Dave serves as a Senior Statistician to lead the quantitative team at the BHHI. Dave has worked in the field of policy analysis for the last 14 years, primarily focusing on issues of labor standards, such as raising regional minimum wages, and expanding health care affordability and access in California. Most recently, he worked as a statistician for the UC Berkeley Labor Center where he provided the quantitative results for dozens of studies to inform legislative debates. In his first week at the Labor Center, he provided the analysis which led to requirements for San Francisco businesses to provide basic

Erin Hartman, MS, is BHHI's Director of Communications. Prior to joining the staff of UCSF BHHI, Ms. Hartman worked in the UCSF Division of Hospital Medicine as Project Director and Editorial Director for AHRQ Patient Safety Network/WebM&M, a pioneering online patient safety journal and weekly news service advocating worldwide patient safety improvement. Before that, she was Managing Editor of the groundbreaking Clinical Crossroads series in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). She has substantively edited more than 1000 articles published in the medical literature. She received a BA in Linguistics from the University of Michigan with High Honors

Jared Martin, PhD, received his doctorate from Ohio State University in Human Development and Family Science. His research focus covers two areas: (1) housing and related supportive interventions for youth and families experiencing homelessness and housing instability, and (2) implementation science in human service organizations. His dissertation used mixed methods to understand the influence of system-level factors on the adoption of evidence-based practices among organizations serving youth and young adults experiencing homelessness. He has also conducted research on youth attitudes toward service providers, a tailored Housing First approach for youth populations, and implementation of a cross-system intervention to support vulnerable

Joseph Tay Wee Teck (Joe Tay) is a 2023–24 U.K. Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice. Joe Tay will be part of the BHHI Postdoctoral Program from August 21, 2023 to July 31, 2024. He has been a general practitioner (family doctor) working with marginalized groups and populations in Edinburgh for over 15 years. During the pandemic, he was part of the Edinburgh inclusion health initiative to provide primary and addiction care to people experiencing homelessness. He also specializes in addiction medicine and is currently the clinical services director for Forward Leeds, the second largest integrated addiction care

Kenny is the Co-Director of Research Operations at BHHI. He began working at UCSF in 2013 as an intern while attending UC Berkeley for his bachelor's degree in Psychology and Peace and Conflict Studies. He has since served as an Assistant CRC, CRC, Project Manager, and Senior Project Manager. Kenny holds an MPH from UC Berkeley. His primary professional and academic interests focus on using research methods to work with and for homeless and underserved populations within the San Francisco Bay Area.

Lourdes Johanna Avelar Portillo earned her PhD in the Population, Health and Place at the University of Southern California where she focused on addressing interim-level needs, specifically drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) service needs of unhoused communities in Los Angeles. Prior to USC, Johanna earned her MA in Geography at Cal State Long Beach where she explored the intersections of gender, emotional geographies, and household water insecurity in rural communities of Santo Tomas, El Salvador. Johanna earned her BA in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. These research experiences have shaped Johanna’s research interests

Margot Kushel, MD, is Professor of Medicine at UCSF, Division Chief of the Center for Vulnerable Populations, and Director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG). Her research focuses on reducing the burden of homelessness on health through examining efforts to prevent and end homelessness and mitigating its effects on health care outcomes. Margot is a primary care physician at ZSFG’s Richard H. Fine People's Clinic. A leading homelessness researcher, her research has been funded by the NIH, government, and foundations. Margot is quoted frequently in the press. She provides

Mark Hawes, PhD, MSW, is a mixed methods social work researcher focused on eliminating barriers to tobacco and substance use treatment among unhoused communities and those living in permanent supportive housing. He holds a joint appointment as a post-doctoral fellow at the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) and the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (CTCRE). Dr. Hawes is currently working on a mixed-methods study with permanent supportive housing residents that seeks to understand treatment needs centered on the co-use of tobacco with other substances. The goal is to increase the availability of services that integrate tobacco

Michael Duke is a medical anthropologist whose ethnographic and mixed method work focuses primarily on theimpact of contemporary and historical trauma on the physical and mental health of Latinx and Pacific Islander immigrant communities, particularly regarding drug and alcohol use, anxiety and depression, stress, and housing precarity.After receiving his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, he was a researcher at the Hispanic Health Council in Hartford, CT, where he directed several studies on HIV risk among heroin injectors, and was the PI for a series of NIH-funded binational studies focusing on drinking, masculinity, and HIV risk among US-based

Ryan Assaf, PhD, MPH is a second-year postdoctoral fellow with BHHI. He received his PhD in Epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, Fielding School of Public Health where he also received his MPH and earned his BS at the University of California, Irvine. Ryan’s work applies community-engaged practices, social determinants of health frameworks, and epidemiological methods to examine the intersections of infectious diseases, substance use and drug-related overdose, and sexual health among people experiencing homelessness and sexual and gender diverse populations. Prior to joining BHHI, Ryan was an epidemiologist at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. With nearly a

In her role at BHHI, Usma Khan oversees strategic planning, new program development, communications, and the overall operational structure of BHHI. She works to create a strong and inclusive organizational culture that supports BHHI faculty and staff in implementing their impactful work. Usma is inspired by BHHI’s mission and the intentional emphasis on addressing structural racism and equity. Having grown up in the Bay Area, she has witnessed the dramatic rise in homelessness, as the economic divide has widened and housing costs have skyrocketed, and she is dedicated to developing solutions to this critical public health and human rights issue