Jessica recently joined our team as a Clinical Research Coordinator. Prior to this position, she worked as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in San Francisco. She also recently completed her master’s degree in Public Health from UC Berkeley, concentrating on Health Policy and Management. While there and following graduation, she helped conduct an impact evaluation of a reintegration program for obstetric fistula survivors in Kenya.
Omar Gomez (they/he) joined the DGIM team as a Clinical Research Coordinator in 2022. They were born in Los Angeles and grew up in Lancaster CA. Prior to this position, they obtained both a B.S. in Human Biology and an M.S. in Community Health and Prevention Research from Stanford University. Throughout undergrad, Omar was heavily involved with organizations that advocated for the needs of first gen and/or low-income, Latinx, and queer communities.
Dian Gu is a postdoctoral fellow at Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (CTCRE), UCSF. She received her PhD in Health Economics/Health Services Research from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Along with her PhD study, she was a PhD trainee in MD Anderson Cancer Center. In that role, she gained experience in applying health economics to cancer research, collaborating on manuscripts with clinicians on multiple projects concerned with cancer patients’ healthcare utilization, expenditures, and health outcomes.
Mark Hawes, PhD, MSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and a postdoctoral fellow at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (CTCRE) and the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. His research focuses on tobacco- and substance use-related health disparities among people with behavioral health conditions and those experiencing homelessness or living in permanent supportive housing (PSH).
Phoebe Lee recently joined our team as a Clinical Research Coordinator. Phoebe was born and raised in Los Angeles. She received her BA in Public Health Policy at the University of California, Irvine in 2017. Her most recent position after graduating from UCI included working as a Homeless Outreach Program Coordinator and Patient Navigator at an FQHC in Los Angeles. At the FQHC she helped in overseeing a number of administrative tasks including planning expansion projects, onboarding new staff, inventory ordering.
Ana Martinez is an immigrant from Guatemala and a DACA recipient. She graduated from SFSU with a bachelor's in Biology in 2018. She is a former volunteer at Clínica Martín-Baró, serving the community with free basic health care services in the Mission district for about three years. Then, she worked as a Medical Assistant for three years in the Mission Neighborhood Health Center in Pediatrics and assisted the COVID-19 vaccine team during the pandemic to provide free vaccinations and tests to the community.
Dr. Vijayaraghavan is a practicing general internist and a researcher in tobacco control with a focus on populations experiencing homelessness. She is the Director of the UCSF Smoking Cessation Leadership Center, a Center focused on eliminating disparities in tobacco use prevalence among behavioral health populations. Through her work, she has intervened at the individual, community, health systems and policy levels to help increase access to cessation services.
Weijie Wang was born in China, immigrated to Canada, and finally to California. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology and French. She also obtained a minor in Global Public Health. Since starting undergrad studies, she has involved herself with organizations serving low-income, immigrant Asian and Hispanic communities to address health disparities and barriers to care.
