Nancy Cheak-Zamora
Dr. Nancy Cheak-Zamora has over 20 years of experience working with autistic children and youth in both clinical and research settings. Her research on Health Care Transition (HCT) for autistic youth is the first in the field and has led to improvements in healthcare delivery as well as inspired further research in this area. Additionally, she has experience as a health services researcher in areas of health care quality improvement, HIV care, health communication and literacy, measurement development and examination of health status, health care utilization, and quality of care of children and youth with disabilities.
Kelly Cheever
Dr. Cheever is interested in health disparities in adolescent athletes. Specifically, access to sports-related injury care. Some of his primary research has looked at barriers to injury reporting and care seeking among low socioeconomic status and racial minority youth in the south cental Texas area. As athletic trainers traditionally serve as a primary point of care for adolescent athletes, he seeks to explore disparities between those athletes who have access to an athletic trainer and those who do not. This work is of critical importance as sports-related injury is one of the top reasons for failure to persist in athletics among adolescents, suggesting an injury that is uncared for may increase the risk of adolescent health inequities associated with inactivity.
Lynne Cossman
Dr. Jeralynn (Lynne) Cossman has research and teaching interests in medical sociology, demography, and health services research. She is a Professor of Sociology and Professor of Demography, the Mark G. Yudof Dean's Endowed Professor, and the Inaugural Dean of the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) College for Health, Community and Policy.
Her current research focuses on spatial concentrations of mortality and morbidity and the opioid epidemic. Her research projects have been funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Mississippi’s Division of Medicaid. Her work has been published in several sociology and interdisciplinary journals including the American Journal of Public Health, Social Problems, Health and Place, Population Research and Policy Review, Sociological Inquiry, and Sociological Spectrum.
Tracy Cowden
Tracy Cowden is a pianist who performs frequently in duos and chamber music, and she is active in commissioning and performing 21st century chamber works. Cowden is the Roland K. Blumberg Endowed Professor in Music and Chair of the Department of Music at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Her recent work includes performing in health care settings and facilitating interdisciplinary research regarding music and health; she is a member of the Brain Health Consortium at UTSA.
Chantal Fahmy
Chantal Fahmy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at The University of Texas at San Antonio. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Irvine; her master's degree from California State University, Long Beach; and her Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Arizona State University. Her research focuses on reentry and reintegration from prison, health criminology, social support and social health, and the intersection of public health and incarceration. Her recent work has been published in Social Science & Medicine, Health & Justice, Preventive Medicine, Journal of Traumatic Stress, and Journal of Mental Health.
Disparities--from racial to socioeconomic to health-related--abound for those who have contact with the criminal justice system. The focus on disparities among people who have served time behind bars is seamlessly integrated in any research that aims to improve the health and wellbeing of those leaving incarceration and reentering the community. In many ways, my research cuts across those distinct areas. Currently, I'm working on a seed grant from the BHC looking at traumatic brain injury for those who have spent time incarcerated in prisons or jails in the greater Bexar County area. I am hoping to expand this area of research (with some former HCAP colleagues) and using these data as pilot data to apply for external funding mechanisms in the upcoming year.
Saralyn Foster
Dr. Foster’s research focuses on improving maternal and child health in both community and clinical settings. As a registered dietitian, she evaluates hot to promote optimal nutrition to at risk communities with the goal of improving overall health. Her research centers on the following themes: 1) improving access of care and healthy foods for those with health disparities; 2) supporting mothers’ and families’ health; and 3) advancing nutrition care in critically ill children.
Eduardo Gandara-Garcia
Dr. Gandara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health at UT San Antonio. Using a socio-ecological approach and principles of Community-Based Participatory Research, Dr. Gandara’s research focuses on co-developing, co-implementing, and co-evaluating skill-building programs with Community Health Workers, in English and Spanish, to help Hispanic families get connected to resources across the Social Determinants of Health. In addition, Dr. Gandara’s research also focuses on assessing the role that spirituality and religiosity have on health, as well as the church as a setting for the delivery of health promotion programs amongst Latinos and African Americans. As being first-generation, and a first-generation advocate, Dr. Gandara’s research also focuses on first-generation student success.
David Han 
Dr. David Han's research is dedicated to advancing biostatistics, medical statistics, and public health by developing sophisticated statistical modeling and inference techniques for complex survival and lifetime data. Central to his work is the application of these analytical frameworks to addictions research and neurogenetics; by bridging the gap between genetic predispositions and clinical outcomes, he seeks to enable more precise diagnostic and therapeutic interventions for vulnerable and underserved populations. Within the context of health disparities, Dr. Han leverages data science, analytics, and AI/ML to identify systemic inequities and improve health equity. His collaborative portfolio extends across critical public health domains, including chronic pain management, the long-term consequences of aging, and the intersection of technology and health literacy.
Terrence Hill 
Dr. Hill's research examines social inequalities in health and human suffering. He am especially interested in how social factors like religion,
socioeconomic status, social relationships, and neighborhood context contribute to health disparities. To date, he has published over 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts. According to Google Scholar, his work has been cited over 8,000 times.
Jeff Howard
Dr. Howard's research is situated within the broader Life Course Perspective, and focuses on how various harmful exposures, which he conceptualizes as injuries, contribute to acceleration of the aging process and cause premature mortality by triggering physiological dysregulation. The common theme that runs through all of his research is the idea that whatever doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger. Stated another way, his work seeks to identify the pathways through which harmful exposures translate into accelerated aging and premature mortality. Understanding this process better may enable more effective prevention, coping and therapeutic interventions at the individual and population level. His research is concentrated within 4 specific domains of injury exposures, including (1) racism/discrimination, (2) occupational (primarily military service/combat exposure), (3) environmental and other mass traumatic events, and (4) substance use/misuse, and how these processes operate within the contexts of short-term (immediate death/survival) and long-term consequences (accelerated aging, chronic disease and premature mortality).
Jenny Hsieh
Jenny Hsieh is the founding chair of the Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology in the College of Sciences at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is also the founding director of the UTSA Brain Health Consortium. She holds the Semmes Foundation Distinguished Chair in Cell Biology. Dr. Hsieh and her trainees studied many of the genes responsible for newly generated neurons in the adult mammalian hippocampus. Her work showed that aberrant neurogenesis contributes to temporal lobe epilepsy. Her most recent work focuses on using human brain organoid models to study neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Hsieh is interested in addressing health disparities in the biological mechanisms of epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease, particularly the role of genetic risk factors.
Ying Huang
Dr. Huang is a demographer and sociologist whose research centers on ecological context and urban stratification. Her work investigates how residential histories and contextual circumstances influence individual well-being. She is particularly interested in exploring the mechanisms that produce and reinforce broader patterns of urban spatial inequality, including residential segregation and economic disparities, and contribute to “neighborhood effects” on health and well-being.
Ian Johnson
Ian Johnson, PhD, LCSW-S is an assistant professor in the department of social work. His work broadly aims to progress housing justice for older people. This includes the promotion of housing and neighborhood policies, emplaced health and social service delivery, and informal community care strategies that ensure accessible, affordable, safe, meaningful, and healing places to live in mid- and later-life, particularly for populations at higher risk for housing precarity, such as LGBTQIA+ older adults and those with co-occurring disorders.
Jusung Lee
Jusung Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research focused on the impact of social determinants of health, including social policy at various levels, on improving access to care, health behaviors, and health outcomes. His research also seeks to identify evidence-based solutions to reduce health disparities among disadvantaged and marginalized populations. Recent research projects have explored the relationship between reproductive health behaviors and health outcomes in relation to state and national health policies.
Yezhen (David) Li
Yezhen (David) Li is a social epidemiologist whose work examines aging, migration, long-term care, and social networks. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. His current research investigates the aging processes of older Mexican immigrants, with a focus on the roles of migration policies and adverse experiences across the life course. Another line of his research center on dynamics of older adults’ care arrangements and their health consequences.
Zhiyong Lin
Dr. Lin is conducting research on health and care disparities across the life course. His current project explores two main areas: 1) the unequal distribution of social isolation across various social identities, and 2) disparities in unmet care needs among older adults.
Han Liu
Dr. Han Liu’s research centers on the intersection of social stratification, population health, and demography. Within these general areas, his projects primarily focus on 1) social and environmental determinants of health disparities, 2) the consequences of early-life health on children and their families, and 3) spatial heterogeneity in immigrants’ well-being.
Melissa Manus
Dr. Melissa Manus is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UTSA. Her research applies ecological and evolutionary perspectives to answer questions about early life environments, the human microbiome, and health. During infancy, the microbiome is sensitive to environmental variation and directly interfaces with nutrition and immune system activity. Melissa's work explores the drivers of infant microbiome development in an effort to uncover the environmental origins of infant health disparities. She is particularly interested in the influence of social environments on the infant microbiome and health, as these dynamics are relevant to questions about human evolution as well as contemporary issues in global health.
Alan Meca
Dr. Meca is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research program focuses on identity development across various domains and on the links between identity and psychosocial functioning. Although he studies identity development broadly, the majority of his research has focused on cultural identity, particularly among Hispanic/Latinx youth.
Emily Nicklett
Emily Nicklett, PhD, MS, MSW, is an Associate Professor in Social Work at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her active research agenda concerns social and contextual determinants of health in midlife and older adulthood. Her research focuses on aging, social determinants of health, chronic disease self-management, social support, and community effects on health. Professor Nicklett is an authority on the social predictors of health outcomes among middle aged and older adults with type 2 diabetes. Recent research includes examining social predictors of diet/nutritional status, physical activity, and community predictors of outcomes among diverse populations of older adults. Dr. Nicklett has also worked as a policy analyst, consultant, and advisor to organizations including United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Nicklett completed a Master of Social Work (MSW) from Columbia University, a doctorate in Sociology and Public Health from the University of Michigan, and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center on Aging and Health at Johns Hopkins University.
Gregory Orewa
Dr. Gregory Orewa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Texas at San Antonio, with a joint appointment in the Department of Management in the Carlos Alvarez College of Business. His research examines healthcare quality, organizational performance, healthcare finance, health disparities, and long-term care. Drawing on training in health services administration and prior experience in financial analysis and accounting, he studies how organizational and market forces shape workforce outcomes, care quality, and equity across healthcare systems, with the goal of informing evidence-based management and policy solutions.
Adam O'Riordan
Dr. Adam O' Riordan is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research is in the area of health psychology, with a particular focus on stress and cardiovascular psychophysiology. His work aims to explore how psychological factors, such as personality, as well as social factors like social support, loneliness, and negative social relationships, influence stress physiology and overall health.
Stephen Pan
Dr. Stephen W. Pan is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Previously, Stephen worked as an epidemiologist and STI disease intervention specialist in Texas. His research focuses on policies and social and cultural processes that impact public health, particularly among minority populations. In collaboration with Metro Health, community partners, and other UTSA faculty, Dr. Pan is currently working on a project to better understand Mpox vaccine preferences among men in San Antonio. In addition, Dr. Pan is also implementing a project to elucidate healthcare preferences among new US immigrants from China. Students potentially interested in becoming involved with such projects are encouraged to contact Dr. Pan.
Rogelio Sáenz
Rogelio Sáenz is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Demography at the University of Texas at San Antono. He has written extensively in the areas of demography, Latina/os, race, inequality, immigration, COVID-19, health disparities, aging, public policy, and social justice. He is co-author of the just recently published 2nd edition of Latina/os in the United States: Diversity and Change and co-editor of the International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity. He is the 2023 Ernest W. Burgess Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences.
Shelby Scott
Dr. Shelby Scott is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Dr. Scott’s research focuses on building the basic science of sexual and gender minority families and integrating these findings into relationship interventions. She also conducts research on faculty success among underrepresented groups in academia (e.g., people of color, women). In addition to her research, Dr. Scott is also a licensed Clinical Psychologist and she has extensive clinical experience working with women, same-gender couples, and couples with transgender or nonbinary partners.
Ray Swisher
Professor Swisher is Chair of the Department of Sociology and Demography. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on risk factors in adolescence and the transition to adulthood in the lives of disadvantaged youth (e.g., neighborhood poverty, exposure to violence, parental incarceration) and their consequences for health and well-being across the life course. Recent work has focused on educational mobility and, in particular, challenges faced by first generation college students. Motivated by fundamental cause theory, and in collaboration with UTSA colleagues, he has also examined disparities in COVID-19 protective behavior, and inequalities in subjective life expectancy within the context of COVID-19.
Alexander Testa
Alexander Testa, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management, Policy, and Community Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health. His research specializes in two primary areas: first, examining the impact of criminal justice system involvement, including arrest, conviction, and incarceration, on the health of individuals, families, and communities; second, understanding the effects of both direct and indirect exposure to crime and violence on health. Dr. Testa has authored over 300 peer-reviewed articles, and his research appears in leading scientific journals, including the American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Criminology, JAMA, JAMA Network Open, and Pediatrics, among others. Dr. Testa's research has garnered support from various local, state, and federal agencies. Presently, he is the principal investigator of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, developing a hospital-based violence intervention program for gunshot wound patients in Houston, Texas. Dr. Testa holds a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from American University and a PhD in Criminology & Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Masataka Umeda
Dr. Masataka Umeda is a researcher trained in kinesiology (doctoral research) and clinical neurophysiology (postdoctoral research). His research examines pain and individual differences in pain using various pain tests, cardiovascular psychophysiology techniques, and physical activity assessments. Highly relevant to the IHDR, his research also looks at sex/gender and racial/ethnic differences in pain and potential biopsychobehavioral factors that may help reduce the differences in pain.
Rebeca Wong
Dr. Wong’s research agenda focuses on the social and economic consequences of population aging, in particular in Mexico and among immigrant Hispanics in the U.S. She pioneered the use of cross-border analyses to understand health disparities among older populations of Hispanic origin and immigrants from Mexico in the United States. Her population-based research has been continuously funded by the National Institute on Aging for the last 30+ years. She serves as the Principal Investigator of the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS), currently financed by the National Institute on Aging of the NIH and by the Statistical Bureau (INEGI) in Mexico. The study is a collaboration among institutions in Mexico and the U.S., and seeks to locate research on Mexico’s unique health dynamics in a broad socioeconomic context. The study has followed a large cohort of Mexican adults from urban and rural areas since 2001, and includes a national longitudinal survey of multiple purposes among population aged 50 and older, including the collection of biomarkers for chronic diseases and genetics of Alzheimer’s.
Xiaohe Xu
Dr. Xiaohe Xu's research examines how social change, race/ethnicity, and religion affect family lives in the United States. Over the past few years, he has developed a well-recognized expertise in comparative family studies. His research explores the changing trends in marriage and family relationships in the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, and the United States. His current projects examine 1) prevalence and correlates of all forms of intimate partner violence (IPV), including physical, psychological, and sexual IPV in China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, 2) public health, especially mental health, consequences of all forms of IPV in these societies, and 3) prescription and opioid prevention and intervention.
Fernando Riosmena
Fernando Riosmena is Professor of Sociology & Demography and IHDR Director. His research is aimed at understanding race-ethnic and gender disparities in chronic health, with a focus on the ways in which the accumulation of social experiences may accumulate or compound throughout the life course. In particular, Riosmena's research examines these issues in Mexican-origin and immigrant populations.
