored numerous research articles, books, and reports on immigrant settlement, work, and urban poverty. His research on day labor and immigrant labor markets have helped frame national public and policy narratives on immigrant and low-wage workers.

Arturo Vargas-Bustamante, PhD, MA, MPP, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

 

Dr. Vargas-Bustamante conducts research in health care disparities and health policy in developing countries. His health care disparities research focuses on population groups that are overwhelmingly uninsured or that have poor access to health care, predominantly among Latinos and immigrants in the U.S.

Ondine S. von Ehrenstein, PhD, MPH, MSc, Associate Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences

 

Dr. von Ehrenstein is Associate Professor of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Her areas of interest are global health; reproductive, perinatal and child health and development; environmental and lifestyle factors; life-course and reproductive epidemiology; child health disparities; biomarkers in population research; policy impacts.

Roger Waldinger, PhD, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Sociology, UCLA College of Letters and Science; Co-Organizer, UCLA Migration Study Group

 

Dr. Waldinger works on international migration; its social, political, and economic consequences; the policies and politics emerging in response to its advent; the link between immigrants and the countries and people they have left behind.

Sean D. Young, PhD, MS, Director of Innovation, UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine; Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, David Geffen School Medicine at UCLA

 

Dr. Young's research, teaching and clinical work focuses on the use of social media and mobile health technologies for predicting and changing health behaviors, domestically and internationally. He has spent over a decade studying the use of technologies to address issues related to HIV and drug use prevention and testing behavior.