Hometown:

Thousand Oaks, California

About Me:

I am a professor of public health at UCLA School of Dentistry, where I teach courses in culture and health, ethics, behavioral science and health policy, and conduct studies of access to health care in immigrant communities and, as a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute, among persons living with HIV. A medical anthropologist, my research focuses on how community-scale crises, including natural hazards and epidemics, impact urban populations. At UCLA Geffen School of Medicine, I conduct studies of the impact of terrorism and disaster on children's mental health and posttraumatic stress as a member of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. I have conducted community-based evaluation and survey research on both adults’ and children’s mental health, including post-traumatic stress, jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health, following the Whittier Narrows Earthquake and the East Bay Hills, Baldwin Hills and Altadena Fires, and currently consult on program evaluation to the Terrorism and Disaster Center at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and to the Miller Children’s Abuse and Violence Intervention Center, at Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, California.

Area(s) of Training

medical anthropology, public health

Area(s) of Expertise

Chronic Disease, Natural Hazards, Sustainability

Most Recent Degree

PhD

Current Area of Employment

Professor, University of California, Los Angeles