Sara Gombatto, PT, PhD
Category: Bios
Tracy Finlayson, PhD
Tracy Finlayson, PhD
Co-Leader, Community Engagement Team
Dr. Tracy Finlayson is a Professor in Health Management and Policy in the SDSU’s School of Public Health and a Co-Investigator at the Institute for Behavioral and Community Health. She is an interdisciplinary health services researcher with training in sociology and social psychology, and mixed methods expertise. Her main research areas are oral health, social determinants of health, access to care for vulnerable populations, health policy, and community-based participatory research (CBPR). Current research projects include collaborations with Innercare, formerly Clínicas de Salud del Pueblo, Inc., and the County of San Diego. She also is the Co-Leader of the Community Engagement Team at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. See Dr. Finlayson’s profile for details on publications and projects.Heather Corliss, MPH, PhD
Heather Corliss, MPH, PhD
Co-Leader, Investigator Development Team
Dr. Heather Corliss is a professor in the School of Public Health at SDSU. She is a social and behavioral epidemiologist with expertise in population health disparities including substance use, mental health, chronic disease, sexual and reproductive health, and adolescent health and development. She has methodological expertise in design and analysis of observational (e.g., longitudinal cohort) and mixed methods studies. Current projects include identifying supportive and protective factors associated with positive health among adolescents, substance disorders and treatment experiences among youth and other populations. See Dr. Corliss’ profile for details on publications and projects.Christopher Paolini, PhD
Christopher Paolini, PhD
Co-Investigator, Sensor Methods Group and Health Data Analytics Group
Dr. Christopher Paolini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at SDSU. Dr. Paolini is the recipient of grants from the Department of Energy and NASA, and five NSF Office of CyberInfrastructure awards, most recently the current NSF CC* Storage Grant 1659169 Implementation of a Distributed, Shareable, and Parallel Storage Resource at SDSU to Facilitate High-Performance Computing for Climate Science. Dr. Paolini’s doctoral and post-doctoral research has been in the areas of combustion engineering, computational thermodynamics, and chemical kinetics. His current research interests include Internet of Things device development, machine learning, embedded systems, cloud computing, big data analytics, deep learning, software engineering, numerical chemical thermodynamics, numerical chemical kinetics, numerical geochemistry, high performance computing, scientific computing and numerical modeling, high speed (100gbps) networking, cyberinfrastructure development, and cybersecurity. The SDSU HealthLINK Center has granted Dr. Paolini a pilot research project award to design and manufacture a prototype of a wireless, wearable, low power, fall prediction and detection device for at-risk older adults. The device uses a small field-programmable gate array that executes a machine learning model to detect when the device wearer has fallen. Dr. Paolini received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science in 1991, an Master of Science in Computer Science in 1998, and his Doctor of Philosophy in Computational Science in 2007, all from SDSU.
Yusuf Ozturk, PhD
Yusuf Ozturk, PhD
Co-Leader, Health Sensor Methods Group
Dr. Yusuf Ozturk is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at SDSU. His research focus is on wearable and ambient sensors, human centric sensors, medical informatics and mobile computing. He is the founding member of the Smart Health Institute. Dr. Ozturk leads the engineering and development of wireless wearable sensors for research projects and pilot projects within the SDSU HealthLINK Center.
Lance Norita
Lance Norita
Server and Database Administrator
Mr. Lance Norita is a Server and Database Administrator at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. He has a Bachelor of Science from San Diego State University. Mr. Norita oversees the Center’s physical and virtual server infrastructure including implementation, security, and management of the Center’s data analytic infrastructure and associated databases for the Center’s programs and affiliated projects.
Atsushi Nara, PhD
Atsushi Nara, PhD
Co-Investigator, Health Data Analytics Group
Dr. Atsushi Nara is a Co-Investigator and a member of the Health Data Analytics Group at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. He is an Associate Professor of Geography at SDSU and the Associate Director of the Center for Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age. He has expertise in geographic information systems, data mining, and spatial statistics to research on health in geographic space. He provides guidance and leads efforts on spatiotemporal database management and geospatial data analytics, and geovisualization methods. Dr. Nara also contributes to the development of an open data center and health science knowledge repository for the SDSU HealthLINK Center.
Kee Moon, PhD
Kee Moon, PhD
Co-Leader, Health Sensor Methods Group
Dr. Kee Moon is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at SDSU. His current research activities include the development of ultrasonic recharging technology for implantable medical devices as well as brain-computer-interface technology. Dr. Moon is a Co-Leader of the Research Infrastructure Team’s Health Sensor Methods Group at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. He guides researchers on the development of portable, wearable health sensor technologies that can provide real-time health monitoring. His primary research interests are in smart sensor and actuator technology.
Shih-Fan “Sam” Lin, DrPH
Shih-Fan “Sam” Lin, DrPH
Co-Leader, Measurement Methods Group
Co-Leader, Health Data Analytics Group
Dr. Shih-Fan “Sam” Lin co-leads the Center’s Measurement Methods Group and Health Data Analytics Group at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. He is also a Research Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at SDSU. His research training has focused on social demography with an emphasis on temporal trends of racial health disparities and on various health outcomes. He has ample experience in data analysis, data management, and statistical programming. Dr. Lin works closely with investigators holding research projects and pilot projects within the SDSU HealthLINK Center to ensure methodological and data quality and integrity. Dr. Lin’s research interests include racial health disparities, childhood obesity, older adult disability, and falls prevention
Chii-Dean “Joey” Lin, PhD
Chii-Dean “Joey” Lin, PhD
Co-Leader, Health Data Analytics Group
Lead Biostatistician
Dr. Chii-Dean “Joey” Lin is the Associate Chair in Statistics in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at SDSU, an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Language and Communicative Disorders, and the Co-Director of the Statistical Consulting Center. He is the Lead Biostatistician and Co-Leader of the Health Data Analytics Group at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. Dr. Lin provides statistical expertise for health-related research on study design, data management including management of missing data, statistical data analysis, and protocol development for research projects and pilot projects within the SDSU HealthLINK Center. His research areas include statistical computing, longitudinal data analysis, spatial-temporal statistics, mixed modeling, statistical methodologies in clinical trials, and global optimization.