Current Scholars
Cohort 7
Brianna baker
Dr. Brianna A. Baker is a Counseling Psychologist and Implementation Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the CUNY Center for Innovation in Mental Health whose work centers on Black family systems, maternal mental health, and community-based interventions. She holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Columbia University and completed her clinical fellowship at Yale School of Medicine. Her research integrates prevention science, mixed methods, and public health approaches to address trauma, family violence, and health inequities, with a particular focus on Black women, girls, and families. She also examines movement, sport, and physical activity as pathways to healing, developing culturally grounded interventions that promote both mental and physical health while advancing sport equity. Dr. Baker is known for developing frameworks such as the Black Mother-Daughter Developmental Model and for translating research into innovative, real-world impact across clinical, community, and policy settings.
Samuel Baxter
Samuel Baxter, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His program of research sits at the intersection of chronic conditions, men’s health, and place, with a focus on health stratification. Through the integration of quantitative, qualitative, and system dynamics approaches, Dr. Baxter seeks to examine psychosocial and structural factors that shape health and health trajectories. His work seeks to identify modifiable pathways to protect health and prevent disease progression among men across social and geographic contexts. He earned his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, MPH from the Morehouse School of Medicine, and his BS in Sociology from Clemson University.
Maira castaNeda Avila
Dr. Castañneda-Avila is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. She received her PhD in Clinical and Population Health Research from UMass Chan and completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship in cancer prevention and control. Her research focuses on cancer health disparities, with a particular emphasis on colorectal cancer and multimorbidity, examining how co-occurring chronic conditions and social determinants shape inequities in cancer prevention, treatment, and outcomes. Her current research interests are expanding to integrate mental health into cancer care, with a focus on psychological distress, unmet needs, and access to supportive services across the life course.
Jordan dyett
Dr. Dyett is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wyoming. Her research, informed by her clinical practice experience, centers people who use drugs or have a substance use disorder, their involvement with carceral systems, and their access to health care. She is interested in the study of harm reduction uptake and the subversion of carceral logics, and working towards health equity for all. She holds both a Master’s and PhD in Social Work.
liza hinchey
Dr. Liza Hinchey is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Stress, Trauma, and Anxiety Research Clinic (STARC Lab) in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University. She completed a doctorate in Counseling Psychology at Wayne State University and is involved in both research and clinical work.
Her current research focuses on understanding the relationships between trauma, psychosocial processes (e.g., stress and social interactions), and neuroendocrine function (e.g., HPA axis–related processes), as well as investigating psychosocial rehabilitation models for promoting recovery in persons with serious mental illness (SMI). She has partnered with the World Health Organization, World Psychiatric Association, and Anxiety and Depression Association of America to disseminate her findings, design curricula for psychiatric residencies and other training programs, and translate findings into evidence-informed clinical and community-based practices.
Her work is grounded in a biopsychosocial framework and emphasizes the development of transdiagnostic, mechanistically informed interventions that can be implemented in real-world settings. Dr. Hinchey’s research aims to identify modifiable pathways linking social connectedness and stress physiology to recovery, with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes for individuals with serious mental illness and trauma-related disorders.
Yuanyuan Hu
Dr. Yuanyuan Hu is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work. Her research focuses on improving access to high-quality behavioral health services for underserved BIPOC populations, particularly older adults, by enhancing care coordination across sectors.
Christina Huerta
Dr. Christina Huerta, PhD, MSW, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University. She earned her PhD in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh and completed a Health Resources and Services Administration funded NRSA T32 postdoctoral fellowship in General Academic Pediatrics focused on primary care research. Her program of research broadly focuses on youth and family mental health and access to care, with an emphasis on understanding barriers to service use and engagement. Using collaborative, community-engaged approaches and secondary data analysis, her work examines how family, provider, and structural factors influence access to mental health services for youth, with attention to disparities among Latino youth and families. Her work aims to inform the development of interventions that reduce disparities in youth mental health care.
Chris Lane
Dr. Chris Lane, PT, DPT, PhD is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Northwestern University. Dr. Lane is a licensed physical therapist, and received his Doctorate of Physical Therapy and PhD in Human Movement Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also received a B.S. in Health and Exercise Science at Wake Forest University. His research focuses on health services and disparities, particularly examining access to physical therapy services and social, economic, and structural factors that impact physical therapy access and clinical outcomes in individuals with musculoskeletal and rheumatic conditions, such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Lane is currently focusing on utilizing large data sources, such as Medicare data, to examine healthcare access for individuals after total joint replacement.
Christopher Otmar
Christopher D. Otmar (he/him) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. He earned his PhD in Human Communication from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2024), where he received the James J. Bradac Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Research. His research examines how social experiences, particularly within close relationships and contexts of exclusion and marginalization, shape health and well-being across the lifespan. His current work focuses on how interpersonal stress sustains binge eating symptoms during adolescence, with a longer-term goal of developing just-in-time adaptive interventions that can reach adolescents at moments of heightened vulnerability. He also investigates how early relational experiences contribute to minority stress and health trajectories among LGBTQIA+ adults. He uses both ecological momentary assessment and longitudinal cohort designs in his work. His research has been funded by the University of California’s Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research, and he is currently on an NIH R01 examining longitudinal associations between social media use and binge eating symptoms among adolescents.
Yiqing qian
Dr. Yiqing Qian is a health behavior researcher and epidemiologist studying caregiving and social connection as life-span public health issues. Her research program spans three interrelated areas: (1) psychosocial well-being (e.g., loneliness) of family caregivers (e.g., adult children) and individual living with dementia and other serious illnesses, (2) the shared care and mutual support among older adults, families, and direct care workers (e.g., home health aides, personal care aides) across settings, and (3) contextual factors and health equity.
John richmond sy
Dr. John Richmond Sy is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona. He received his doctorate in psychology, with a concentration in health psychology, from Oregon State University and his master's in counseling psychology from the University of San Francisco. Prior to pursuing his doctorate, he worked in community mental health, serving adults with serious mental illness (SMI). His research primarily focuses on how sleep and circadian rhythms interact with mental health, particularly among individuals with SMI. He also has an interest in the research and clinical applications of wearable health-tracking technology.
tess thomas
Dr. Tess Smith-Thomas is a licensed pediatric psychologist and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the College of Medicine and Golisano Children's at UK. She provides clinical care to children and families experiencing difficulty adjusting to an injury or illness. Dr. Smith-Thomas is also committed to conducting applied, clinically relevant research alongside and related to her clinical work. Broadly, her current program of research focuses on improving psychological outcomes for children with medical conditions through 1) developing refined screening approaches to better identify at risk children 2) reducing disparities through equitable dissemination of resources, and 3) increasing treatment efficacy by developing tailored interventions. She has also conducted a body of research focused on investigating etiological models of early childhood behavioral disorders in order to improve diagnostic assessment and intervention. Dr. Smith-Thomas also collaborates with the Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress to implement trauma-informed care throughout the medical setting.