Faculty

Sonya Borrero, MD, MS

Dr. Borrero’s work strives to advance reproductive health equity. Her research has focused on understanding multilevel influences on contraceptive and pregnancy decision making in marginalized populations in order to identify targets for social, clinical, and policy interventions that will decrease people’s risk for undesired pregnancy and that will augment reproductive autonomy.

Judy Chang, MD, MPH

Dr. Chang's research examines patient-clinician communication in reproductive health encounters and exploring sensitive, stigmatized conditions. Recently, her team has been examining race bias and differences in maternal health care, including in patient-clinician communication. 

Karlyn Edwards, PhD

Dr. Edwards is a licensed clinical psychologist, and her research focuses on characterizing social determinants of health and stigma and their impact on health outcomes among people with chronic pain and substance use. Her work also focuses on developing, tailoring, and implementing digital behavioral interventions to increase access to pain and substance use treatment, and improve patient health outcomes.

Michael J. Fine, MD, MSc

Director, VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion

Dr. Fine’s research focuses on ways to improve the quality and equity of medical care for patients with common medical problems. As Director of CHERP, he is particularly interested in conducting research to detect, understand, and eliminate disparities in health and health care among vulnerable patient populations.

Walid F. Gellad, MD, MPH

Director, Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing

Dr. Gellad's research focuses on physician prescribing practices and on policy issues affecting access and adherence to medications for patients. He has studied opioid use in the veteran population, specifically those receiving care from multiple health systems.

Leslie R. M. Hausmann, PhD

Associate Director, VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion

Dr. Hausmann is a social psychologist who conducts multidisciplinary research and quality improvement projects focused on identifying, understanding, and reducing disparities in health and health care for vulnerable patient populations. While much of her work has focused on issues of discrimination and bias in the healthcare setting, she also has extensive experience leading large-scale, multisite, mixed methods evaluations of the longitudinal impact of efforts to improve quality of care overall or for specific vulnerable groups.

Tamar Krishnamurti, PhD

Dr. Krishnamurti is a PhD-trained behavioral scientist. Her research develops processes, (digital) tools, and communication strategies, grounded in psychological theory, to support informed decision making. Dr. Krishnamurti's work is highly interdisciplinary. She works closely with experts across the fields of psychology, medicine, computer science, engineering, and public health. While she primarily focuses on health in pregnancy and the postpartum period among US populations, she does work, both domestically and internationally, in areas ranging from addiction to climate change.

Wei-Hsuan "Jenny" Lo-Ciganic, PhD, MS, MSPharm

Dr. Lo-Ciganic is a pharmacoepidemiologist whose research focuses on improving drug safety, medication adherence, and the quality of prescribing, especially among vulnerable populations.

José Giovanni Luiggi-Hernández, PhD, MPH

Dr. Luiggi-Hernández has over a decade of research experiences contributing to projects covering psychotherapy process and outcomes for both physical and mental health conditions, clinical decision-making, digital health technologies, program evluations, pre-implementation research, health disparities, social determinants of health, substsance use, and more. He is activtely engaging in research addressing anti-racism, decolonization, and combatting LGBTQ phobias.

Lakeya S. McGill, PhD

Dr. Lakeya McGill is an assistant professor of medicine and a licensed clinical psychologist. Her current research focuses on discovering knowledge that promotes equitable pain care for all patients, including adults with sickle cell disease.

Jessica S. Merlin, MD, PhD, MBA

Director, Challenges in Managing and Preventing Pain Clinical Research Center

Dr. Merlin's research focuses on chronic pain in people living with HIV (PLWH), and more generally, individuals with comorbid mental illness and addiction. Her studies range from pathogenesis to clinical epidemiology to behavioral interventions.

Elizabeth (Liz) Mosley, PhD, MPH

Dr. Mosley uses community-engaged participatory research methods to investigate and address sexual and reproductive health disparities. She studies how structural and social determinants (including racism, (hetero)sexism, classism, ableism, and stigma) inequitably pattern sexual and reproductive health outcomes including pregnancy, birth, contraception, abortion, and sexual violence. She also partners with community-based advocacy organizations to address those health inequities through policy, education, and clinical interventions.

Deirdre Quinn, PhD, MSc, MLitt

Dr. Quinn’s research explores individual-, family-, and system-level influences on sexual and reproductive health among people of reproductive age. Her research goals are (1) to identify modifiable factors that contribute to SRH disparities and (2) to use research to inform the design of developmentally sensitive policies, programs, and prevention strategies that promote quality and equity in SRH and healthcare across the life course.

Ann-Marie Rosland, MD, MS

Director, Caring for Complex Chronic Conditions Research Center

Dr. Rosland leads health care research and initiatives aiming to improve health care and self-management support for diabetes and other chronic conditions, and mobilize the power of patients’ social networks to improve health, among other areas. With a primary focus on innovations in care for chronic health conditions, she also studies health system efforts to improve primary care delivery.

Katie J. Suda, PharmD, MS, FCCP

Associate Director, Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing
Associate Director, VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion

Dr. Suda’s area of research is pharmacoepidemiology, especially in the area of antimicrobials, and dual use of VA and non-VA health care. Currently, she is researching antibiotics and opioids in dental prescribing, including a focus on veteran health.

Galen Switzer, PhD

Associate Chief of Research, Division of General Internal Medicine

Dr. Switzer is a leading expert in the motives and experiences of individuals who join an adult stem cell donation registry and volunteer to donate to a stranger. He has investigated all facets of the donation experience from the donor perspective. For more than 20 years, he has developed and evaluated clinical and psychosocial research measures and compiled validated measures for research projects across multiple contexts.