Research Team

Jarmin Yeh, PhD, MPH, MSSW

Associate Adjunct Professor
Institute for Health & Aging

Jarmin Yeh, PhD, MPH, MSSW, is an Associate Professor in the Institute for Health & Aging, Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, in the School of Nursing at UCSF. They are a sociologist, gerontologist, and age-friendly cities and health researcher. Their work broadly investigates social justice issues that impact the quality of life of community-dwelling older adults, people living with dementia, and caregivers.

Matthew Beld

Research Data Analyst 3
Institute for Health & Aging

Matthew is an epidemiologist in the UCSF School of Nursing and data manager for the CARING Lab. They have collaborated on several studies including work with dementia, inclusive care, and housing for LGBTQ older adults. Matthew co-authored the 2021 updated report for the California Department of Public Health, titled "Alzheimer's disease and related dementias facts and figures in California: Current status and future projections." They received an MPH from UC Berkeley. 

Marina Chabot, MSc

Sr Statistician
Institute for Health & Aging

Lei Chen, PhD

Postdoctoral Scholar
Institute for Health Policy Studies

Dr. Lei Chen is a postdoctoral scholar at the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. She is a trans-disciplinary and cross-cultural researcher whose research focuses on Long-term services and supports, immigrants' access to healthcare, migrant workforce, aging and health policy, aging and technology, and cross-cultural study.

Jiwon Choi, RN, PhD

Associate Adjunct Professor
Institute for Health & Aging

Suzanna Martinez, PhD, MS

Associate Adjunct Professor
Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Dr. Suzanna Martinez' research centers on identifying determinants of health among ethnically underserved populations to help inform and contribute to intervention practices. As a Latina investigator, her long-term professional goal is to conduct research that makes an impact on reducing health disparities among vulnerable groups. She has expertise in the area of energy balance, specifically nutrition, physical activity and sleep, with a particular focus of the impact of food insecurity in college students and throughout the life course. Her research is informed by health behavior theory and the social ecological framework, and she has extensive experience in multivariate statistics and qualitative research methods. 

Mel Neri

Project Policy Analyst

Mel Neri is a Research Associate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the Director of Curriculum Development, managing and co-authoring courses for College of Personal Assistance and Caregiving (CPAC) online training curriculum. She has been working in the disability and health services research field for over two decades. Before coming to UCSF in 2007, she worked at the Oregon Office on Disability & Health at the Oregon Health & Science University, the Center for Health and Disability Research at the National Rehabilitation Hospital, and the Center for Disability Policy and Research at the University of Washington.  

Kourtney Nham, PhD(c)

Graduate Student Researcher
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Kourtney Nham is a doctoral student in the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. Her research interest broadly centers on the relationship between militarism, imperialism, and health, with a particular interest in the material impacts of the United States' extensive network of military bases. She hopes to situate her work in conversation with ethnic studies, critical military studies, environmental justice, and abolitionist scholarship. Kourtney received a BA in Human Biology and Society with a minor in Asian American Studies from UCLA. Kourtney is Co-Assistant Director of the UCSF Emancipatory Science Lab, founded by Dr. Carroll Estes, and a graduate student researcher of the Openhouse + On Lok Community Day Services project.

Brittney Pond, PhD

Research Assistant
Institute for Health & Aging
Brittney Pond is a graduate of the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. Her main research interests focus on perceptions of aging, dying well, and elder agency, especially for those with Alzheimer's disease. She is engaged in conversations regarding emotion work, caregiver burnout, and qualitative methodologies. She is a Co-Director of the UCSF Emancipatory Science Lab, founded by Dr. Carroll Estes. She received a BA from the College of Holy Cross, where she completed a thesis using ethnographic methods to study caregivers working with people who have Alzheimer's disease. She received a PhD in sociology from UCSF.

Kattia Suarez Vargas, BA

Project Policy Analyst
Institute for Health & Aging
Kattia Vargas, a seasoned professional, earned her B.A. in general Psychology at UCB. She previously held key roles in two departments at UCSF as a clinical research coordinator: the Institute of Global Health Sciences (IGHS) and the Department of Medicine at ZSFG. Her expertise has been pivotal in evaluating interventions aimed at reducing birth inequities in one study and understanding the impact of healthy eating and nutrition support services on the well-being of individuals with Type 2 Diabetes in another. She is currently working as a Project Policy Analyst in the Institute for Health & Aging at UCSF in different projects with Dr. Jarmin Yeh. Her research has allowed her to refine her skills in English-Spanish cross-cultural research, qualitative data analysis, and recruitment. Her unwavering passion lies in improving access to culturally competent healthcare and health equity for underrepresented communities, including people of color, immigrants, and those from low-income backgrounds. This passion is deeply rooted in her personal journey as a Latina immigrant, a non-native English speaker, and from a low-income family.

Susan Sun, MA

Specialist
Institute for Health & Aging