Leadership

Dr. Steve Edland is a biostatistician and clinical trialist with over 25 years experience supporting clinical, bench, and epidemiologic research studies of aging and neurodegenerative disease, as statistician and manager of the University of Washington Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) Biostatistics Core from 1990 to 1999, founding Director of the Biostatistics Core of the Mayo Clinic ADRC from 2001-2005, and currently as Director of the Biostatistics Core of the UCSD ADRC. He has provided statistical support to a number of nationally recognized epidemiologic investigations of Alzheimer’s disease, including the Consortium the Establish a Registry of Alzheimer’s Disease, the first nationwide longitudinal cohort study of Alzheimer’s disease, and multiple other NIA program project Alzheimer’s disease model patient registries. Since arriving at UCSD in 2005, Dr. Edland has mentored numerous Latinx students through the UCSD Center for Healthy Aging MSTAR and MSTREAM programs, serving on Latinx Doctoral and Master thesis committees, as a teacher of undergraduate biostatistics, and in support of research projects undertaken by Latinx undergraduate student volunteers at the UCSD ADRC.

Dr. Becky Marquez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine & Public Health at UC San Diego. Her research background is in lifestyle interventions for Latinos. Dr. Marquez has a special interest in understanding how close interpersonal relationships influence patient adherence to eating and physical activity recommendations and leveraging these influences to improve intervention outcomes. She began her training in behavioral medicine under Rena Wing at Brown University as a post-doctoral fellow where she developed weight management program for dyads based on the Diabetes Prevention Program for Latinas. Dr. Marquez is currently conducting a weight management trial for Mexican-American families. She is studying whether communication skills training, adapted from family therapy, improves program retention and adherence to weight-related behaviors in mothers and daughters as part of a Mentored Career Development Award. Her training and experience in interpersonal influences on health behaviors makes her well suited to study features of social networks associated with eating and physical activity behaviors of overweight Latinas. 

Dr. Anthony Molina serves as the Vice Chief of Research in the Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology, and Palliative Care and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego. He is also the Scientific Director for the Stein Institute for Research on Aging.  He is committed to the career development of faculty, fellows, and students who are interested in aging research and the healthcare needs of older adults. The overarching goal of Dr. Molina's research program is to support healthy aging and to advance precision healthcare for older adults. His team is leading efforts to: 1) understand the factors influencing the cognitive and physical abilities of older adults, 2) develop improved diagnostic/prognostic tools, and 3) identify strategies for promoting healthy longevity. 

Dr. Eduardo Fricovsky is a Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at UC San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SSPPS). He graduated with a BS in Biochemistry/Chemistry from UCSD in 2002 and obtained his Pharm.D. degree from the UCSF School of Pharmacy in 2006. From 2006-2009, he completed an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Research Service Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Department of Medicine at UCSD and was awarded an NIH Loan Repayment Grant. In 2009, he joined the faculty at SSPPS. Dr. Fricovsky is the Laboratory Director of the Hispanic Center of Excellence-Research Methodology and Training Laboratory (HCOE-RTML) and Principal Investigator of the Health Careers Opportunity Program San Diego Consortium. Dr. Fricovsky is also the Pharmacy Director of the UC San Diego Student Run Free Clinic Project that serves uninsured and homeless patients in San Diego and provides free access to prescription medications and pharmacy specialty services. Dr. Fricovsky teaches and trains pharmacy and medical students, and residents at the Free Clinics and offers classes on a wide variety of health topics. His current research interest is identifying natural products with inhibitory properties against glycolytic enzymes that can be use in the fight against cancer. 

Dr. Guerry Peavy’s research endeavors now span over three decades with a consistent focus on aging and cognitive and behavioral changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). Dr. Peavy has been a member of the UCSD Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) since 1990 with responsibilities including review of neuropsychological results for diagnostic consensus, supervising students, and the development of new neuropsychological tools. Serving as leader for the Outreach, Recruitment, and Education (ORE) Core for the Shiley-Marcos ADRC over the last four years has allowed has to work with a dedicated, highly productive team to generate ideas to reach, engage, and recruit older adults. ORE Core outreach efforts and focus on recruitment of Latino subjects for the ADRC Latino Core have made Dr. Peavy aware of the need for expanding AD research to ethnic/racial groups who have been largely neglected in their search for interventions to prevent and treat this disease. First, at her center, they recognize that there are potential differences in the genetics, medical co-morbities, and environmental influences affecting Latinos compared to other ethnic/racial groups. Second, they recognize that in order to encourage Latinos to become involved in research, they must have a Latino workforce with whom students and research volunteers can identify and in whom they can trust. 

Dr. Dennis Trinidad is a Professor and Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. He recently completed a 7-year term as Director of UC San Diego’s Bachelor of Science in Public Health Program, where he was responsible for the training of approximately 2500 undergraduate students from 2015-2022. He is an experienced administrator of complex academic and research training programs, having served in various capacities over the past 15 years. Dr. Trinidad’s research expertise is in the field of population-level, health-related racial/ethnic disparities, especially in terms of tobacco control. He aims to eliminate such disparities through research and through training the next generation of scientists. His work has been funded by the American Cancer Society, California Department of Public Health, California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Cancer Institute.

Over the past five years, Dr. Thompson was a Staff Research Associate at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Institute for Public Health and the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health. She now serves as the MADURA Program Coordinator, with responsibilities for general administration, evaluation, and assistance with group training. She draws upon 23 years in a dual career combining in Clinical Psychology practice, with public health and health behavior intervention research. In terms of clinical practice, she has delivered direct group and individual therapy services and educational trainings to a wide range of populations. She also served as the Psychology Program Director at a public hospital’s inpatient psychiatric unit, developing and managing its initial Group Psychotherapy program and a CAPIC-accredited pre-doctoral clinical psychology internship program. Dr. Thompson was fortunate to train under the guidance of exemplary UCSD research mentors, eventually acting as a Principal Investigator for multiple NIH Small Business innovation Research grants and contracts awarded to a health behavior research company.