Category Archives: Feature

Corrina Moucheraud, MPH, ScD is an Assistant Professor in the Fielding School of Public Health, in the Department of Health Policy and Management and her research focuses on global health policy and systems. She uses quantitative and qualitative data to answer questions about how to effectively and equitably deliver high-quality health care in low-resource settings.

Corrina grew up in New York City and was obsessed with disease epidemics from a young age. She had planned to become a doctor with Doctors Without Borders and  had even spent time after school during her teenage years as a volunteer in their office.  Eventually, Corrina realized that her true love was health – so after a short-lived stint of undergrad pre-med, she began happily studying and working in global public health. She received her Master of Public Health degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in Health Behavior as well as her Doctor of Science degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in Global Health and Population.

Currently, Corrina participates in an ongoing collaboration between faculty at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine and partners in Malawi, focused on care for HIV and other chronic diseases such as cervical cancer and hypertension in the HIV-positive population. Her research on cervical cancer in Malawi is the focus of a recent career development award (KL2) from the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI).

Corrina also serves as Co-Principal Investigator of a project that involves CHIPTS faculty Arleen Leibowitz, Ian Holloway and Nina Harawa, alongside investigators from the University of Southern California, and in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of HIV and STI Programs (DHSP).  The project aims to examine approaches for “getting to zero” among men who have sex with men in Los Angeles County. This is an exciting opportunity that applies research methods to inform real-world planning and priority-setting and has the potential to have meaningful impact on service planning in Los Angeles.  This research is supported by a seed grant from the UCLA AIDS Institute, UCLA Center for AIDS Research (AI28697) and USC Molecular Microbiology and Immunology.

As a native of another large and diverse city, Corrina loves living in Los Angeles. She and her partner moved here in 2015, and have been avid weekend explorers ever since. They particularly enjoy sights and experiences that are off the beaten track, so they are always looking for suggestions of eccentric, unusual or underappreciated gems in the LA area!

Each month, we’re featuring a member of our CHIPTS family and their work! To see past spotlights, check them out on the spotlights page and make sure to check back to see who we feature next!

Chunqing Lin, PhD, is a Core Scientist in the Methods Core at CHIPTS.  She is currently an Assistant Professor-in-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA Semel Institute Center for Community Health. Her primary research interest is in implementation science in healthcare settings, which was cultivated during her doctoral dissertation study that examined the implementation issues of methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) programs in China. After receiving her doctoral degree, she served as Project Director and Co-Investigator of several NIH-funded intervention trials in China and Vietnam.

In 2013, she received a Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K award) to study implementation science and intervention delivery in healthcare settings. She applied conjoint analysis to model hospital stakeholders’ decision-making in adoption of evidence-based intervention models and utilized bottleneck analysis to locate the weakest link in the dissemination of intervention supplies within hospitals. Chunqing continues to broaden her research in implementation science through other research activities on health service integration and improvement including a pilot grant to map the provision of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV services and explore strategies to engage migrant women with HIV in the PMTCT service cascade in China.

She is also conducting another pilot study to identify the barriers to substance use and mental health-related service provision among men who have sex with men and to devise strategies to provide integrated mental health and substance use prevention, diagnosis and care in primary care settings. Inspired by the decentralization of MMT services in Vietnam, she recently proposed an R34 to use structured implementation science methodologies to guide the development of an intervention model focusing on process optimization of service decentralization.

Outside of her work, Chunqing is an adventurous eater, embracing exotic and authentic food from across the world, and enjoys imitating restaurant dishes at home. Photography has always been one of her favorite hobbies and she has a talent for taking macro close-ups of flowers.

Each month, we’re featuring a member of our CHIPTS family and their work! To see past spotlights, check them out on the spotlights page and make sure to check back to see who we feature next!

Jeanne Miranda, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Medicine and the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA and is a core scientist in the Combination Prevention Core at CHIPTS. Her major research contributions have been in evaluating the impact of mental health care for ethnic minority communities. She conducted a trial of treatment of depression in impoverished minority patients at San Francisco General Hospital.  From that trial, she found that traditional care for depression supplemented by case management offered additional benefits for Latino patients but not for African American and white participants. She has also studied the impact of care for depression in low-income, minority women screened through county entitlement programs in the Washington DC area. This study found that short-term care for depression is effective for impoverished women, but outreach is necessary to engage these women in care. Jeanne has received several awards for her work, including the Team Science Award from the Association for Clinical and Translational Science and the 2015 UCLA Community Program of the Year – Landmark Award, for her Community Partners in Care project.

Jeanne was an investigator in one of the first studies of HIV in homeless populations published in 1994 and has recently returned to HIV research. She is conducting a pilot investigation of a mental health resilience intervention in impoverished young women in Uganda, 54% of whom are HIV positive. She is combining an intervention to support HIV treatment compliance with a resilience intervention that is aimed at reducing depression and increasing motivation. She is also studying government programs, such as a program of micro-finance funded by the Ugandan government, to determine the best way to get social programs to poor youth in Uganda.

In addition, Jeanne is currently working with two community partners, TIES for Families and the Center for Adoption Support and Education to evaluate an intervention her team developed to provide care for families adopting older children from foster care. She and her colleagues recently finished a book about this therapy that will be published in Summer 2018.

When not at work, Jeanne enjoys spending time with her three children and two granddaughters. She is an avid cook. She brings her love of cooking to her political activism. She is a member of the political group Team TO Resist and Rise where she plans fundraisers and is co-lead of the team that cooks for fundraising events. She also enjoys photography, bringing back many wonderful pictures from Uganda, some of which decorate her suite of offices in the Wilshire building.

Each month, we’re featuring a member of our CHIPTS family and their work! To see past spotlights, check them out on the spotlights page and make sure to check back to see who we feature next!

Damilola Jolayemi, MSc is the Program Coordinator for the Combination Prevention Core at UCLA CHIPTS. Her interest in HIV began while she was pursuing her Master of Science in Global Health at Northwestern University. Damilola, an American of Nigerian origin, was motivated to study global health because she was interested in addressing and alleviating the multiple burden of diseases, including HIV, in Africa. Her education and experience over the years made her aware that the disparities that exist in her native country were also present in US.

At the end of her master’s program, Damilola worked with OMNI Med, an organization in Uganda focused on improving health outcomes through community health education and workers’ training in the interior region of Central Uganda. As part of her practicum project, Damilola developed an HIV training curriculum for community health workers and community members, aimed at increasing their knowledge around HIV testing, identification, treatment and prevention.

During her one month in Uganda, Damilola also conducted focus groups with community health workers to understand and dispel myths and beliefs surrounding HIV. She also spent time at the local hospital’s ART clinic, HIV testing and counseling center, immunization center, maternity ward, and pharmacy to witness the medical care and experiences of people living with HIV.  Through this experience, she made strong connections with health providers and local HIV organizations that gave her insight into the challenges of healthcare access within the region. Given her observations, experience and intrinsic desire to improve health outcomes in resource poor settings, Damilola hopes to further her path in research and work towards a career in infectious diseases prevention.

As a new member of CHIPTS, Damilola is excited to learn more about HIV/AIDS, engage with community members, and plan programs within CHIPTS. Prior to joining CHIPTS, Damilola was an elementary school educator and taught computer science literacy. She loves traveling, hiking, painting landscapes and photography.

Each month, we’re featuring a member of our CHIPTS family and their work! To see past spotlights, check them out on the spotlights page  and make sure to check back to see who we feature next!