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Mai See Yang, PhD, MS
Mai See is a mixed method researcher with 15+ years of experience in both policy research and survey development in the social sciences field. She has expertise in survey design, validation, and implementation, as well as a deep knowledge of data analytics. She leverages knowledge of both quantitative and qualitative data analysis to generate insights to inform curriculum development, reports, and decision making. Mai See has been primarily engaged and trained in two areas of research: 1) mental health issues related to older minorities; and 2) subjective well-being among aging Veterans. She is also interested in applied research, Age-Friendly Communities
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Margo Pottebaum, BA
Margo graduated from UC Berkeley in 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Mathematics and Economics and completed an honors thesis analyzing the effects of bail reform in reducing mass incarceration and racial disparities within the criminal justice system. Prior to joining BHHI, Margo worked as a research assistant on housing insecurity related projects at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and as a research program manager on USAID-ASEAN projects regarding conflict prevention and gender equality within Southeast Asia. Margo is passionate about utilizing research to address poverty and inequality and to tackle the deeply rooted issue
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Marisa Espinoza, MPA
Marisa (she/her/ella) holds a Master of Public Affairs degree from the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science from Portland State University. Prior to joining BHHI, Marisa spent years working in the nonprofit sector, in roles ranging from legislative advocacy, community organizing, fundraising, communications, and direct services. Most recently, she has worked with communities experiencing housing instability and homelessness in the Portland, Oregon metro area. As the descendant of migrant farmworkers and displaced people experiencing poverty, she is passionate about centering the voices of people with lived experience of homelessness, developing
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Michael Duke, PhD
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
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Norma Guzman, BA
Prior to joining BHHI, Norma was a research assistant and outreach worker where she worked on various projects focused on homelessness at the University of Southern California. Norma graduated from UC Merced with a BA in Public Health. There, she became part of the Health Science Research Institute where she assisted on various research projects addressing the needs for successful asthma and diabetes management home visitation programs in the San Joaquin Valley. She hopes to explore the risk factors that contribute to disparities in health care and mental health among undocumented Latino immigrants.
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Robin Craig, MS
Robin Craig, MS, is BHHI’s Communications Strategist. Prior to joining BHHI, Robin worked with a variety of public sector organizations as a communications manager and consultant. She has also worked with Central Valley families facing social services intervention get the resources and support needed to stay together or reunify after separation. Robin holds a MS in Strategic Communications and certificates in social psychology, content management, and change management.
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Sara Colom Brana, PhD
Prior to accepting the role with BHHI, Sara worked as a data scientist/statistician at Methods Consultants of Ann Arbor where she performed data/statistical analysis for various clinical research studies. She also worked as a research coordinator at Michigan Medicine where she contributed to the Infant Driven Feeding initiative aimed at improving the quality and quantity of oral feeds in premature babies. Sara obtained her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and certificate in Data Science at the University of Michigan, where she gained expertise in statistical programming, inferential/descriptive statistics, research design, data wrangling/transformation, data visualization, and machine learning techniques.
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Sila Adhiningrat, MPH
Sila completed a Master's in Public Health from Columbia University, where she specialized in sociomedical sciences with a certificate in health promotion research and practice. She has a Bachelor of Arts in public health policy and management from UC Irvine.
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Sonja Simmons, BA
Sonja Simmons has worked at UCSF since 2012. She is an administrative officer for the Center for Vulnerable Populations at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and provides administrative support to Dr. Margot Kushel. Her passion to support communities in need began when she started participating in neighborhood fruit picking and donating directly to distribution organizations. She is committed to supporting the work that brings about change for populations in need. Sonja graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in Clinical Psychology.
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Stephen King, BA
Steve has been with UCSF for 19 years. Most recently, he worked with the Lupus Outcome Study for ten years. Prior to that, Stephen had worked as a Project Coordinator for Urban Health Study for nine years, an organization devoted to the principles of harm reduction in preventing the spread of the HIV virus in drug using and homeless populations.
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Sye-Ok Sato, MA
Sye-Ok Sato is a Project Manager for the HOPE HOME Study, coordinating the longitudinal cohort study that examines the relationship between discrimination, stigma, medical mistrust, health utilization and health outcomes among homeless older adults in Oakland, California. She has made it a priority in her research endeavors to give a voice to communities that are overlooked, including people experiencing homelessness and drug users. She comes to the Center of Vulnerable Populations/Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative with experience and passion to implement creative research processes that provide meaningful and actionable findings. Sye-Ok hails from the Pacific Northwest and is currently residing
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Tianna Jacques, BA
Tianna Jacques is a Research Analyst at BHHI. She supports the qualitative research team and is currently conducting research for the California State Survey. Tianna recently earned a BA from San Francisco State University in Sociology. There, she became a part of SF BUILD (a program that aims to uplift underrepresented groups in the biomedical field) where she conducted research around the impact of COVID-19 on our local homeless communities. Tianna says her family's own financial struggles when she was young sparked her passion to uplift others experiencing similar hardships.
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Vivian Bui, MPH
Vivian grew up in Anaheim, CA and attended UC Berkeley for her undergraduate and graduate studies. She holds a Public Health BA, Molecular and Cell Biology BA, Global Poverty and Practice Minor, and MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Prior to joining BHHI, Vivian worked with people experiencing homelessness in the East Bay through the Suitcase Clinic, Berkeley Free Clinic's Street Medicine Team, and the 2022 PIT Count. Since 2019, she has also worked with Dr. Coco Auerswald on community-engaged research, detailing the impact of COVID-19 on youth experiencing homelessness in San Francisco and Alameda Counties. During her MPH, Vivian joined
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Yea-Hung Chen, PhD, MS
Yea-Hung Chen, PhD is a statistician at BHHI. His research has focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on mortality. Yea-Hung graduated from the University of California, San Francisco with a PhD in Epidemiology and Translational Science. He also has an MS in Biostatistics from the University of Washington, and a BA in Psychology and Statistics from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Zena Dhatt, BS
Zena is a Qualitative Research Project Manager at the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. Her areas of expertise include qualitative methodology, ethnographic fieldwork and data collection, and qualitative data analysis. She served as Qualitative Project Manager on the California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness (CASPEH) and is currently working as an ethnographer on a longitudinal qualitative study of fentanyl-stimulant polysubstance use among people experiencing homelessness. Zena's research interest is in exploring the intersections of substance use, homelessness, and different forms of violence among marginalized communities. She graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a Bachelor of Science