Roch Nianogo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He is a general medicine physician-scientist and epidemiologist. Methodologically, his work involves the development and application of epidemiologic and causal inference methods, as well as computational modeling and simulation tools (also known as systems science methods) for translating research evidence into effective clinical, public health and policy interventions. Substantively, his work has focused on chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (CVD), diabetes, obesity, cancer, Alzheimer's diseases and related dementias and the reduction of health disparities. Dr. Nianogo's work additionally specializes in the synthesis and integration of best evidence, the forecasting and prediction of public health problems, the ethical considerations of and the comparative- and cost-effectiveness of health interventions.
In-house substantive area of expertise: Cardiovascular diseases, Diabetes, Cancer, Alzheimer's diseases and related dementias.
Luke Barry is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Luke’s background is in health economics and public health. His work has involved the application of econometric techniques, decision modelling and review techniques to examine the costs, effects and disparities associated with chronic disease and interventions to treat or delay their onset/progression. In particular, he has applied these methods to examine asthma, stress and stress-related disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, dementia as well as health-related quality of life measurement. Taken together, Luke’s research has focused on the measurement and analysis of costs and outcomes related to chronic disease as well as the distributional cost-effectiveness of interventions to improve public and patient health.
In-house substantive area of expertise: Cost-effectiveness, asthma, stress
Fan Zhao is a 2nd year PhD student in Epidemiology. Prior to this, she received a Bachelor’s in Medicine from Sichuan University and an MS in Epidemiology in UCLA. Her research interests include racial/ethnic disparity and health policy. Currently her doctoral dissertation focuses on racial disparities in obesity, diabetes and soda tax.
In-house substantive area of expertise: Diabetes, Obesity, Quasi-experiments
Nicola Churchill is a first year PhD student. She completed her MPH in Epidemiology at UCLA in June 2022. Her research focus is Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), preventive epidemiology, and health disparities. She hopes to conduct her own research looking into hypothetical public health interventions for AD with regards to sleep quality. To accomplish this, she aims to apply methods of data fusion, machine learning, and prediction modeling.
In-house substantive area of expertise: Alzheimer's disease and other dementias
Mina is a second year MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. His current research has focused on assessing the impact of Medicaid Expansion on various cancer malignancies. Outside of UCLA, Mina is also a research intern at Kaiser Permanente in the Division of Behavioral Research currently working on assessing the concept of “food as medicine” with Dr. Claudia Nau. For his internship, Mina currently works under the supervision of Dr. Ying Ying Meng to study tobacco related disease disparities. As his interest in research has grown, Mina is hoping to transfer to the PhD program to continue learning about methodology, research design, and implementing his growing passion for programming in answering public health questions.
In-house substantive area of expertise: Cancer, data science