Nicholas SantaBarbara, PhD

Completed: 8/18/21

Dr. SantaBarbara is a T32 postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry within the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and is advised primarily by Dr. Scott Comulada. Dr. SantaBarbara recieved his Bachelor’s degree in Communications from Stonehill College, Master’s degrees in Strength and Conditioning from Bridgewater State University and in Applied Exercise Physiology from Columbia University, and a PhD in Kinesiology from Columbia University. His research interests include assessing the effects of exercise, and more specifically resistance exercise, as a method to treat and prevent chronic disease. Dr. SantaBarbara comes to UCLA with a wealth of experience working on large scale NIH-funded clinical trials which have tested the effects of resistance exercise on smoking cessation, depression, and cardiovascular risk, and on several other smaller trials including ones which have tested the effects of resistance exercise on the mental and physical health in adults living with HIV. His current research looks to extend his early work with people living with HIV by focusing on the mechanisms that support improvements in medication adherence with exercise. Dr. SantaBarbara is an avid exerciser, Boston sports fan, and enjoys spending time with his wife Jenni, son Mikey, and two golden retrievers Stella and Thor.

Contact: NSantabarbara@mednet.ucla.edu

Stephen Kwok, PhD

Completed: 10/8/21

Stephen Kwok, PhD, is a recipient of a T32 postdoctoral research grant at the Center for HIV Prevention and Treatment Services. Dr. Kwok received his doctorate in mathematics from UCLA and spent four years as a mathematical researcher before transitioning into biostatistics. At CHIPTS, he works on statistical analyses of patient data, as well machine learning projects such as a patient chatbot for ATN CARES. His academic interests include survival analysis and spatial statistics in a Bayesian inferential framework.

 Contact: SKwok@mednet.ucla.edu

Heather Gunn, PhD

Completed: 5/12/21

Heather Gunn, PhD is currently a T32 postdoctoral scholar at UCLA. She earned her PhD from Arizona State University’s quantitative psychology program in 2019. Her primary methodological interest lies in measurement invariance and her substantive interest lies in evaluating prevention and intervention studies such as the New Beginnings Program, the Family Bereavement Program, and ATN CARES. She recently developed four effect size measures of measurement non-invariance and is currently creating benchmarks for those effect sizes. Ideally, the range of acceptable non-invariance values will be called the Gunn range! In her spare time, she enjoys attending gymnastics competitions, listening to podcasts while hiking the easy trails, and passionately discussing her love of corgis.

 Contact: HGunn@mednet.ucla.edu

Paul Adamson, MD

Paul Adamson MD, MPH is a Clinical Instructor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he specializes in Infectious Diseases. He went to medical school at the UC San Francisco School of Medicine and completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He completed fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at UCLA. His interests include public health, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV prevention. Currently, his research is primarily focused on improving the diagnosis and treatment of STIs among key populations in global health settings, with an emphasis in antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea. He also participates in a variety of COVID-19 related research and advocacy projects. He is a clinical provider at the UCLA CARE Center, where he focuses on the prevention and treatment of HIV and other STIs.

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Adamson, P. C., Hieu, V. N., Nhung, P. H., Whiley, D. M., & Chau, T. M. (2024). Ceftriaxone resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae associated with the penA-60.001 allele in Hanoi, Viet Nam. The Lancet. Infectious diseases, 24(6), e351–e352. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(24)00230-5


2. Bristow, C. C., Mortimer, T. D., Morris, S., Grad, Y. H., Soge, O. O., Wakatake, E., Pascual, R., Murphy, S. M., Fryling, K. E., Adamson, P. C., Dillon, J. A., Parmar, N. R., Le, H. H. L., Van Le, H., Ovalles Ureña, R. M., Mitchev, N., Mlisana, K., Wi, T., Dickson, S. P., & Klausner, J. D. (2023). Whole-Genome Sequencing to Predict Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profiles in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The Journal of infectious diseases, 227(7), 917–925. https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiad027


3. Adamson, P. C., Bui, H. T. M., Kesteman, T., Nguyen, D. T. N., Nguyen, T. T. H., Van Le, T., van Doorn, R. H., Klausner, J. D., & Le, G. M. (2023). Screening for monkeypox virus infections in men who have sex with men in a sexual health clinic in Hanoi, Viet Nam. The Lancet. Microbe, 4(4), e201–e202. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-5247(22)00385-8

Jessica Saleska, PhD, MPH

Completed: 8/11/21

Jessica Saleska, PhD, MPH, was awarded the T32 Fellowship to further her training in HIV treatment and prevention, focusing on the development of interventions informed by behavioral economics. Her background is in public health, having received her PhD in epidemiology from The Ohio State University and a Masters in Public Health from Washington University in St. Louis. Through her T32 Fellowship, she seeks to foster a deeper understanding of health decisions and behaviors through training and insights from psychology and economics. Her current research uses these insights to promote preventative health behaviors among adolescents, including the uptake of vaccines and the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV acquisition. She has also spearheaded several multidisciplinary research collaborations between UCLA’s Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management to develop behavioral interventions for the prevention of COVID-19. When not involved in research and training, Jessica enjoys home-bartending and hiking with her partner and pup.

Contact: JSaleska@mednet.ucla.edu

Emeka Okafor, PhD

Emeka Okafor, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at both CHIPTS and the Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine (CBAM) at UCLA. He received his PhD in Epidemiology and his dissertation focused on the epidemiology of marijuana use, including clinical and neurobehavioral outcomes of marijuana use among persons at-risk and living with HIV. He has also conducted research on understanding barriers to uptake of biomedical approaches for preventing HIV infection. Recently his work has focused on the development and implementation of behavioral interventions for substance use and interpersonal  violence.

Contact: cokafor@mednet.ucla.edu

Crystal Lee, PhD, MPH

Crystal Lee, PhD, MPH, was born and raised on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. Her tribal clans are Tachii’nii (Red Running into the Water), Tabaaha (Water’s Edge), Tsenjikini (Cliff Dwellers), and Kin I ichii’nii (Red House). As a Postdoctoral Fellow at CHIPTS she is conducting HIV biomedical prevention research with a focus on Native American health and examining Indigenous health policies at a tribal, state, national, and international level. She serves on the United Nations (UN) North American Indigenous Caucus, UN Indigenous Women’s Caucus, and UN Gender Equality Task Force. One of her most notable achievements was being honored by President Bill Clinton for her work with Indigenous communities at the Clinton Global Initiative.

Contact: mclee@mednet.ucla.edu

Panteha Hayati Rezvan, PhD

Panteha Hayati Rezvan, PhD, is the newest awardee of the T32 Fellowship at CHIPTS. She has made developments in the realm of successfully facilitating her transition from finishing her Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne in Australia to becoming fully integrated in the local academic community at UCLA, including making connections both in the UCLA Department of Biostatistics and in the UCLA Semel Institute Global Center for Children and Families. She has spent her time at UCLA investigating the evidence surrounding sexually transmitted infections between people receiving preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) treatment and people not receiving PrEP treatment, including identifying possible methodological concerns in previous research and suggesting alternative analyses of available data and research strategies to further understand the issue. Dr. Rezvan is also developing plans for exploring methods for handling high-dimension incomplete data with mixed data types.

Contact: phayatirezvan@mednet.ucla.edu

Kodi B. Arfer, PhD

Kodi B. Arfer, PhD, received a BS from Allegheny College (double majoring in psychology and mathematics) in 2011, and a PhD in experimental psychology from Stony Brook University in 2016. Dr. Arfer entered CHIPTS as a postdoctoral researcher in 2016. He works as a statistician focusing on predictive data analysis, and as a behavioral scientist focusing on decision-making, sexuality, and alcohol. He also has an interest in computer programming, and he is a core developer of the Hy programming language.

Contact: karfer@mednet.ucla.edu

Michael Li, PhD, MPH

Michael Li, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor in the UCLA Department of Family Medicine. They serve as a Project Director on multiple studies under Dr. Shoptaw while developing their own research on the role of stress biology in the links between social adversity, substance use, and HIV in sexual minorities of color. Dr. Li received a Bachelor degree in Biological Sciences from UC Irvine, a Master of Public Health from Cal State Fullerton, and a PhD in Preventive Medicine from the University of Southern California. They also served as a postdoctoral fellow at CBAM prior to being promoted to a faculty position.

Contact: mjli@mednet.ucla.edu

Featured Publications:

1. Li, M. J., Hassan, A., Javanbakht, M., Gorbach, P. M., & Shoptaw, S. J. (2024). Decision-making task performance and patterns of methamphetamine use in people assigned male at birth who have sex with men. Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology32(3), 350–357. https://doi.org/10.1037/pha0000689


2. Li, M. J., Chau, B., Garland, W. H., Oksuzyan, S., Weiss, R. E., Takada, S., Kao, U., Lee, S. J., & Shoptaw, S. J. (2023). Racial, gender, and psychosocial disparities in viral suppression trends among people receiving coordinated HIV care in Los Angeles County. AIDS (London, England)37(9), 1441–1449. https://doi.org/10.1097/QAD.0000000000003578


3. Nong, T., Hodgkin, D., Trang, N. T., Shoptaw, S. J., Li, M. J., Hai Van, H. T., & Le, G. (2023). A review of factors associated with methadone maintenance treatment adherence and retention in Vietnam. Drug and alcohol dependence243, 109699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2022.109699