Faculty Member	Department	Interest Area
Bankole Olatosi	Health Services Policy and Management	Dr. Banky Olatosi's research is focused on improving health outcomes by identifying and examining patterns found in large sets of patient-generated data. His research interests are in the fields of Health Analytics, HIV/AIDS, and COVID-19. His work in these areas is instrumental in understanding how big data science can advance important discoveries in disease surveillance, transmission, natural history, and progression important for treatment and necessary for targeted intervention purposes in the state.
Christina Andrews	Health Services Policy and Management	Christina M. Andrews’ research focuses on public financing for substance use disorder treatment, with a particular focus on Medicaid. She is currently leading two national studies funded by the National Institutes of Health assessing the effects of Medicaid managed care on access to alcohol use disorder treatment and opioid use disorder treatment. Dr. Andrews also serves as Regional Editor for the Americas for Addiction, the leading international journal in the field. Her research has been supported by the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, other government and nonprofit organizations.
Brian Chen	Health Services Policy and Management	Dr. Chen’s research interest lies in investigating how food and drug laws, as well as financial interests from drug prescriptions, influence the quantity and manner in which prescription drugs are prescribed to patients. As prescription medications continue to be a significant part of healthcare delivery, Dr. Chen focuses his research agenda on assessing the choices and consequences associated with explicit and implicit policies surrounding prescription medications, particularly those with high potential for addiction.
Pieter Baker	Epidemiology	Dr. Baker’s research focuses on the risk environment for HIV, overdose, and other drug-related harms among vulnerable populations, including people who inject drugs. He is particularly interested in measuring and mitigating exposures to the criminal justice system (e.g., policy enforcement, policing, incarceration) that may drive harm.
Jennifer Fillo	Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior	Dr. Fillo's research examines social and interpersonal processes related to health behavior, with a particular focus on the influence of close others (e.g., family, friends, romantic partners) on the use of alcohol and other substances. Her research program aims to inform interventions leveraging the influence of close others to support health behavior change. Dr. Fillo has expertise in close relationship processes, substance use, and the design and analysis of dyadic and longitudinal studies.
James Croker	Health Services Policy and Management	Dr. Croker's research examines the relationship between minoritized identity and polysubstance use (i.e., tobacco, cannabis, and alcohol products), particularly among adolescents and emerging adults (AEA), and among older adults living with HIV. Dr. Croker's long-term research interests aim at reducing health disparities (including tobacco related morbidity, mortality, and substance abuse) for people of color, LGBT people, AEA, and older PLWH through individual health promotion, harm reduction, and multi-level policy interventions.
Minji Kim	Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior	Dr. Minji Kim's research focuses on targeted and tailored health communication, with emphasis on tobacco control. Dr. Kim uses quantitative and qualitative research methods to identify various communication strategies to enhance message effectiveness for high-risk populations, including youth and racial/ethnic minorities. Her recent projects include examining the effects of targeted marketing and counter-marketing of emerging tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products; content analysis and evaluation of youth-targeted vaping prevention messages; and developing and evaluating culturally appropriate tobacco cessation messages for Asian Americans.
George Tam	Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior	As a health psychologist, Dr. Cheuk Chi (George) Tam’s current research focuses on (1) development, implementation, and evaluation of theory-based and technology-based psychosocial interventions for prescription opioid/drug misuse; (2) application of mixed methods (i.e., quantitative, qualitative, and ecological momentary assessment) to examine biopsychosocial influences on prescription opioid/drug misuse among key populations, such as young adults, people living with HIV, and women who engaged in sex work; (3) development, implementation, and evaluation of resilience-based multilevel interventions to mitigate HIV-related stigma and its influences in people living with HIV. Visit Dr. Tam's lab website.
Anthony Alberg	Epidemiology	Anthony Alberg is an epidemiologist whose research has focused on the health effects of tobacco and tobacco control. His research focuses on the relationship of secondhand smoke exposure to the risk of cancers other than lung cancer, as well as determinants of adolescent smoking, and the epidemiology of smoking cessation pharmacotherapy use in populations. Recent research has examined the role of biologically relevant genetic variants in relation to smoking cessation.
Jim Thrasher	Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior	Dr. Thrasher’s research focuses on how media and policies influence tobacco-related perceptions and behaviors. His projects are generally international in scope, consider health equity concerns, and increasingly focus on challenges related to emerging tobacco products (e.g., e-cigarettes, products that heat instead of burn tobacco, flavor capsule cigarettes) and innovative interventions (e.g., low nicotine product standards, product inserts to communicate with consumers). He also uses a range of experimental (e.g., brief, online experiments; field trials; experimental auctions; discrete choice experiments) and observational methods (e.g., pre/post policy evaluations; cross-country studies; ecological momentary assessment). He is an internationally-recognized expert who serves on numerous scientific, regulatory, editorial, and advocacy workgroups and committees, including prior service on the Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee, which provides recommendations to the FDA commissioner on the regulation of tobacco products.
Devin Bowes	Enviromental Health Sciences	Dr. Bowes's research interests are interdisciplinary with a focus on the human-environment nexus, particularly as it relates to health outcomes due to health disparities. Her work pioneers the field of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), where she leverages community wastewater to analyze human excreted biomarkers indicative of various aspects of human health at population-scale to encourage inclusive and data-driven decision-making. Utilizing multiomic techniques, topics of investigation involve a myriad of applications including dietary behavior/food insecurity, chronic illness, microbiomes, infectious disease, and environmental exposures, and forming links to social determinants of health. In addition, she has extensive experience applying WBE to monitor opioids and other drugs throughout cities to support contextual, supportive, and targeted interventions. Specific applications include assessing alcohol, tobacco, novel synthetic opioids (NSOs), prescription drugs, illicit substances, etc. at varying degrees of spatial granularity and in diverse population subgroups to support public health strategies. Overall, use of WBE aims to ultimately enrich data acquisition for environmental public health purposes and advance health equity.