Trainees

Current Predocs

Vale Cardenas

Vale Cardenas received her Bachelor of Arts in Social Welfare and Justice, and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations from Marquette University; and a Master’s in Aging Services Management from the University of Southern California. As a doctoral student at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, she works under the supervision of Dr. Susan Enguidanos in the Enguidanos Lab. Vale’s research focus on seriously ill Hispanic and undocumented populations and their healthcare experiences. She has researched the disparities seriously ill Hispanics face at the end of life.

Alice J. Kim

Alice Kim is a Clinical Science PhD student at USC Dornsife working under the mentorship of Dr. Christopher Beam in the Lifespan Development and Clinical Aging Lab. Her work is focused on using developmental behavior genetics to understand how psychosocial experiences and genotype contribute to individual differences in cognitive aging and risk of ADRD. Alice graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology.

Margarita Osuna

Margarita Osuna is a PhD student in Gerontology at the University of Southern California. Under the mentorship of Jennifer Ailshire, she is conducting research in the Ailshire Lab focused on Latin American demography, health, and aging. She is interested in socioeconomic inequalities in health and well-being in the older adult population. Margarita graduated from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in 2015 with an undergraduate degree in Sociology and is currently a member of the LAHA research group (Latin America Health and Aging research group).

Ana Silverstein

Ana Silverstein is a Molecular Biology PhD student working under the mentorship of Dr. Pinchas Cohen at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. Ana’s work primarily focuses on the interface between mitochondrial genetics, mitochondrial malfunction, and immune system decline in aging populations. Her research looks to explore the role of mitochondrial-derived peptides in modulating immune system communication, to better elucidate the key contributors to age-related immune system decline and chronic systemic inflammation.

Current Postdocs

Matthew (Mateo) Farina, PhD

Mateo Farina, PhD, received his doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include life course origins of dementia risk, examining black-white disparities in health, assess in health life expectancies across demographic and geographic groups, and has recently completed some work on disease trends.

Andy Jeesu Kim, PhD

Andy Jeesu Kim, PhD, received his doctorate in Neuroscience from Texas A&M University. His research expertise is grounded in the influence of reward, punishment, and arousal on attentional control using behavioral psychophysics, eye tracking, and fMRI. Currently, he is investigating the changes in the neural networks of arousal and attention that occur during aging.

Eric T. Klopack

Eric T. Klopack, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher in the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at USC. He received his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Georgia. His research focuses on the processes by which social circumstances and relationships interact with biological and developmental systems to produce inequalities in illness, aging, and mortality. He current research investigates how life experiences (especially early life adversity and social stressors) influence immunological aging and biological hallmarks of aging that may lead to impaired cognitive functioning, risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), chronic disease morbidity, and mortality.

Aaron Lim, PhD

Aaron Lim, PhD, received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of California Los Angeles. His research interests include longitudinal predictors of financial exploitation vulnerability, health disparities in cognitive aging, and the effects of substance use on decision-making in older adults.

Past Predocs

Dawn Alley, PhD
Director, Prevention and Population HealthGroup
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation

Joe Angelelli, PhD
Senior Advisor, Alternative Payment Models
UPMC Health Plan

Shelby Bachman, PhD
Graduate Research Fellow, University of Southern California

Jessica Brommelhoff, MPH, PhD
Principal Clinician, MedAvante, Bedford Massachusetts
Licensed Clinical Psychologist/Neuropsychologist, Specialized in Geropsychology

Lauren Brown
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Population Studies Department, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan

Elisabeth Burgess, PhD
Director and Professor, Sociology and Gerontology
Georgia State University

Hans Dalton, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Utah

Marti DeLiema, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford Univ. Center on Longevity, Financial Fraud Research Center

Carrie Donoho, PhD
Chief of Behavioral Epidemiology
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Charlotte Dunham, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology
Director, Texas Tech Center for Women Studies
Texas Tech University

Kelly Durbin
F31 PhD Student
USC

Stephen Frochen
VA Health Services Research and Development Fellow
VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare

Nicole Gatto, PhD
Associate Professor of Public Health
Director, Doctorate in Public Health Program
Claremont Graduate University

Haley Gallo

Scott Hofer, PhD
Professor, Harald Mohr, M.D. and Wilhelma Mohr, M.D. Research Chair in Adult Development and Aging
Director, Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health Psychology
University of Victoria

Dom Grisafe
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Southern California

Molli Grossman, PhD
Senior Specialist, Enrichment Programming
WISE & Healthy Aging

Amy Hammerquist
PhD Student

Dominique Ingegneri, PhD
Vice President, Health Care Economics
Medical Informatics at UnitedHealth Group

Chandra Ghosh Ippen, PhD
Psychologist, University of California, San Francisco
Dissemination Director, Child Trauma Research Program
Early Trauma Treatment Network of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN)

Ross Jacobucci, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Notre Dame

Brian Kaskie, PhD
Associate Professor
MPH in Policy Program, Health Management and Policy,
College of Public Health,
University of Iowa

Morgan Levine, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pathology
Yale University School of Medicine

Nichole Lighthall, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Central Florida

Gerardo Marti, PhD
L. Richardson King Professor of Sociology
Department Chair
Davidson College

Teheran (Terry) Mills, PhD
Assistant Provost for Diversity and Inclusion
John Carroll University

Todd McCallum, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Sciences,
Case Western Reserve University

Brendan Miller

Kaoru Nashiro, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California

James Nhan
Doctoral Student
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California

Christy Nishita, PhD
Associate Specialist, University of Hawaii Center of Aging and Center on Disability Studies
Researcher and Gerontologist

Catherine Pérez
PhD Student
R36 Dissertation Grant
USC

Shai Porat

Norella Putney, PhD
Lecturer, Sociology
California State University, Los Angeles

Amber Watts, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
The University of Kansas

Kristi Wisnieswski

Nicholas Woodward, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Keck School of Medicine,
University of Southern California

Linda Ann Wray, PhD
Associate Professor of Biobehavioral Health
The Pennsylvania State University

Yuan Zhang, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Carolina Population Center

Past Postdocs

Jennifer Ailshire, PhD
Associate Professor of Gerontology,
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,
University of Southern California

Theresa Andrasfay, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar,
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,
University of Southern California

Sarah Barber, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Georgia State University

Christopher Beam, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology
University of Southern California

Ryon Cobb, PhD
Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Arlington

Yeon Jin Choi, PhD

Kevin Feeney, PhD
Associate at Analysis Group in Boston, MA.

Megan Fitzhugh, PhD

Robert F. Kennison, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
California State University, Los Angeles

Uchechi Mitchell, PhD
Assistant Professor
Community Health Sciences
University of Illinois, Chicago

Haena Lee, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar – Research Associate
USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology
View Curriculum Vitae

Joseph Saenz, PhD
Assistant Professor
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,

Anna Rahman, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,
University of Southern California

Nicholas Resciniti, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Southern California

Chandra A. Reynolds, PhD
Professor of Psychology
University of California, Riverside

Sandra L. Reynolds, PhD
Emeritus Faculty
School of Aging Studies,
University of South Florida

Jennifer Robinette, PhD
Assistant Professor
Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences; Psychology
Chapman University

Hiram Beltran-Sanchez, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA

Connor Sheehan, PhD
Assistant Professor,
Arizona State University