Research Infrastructure Team
Serves as the hub for minority health and health disparities research at the Center, including basic biomedical, behavioral, clinical, and population health research. The team oversees five groups that each specialize in an area of research—biomedical methods, measurement methods, health sensor methods, intervention methods, and data analytic methods. Each group is developing resources and services that will facilitate research at SDSU.
Dr. Kristen “Kristi” Wells is a Professor of Psychology at SDSU. She is also Director of the Cancer Disparities and Cancer Communication Lab. Her graduate training was in clinical psychology and public health, followed by post-doctoral training in behavioral oncology. Her research focuses on improving the quality of healthcare delivered to underserved populations, with a specific specialty in patient navigation. Since 2006, Dr. Wells has led or contributed to five studies which have developed and evaluated patient navigation interventions to improve quality of cancer and HIV-related care. She also leads studies developing technological solutions to improve adherence to recommended cancer care and oral medications for cancer. In addition to her leadership as a Co-Director, Dr. Wells oversees the operations of the SDSU HealthLINK Center’s Research Infrastructure Team including five specialized research groups concentrating on measurement methods, health sensor methods, intervention methods, biomedical methods, and health data analytics. See Dr. Wells’ profile for details on publications and projects.
Kristen “Kristi” Wells, MPH, MPI, PhD
Co-Director, SDSU HealthLINK Center
Leader, Research Infrastructure Team
Co-Leader, Measurement Methods Group
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Dr. Guadalupe X. “Suchi” Ayala is a Professor in the School of Public Health at SDSU, Director of the Institute for Behavioral and Community Health, Director of the SDSU HealthLINK endowment, and Co-Director of the SDSU HealthLINK Center. Her combination of masters’ degrees in experimental psychology and health promotion and doctoral degree in clinical health psychology reflect her interest in identifying effective solutions for reducing health disparities. Dr. Ayala’s research focuses on the development and adaptation of family and system-based interventions to prevent and control obesity, diabetes and asthma among Latinos and other underserved populations. She co-leads the Administrative and Community Engagement Teams and coordinates transdisciplinary intervention efforts under the Research Infrastructure Team of the SDSU HealthLINK Center. See Dr. Ayala’s profile for details on publications and projects.
Guadalupe X. “Suchi” Ayala, PhD, MPH
Co-Director, SDSU HealthLINK Center
Co-Leader, Community Engagement Team
Co-Leader, Intervention Methods Group
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Wendy Huang, PhD
Center Research Manager
Dr. Huang holds a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California San Diego and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer immunology at the New York University in 2015. Between 2016 and 2023, Dr. Huang was an assistant professor at the University of California San Diego, trained 3 postdoc fellows, 25 graduate students, and 13 undergraduate students on cutting-edge molecular & genomic techniques and in vivo disease models of autoimmune disease, tissue inflammation, and cancer. Dr. Huang was the senior and communicating author of eight recently published articles on mouse disease models and immunity.
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Dr. Elva Arredondo is a Professor in the School of Public Health at SDSU. She is the Co-Leader of the Intervention Methods Group. Dr. Arredondo’s research is in the area of health disparities. Her research focuses on the development, implementation and evaluation of community-based interventions that improve the health of ethnic and sexual minorities and socially/economically disadvantaged communities. She has served as an investigator in studies that promoted healthy eating and physical activity behaviors in youth and in adult populations and in studies that identified effective and sustainable methods to prevent and control cancer in Latino/Hispanic populations. She is a Co-Investigator for research projects at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. See Dr. Arredondo’s profile for details on publications and projects.
Elva Arredondo, PhD
Co-Leader, Intervention Methods Group
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Dr. Scott Kelley is a Professor in the Department of Biology at SDSU. His research focuses on the study of environmental microbiology. He has extensive experience analyzing microbial and viral diversity, including that of humans as part of the Human Microbiome Project, a research initiative to improve understanding of the microbial flora involved in human health and disease. Among other subjects, Dr. Kelley has investigated the role of the gut microbiome in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the relationship between heart disease and periodontal disease and whether saliva bacterial profiles may be useful as biomarkers for pancreatic cancer. For the SDSU HealthLINK Center, Dr. Kelley leads biomedical research methods, bioinformatics data analysis, and provides direction to the Center’s biomedical laboratory. See Dr. Kelley’s profile for details on publications and projects.
Scott Kelley, PhD
Leader, Biomedical Methods Group
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Noe Crespo, MPH, PhD
Co-Investigator, Biomedical Methods Group
Dr. Noe Crespo is an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Promotion and Behavioral Science in the School of Public Health at SDSU. His research focuses on reducing health disparities and prevention of chronic disease through large scale community-based interventions that promote physical fitness, physical activity and healthy eating in schools and recreation centers. He also studies the health consequences of sedentary behaviors and conducts behavioral interventions to increase physical activity in the workplace. He is a Co-Investigator at the SDSU HealthLINK Center.
See Dr. Crespo’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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Claudia Carrizosa, MD, MPH
Research Associate, Biomedical Methods Group
Dr. Claudia Carrizosa is a Research Associate at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. She has years of experience in research studies among medically underserved and populations affected by chronic disease and cancer. Her foreign degree in medicine and Master of Public Health with a health promotion emphasis has shaped her interest in interventions that offer more than clinical services to prevent and control disease. She has a strong background in qualitative data collection and as a research interventionist. Dr. Carrizosa’s research areas of interest focus on Hispanic and under-served communities in topics that include, but are not limited to, cancer disparities, patient navigation, sexual minority health, and healthy aging. She is part of the Research Infrastructure Team at the SDSU HealthLINK Center.
See Dr. Carrizosa’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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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.
See Dr. Lin’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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Jerel Calzo, PhD, MPH
Co-Investigator, Measurement Methods Group
Dr. Jerel Calzo in an Associate Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Science in the School of Public Health at SDSU. He is a developmental psychologist with postdoctoral training in social epidemiology. His research focuses on adolescent and young adult health, gender, sexual orientation, and community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches. His current research interest is on promoting health equity among gender and sexual minority populations, particularly in the areas of eating disorders and substance use. He is a Co-Investigator at the SDSU HealthLINK Center studying health behaviors through the use of ecological momentary assessment technology and CBPR.
See Dr. Calzo’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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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.
See Dr. Moon’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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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.
See Dr. Ozturk’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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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.
See Dr. Paolini’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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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.
See Dr. Lin’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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Jose Castillo, PhD
Co-Investigator, Health Data Analytics Group
Dr. Jose Castillo is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and Director of the Computational Science Research Center (CSRC) at SDSU. He leads several initiatives of CSRC to provide computational infrastructure for the SDSU community and to bring together researchers in different disciplines who have a common interest in modern scientific computation. Dr. Castillo has an extensive experience in applied mathematics and has received numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and other various agencies and foundations. He serves as a Co-Investigator on the SDSU HealthLINK Center’s Research Infrastructure Team and responds to computational infrastructure needs at the SDSU HealthLINK Center.
See Dr. Castillo’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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Dr. Hee-Jin Jun is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health at SDSU, an affiliated Investigator at the Institute of Behavior and Community Health, and a participating scholar of the SDSU Center for Research on Sexuality and Sexual Health. She is a social and behavioral epidemiologist with expertise in population health, health behavior, disparities in health based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including weight-related outcomes, substance use, child and adolescent health and sexual health. She also has expertise in methods for designing and analyzing large representative health surveys and intervention studies. She provides statistical support to the Research Infrastructure Team investigators at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. See Dr. Jun’s profile for details on publications and projects
Hee-Jin Jun, PhD
Co-Investigator, Health Data Analytics Group
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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 disparities 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. See Dr. Nara’s profile for details on publications and projects.
Atsushi Nara, PhD
Co-Investigator, Health Data Analytics Group
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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.
See Mr. Norita’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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Yaritza Benitez, MPH Candidate
Research Assistant, Health Data Analytics Group
In her role, Ms. Yaritza Benitez assists in different tasks of data management. These would include but are not limited to the development of data management protocols, data entry, data verification and data cleaning as a Research Assistant at the SDSU HealthLINK Center. She graduated from SDSU with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and is now working towards her master’s degree in public health with a concentration in epidemiology at SDSU School of Public Health. Her research interests lie in understanding and reducing health disparities among minorities. She has volunteered and worked at the Research Foundation since 2014 in different projects at the Institute for Behavioral and Community Health, and at South Bay Latino Research Center.
See Ms. Benitez’s profile for details on publications and projects.
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Doug Neary
Health Sensors Methods Group Coordinator
Doug Neary is the Wireless Sensor Technology Coordinator for the SDSU HealthLINK Center’s Research Infrastructure Core. Doug has 30+ years of engineering and management experience. Doug has worked in the process and chemical fields, as well as the architecture, design, implementation, and management of complex software systems.back to top
Yessenia Hernandez, MPH
Intervention Methods Group Coordinator
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Jan Pfeerdekamper
Biomedical Laboratory Coordinator
Mr. Pferdekamper graduated from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) in 2003 with a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. After spending a period in the biotech industry managing the drug discovery and pharmacology groups for the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), he returned to academia to manage a large scientific group focused on diabetes research at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for almost 20 years. Mr. Pferdekamper is well versed in the performance of numerous scientific assays – including PCR, qPCR, DNA/RNA isolations, cDNA synthesis, tissue culture, western blots, and others – and his name has appeared in various published scientific papers. Additionally, he is experienced in the maintenance and management of mouse colonies used in scientific research as well as their facilities. Mr. Pferdekamper is knowledgeable in the health and safety standards of research operations and facilities, serving as the primary safety contact during both work and emergency after-hours periods.
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