MCCFAD Core Faculty

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Kristine J. Ajrouch, PhD
Co-Director
Administrative Core
Community Liaison and Recruitment Core
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise: Ethnic identity formation among adolescent children of immigrants, study of social relations, aging and health, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in the Arab American Community.

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Dr. Toni C. Antonucci, PhD
Co-Director
Administrative Core
Research and Educational Core
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise:  Dr. Antonucci’s research examines the cross sectional, longitudinal and cohort effects of social relations to assess whether they contemporaneously or longitudinally predict health and well-being. She seeks to examine, clarify, and explain some of the recent complexities identified concerning social relations as well as their ability to help cope with or increase vulnerability to stress and other risk factors.

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Laura B. Zahodne, PhD
Co-Director
Analysis Core
Research and Education Core
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise: Cognitive and brain aging, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), and racial disparities in ADRD, understanding how psychosocial experiences influence late-life cognitive trajectories and the expression of neurodegenerative disease.

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Richard Gonzalez, PhD
Analysis Core
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise: Methodology and judgement decision making, nonparametric statistics, generalized linear (and nonlinear) mixed models, multivariate multilevel models, exploratory techniques such as classification and regression trees and machine learning classification techniques, and data visualization.

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Irving E. Vega, PhD
Community Liaison and Recruitment Core
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise: Identification of proteome changes associated with the accumulation of pathological tau proteins in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

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Noah J. Webster, PhD
Analysis Core
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise: Bidirectional influences of health-related behaviors and social relationships, the role of environmental and social contexts in shaping health disparities across the life course.
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Briana Mezuk, PhD
Area Expert/Epidemiology
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise: Integration of conceptual and analytical approaches, methods, and models from social science and clinical disciplines with the aim of arriving at a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the ways in which mental and physical health interrelate.

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Lindsay Ryan, PhD
Area Expert/Epidemiology
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise: Individual and contextual influences on well-being, physical health, and cognition across adulthood, with a particular focus on the impact of social relations.

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Sheria Robinson-Lane, PhD
Area Expert/Culturally Sensitive Care
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise: Ways that older adults adapt to changes in health, and particularly how adaptive coping strategies effect health outcomes. Reducing health disparities for minority older adults with cognitive impairments and their informal caregivers.
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HwaJung Choi, PhD
Area Expert/Health Economics 
Research Interests /  Areas of Expertise: The implications of family availability for healthcare and healthcare costs for older adults. She is currently examining the influence of family resources on care utilization among older adults with dementia and the role of local contextual factors in health differences at older ages between the US and England.
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