Researchers
Allison Aiello, PhD, Principal Investigator
Dr Aiello is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Pubic Health. Dr Aiello has expertise in psychoneuroimmunology and has experience in organizing biological sample collection and storage, conducting immunoassay testing, and supervising laboratory technicians in immunological techniques. Dr. Aiello is a co-investigator in the Sacramento Area Latino Study of Aging (SALSA) and the M-FLU study. [Research Website] [Faculty Website] [M-FLU Website]
Sandro Galea, MD, MPH, DrPH.
Dr Galea is Gelman Professor of Epidemiology and Chair, Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University in New York. Dr Galea is primarily interested in the social and economic production of health, particularly drug use, mental health, and behavior in urban settings and has extensive experience in research concerning the determinants of mental health and health behavior. His work has utilized the techniques involved in this study including telephone and in-person based interviews.
Monica Uddin, PhD
Dr. Uddin is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include gene by social environment interactions in commonly occurring mood-anxiety disorders, social context and the epigenetics of posttraumatic stress disorder, genomic and physiologic phenotypes of mental illness in community-based settings, and developmental perspectives on mental illness. Dr. Uddin is a co-Investigator on DNHS and on the related ARRA-funded Challenge grant, “Candidate Epigenetic Biomarkers for PTSD: Insights from Detroit.”
Jorge Delva, PhD
Dr Delva is a Professor in the School of Social Work and is Co-Director of the “Vivian A. and James L. Curtis School of Social Work Research and Training Center”, a Center at the University of Michigan that aims to conduct multidisciplinary research to understand and eliminate health disparities. He also holds the positions of Faculty Associate at the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research and Affiliate Faculty with the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, School of Public Health, University of Michigan. Additionally Dr Delva is Associate Faculty with the NIMH Research Training Center on Poverty, Risk, and Mental Health, a member of the Executive Committee of the University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center (UMSARC) and of the U-M Tobacco Research Network (UNTRN). He has spearheaded several large population-based studies (in the US and Latin America) as well as community-based projects (Detroit) that involve primary data collection aimed at reducing health disparities. [Faculty Website] [Personal Website]
Sandra Momper, PhD
Dr. Momper is Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include the study of gambling, substance abuse, PTSD, mental health, and health disparities among rural and urban American Indians. She brings to the study her work of 20 years of direct practice experience with African American families and children in urban settings, as well as extensive experience in community organizing. Dr. Momper is a board member of the American Indian Health and Family Services of Detroit.
Kristine Siefert, PhD
Dr Kristine Siefert is Edith S. Gomberg Collegiate Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan. She is also a faculty associate of the NIH Roadmap Exploratory Interdisciplinary Research Center on Health Disparities, the Michigan Consortium for Minority Health and Academic Development, the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, the Obstetrics and Gynecology Health Services Research Program and a faculty affiliate of the National Poverty Center, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and the University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center. Dr. Siefert brings to the study more than 25 years of experience conducting theory-driven research on the social, behavioral, and environmental determinants of physical and mental health in low-income women in diverse racial/ethnic populations.
Larry Gant, PhD
Dr Gant is a Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan. For more than 20 years, Dr. Gant has worked in direct social work clinical practice and research in predominantly African-American, urban, community-based settings. He has been infusing relevant cultural content within a theory-driven intervention program, to recruit and establish rapport with hard-to-reach populations, to sustain working relationships with urban health centers and service agencies over an extended period, and to deliver and implement effective interventions.
Robert Marans, B.Arch, MUP, PhD
Robert W. Marans is a research Professor at the Institute for Social Research and a Professor emeritus of architecture and urban planning in the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. During the past 30 years, Dr. Marans has conducted evaluative studies and research dealing with various aspects of communities, neighborhoods, housing, and parks and recreation and recreational facilities. His research has focused on user requirements and the manner in which attributes of the physical and sociocultural environments influence individual and group behavior and the quality of community life. Much of Dr Marans’ research has been in the context of urban areas. His current research considers the impact of the built and natural environments on quality of life, the role of neighborhood in the health and well-being of Detroit residents, and issues of urban sprawl.
Trivellore Raghunathan, PhD
Dr Raghunathan is a Professor of Biostatistics and a Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research. He is the Director of Biostatistics Collaborative and Methodology Research Core (BCMRC), a research unit designed to foster collaborative and methodological research with the researchers in other departments in the University of Michigan School of Public Health and other allied schools. He is an Associate Director of the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health (CRECH). He is a faculty member at the Center of Social Epidemiology and Population Health (CSEPH) where he works closely with Dr Galea. He is also affiliated with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). Dr Raghunathan brings to this project unique expertise in statistical analysis of survey data.