SUNY PRIDE-CVD Scholars
Cohort XII – 2025
Filippa Juul, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department and School: Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health
University: SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Research Interests: My research is motivated by a deep commitment to improve cardiometabolic health outcomes at the population level. As a nutritional epidemiologist, I combine my expertise in epidemiological methods and nutrition to examine the role of diet in the etiology and prevention of cardiometabolic outcomes. My primary research focus concerns the role of dietary patterns high in ultra-processed foods in relation to obesity and cardiovascular disease. I am also interested in understanding the biological mechanisms underpinning the associations between ultra-processed foods and cardiometabolic health. My overarching goal is to conduct research that can inform and promote the passage of effective dietary policies for obesity and cardiovascular disease prevention.
Celeste Butts-Jackson PhD, MS
Assistant Professor
Department and School: Department of Population Health Management and Policy, College of Health & Human Sciences
University: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
Research Interests: My research examines the impact of environmental exposures including trace elements, phthalates, persistent organic pollutants, psychosocial stress, and social drivers, such as the built environment, on health outcomes ranging from birth defects to reproductive and cardiometabolic health. Ultimately, I want my research to provide actionable insights that can directly impact the lives of higher risk groups that may have less access to healthcare and health-related information, specifically pertaining to potentially harmful exposures, their impact on health, and mitigation strategies.
Olanrewaju Onigbogi MBBS, MPH
Assistant Professor
Department and School: Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine
University: Indiana University
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Research Interests: I am a physician-scientist with postgraduate fellowship training and experience from institutions in Nigeria and Finland. I had my post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Utah and currently work as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Family Medicine, Indiana University, Indianapolis. My research interests are in addressing health disparities among the Black minority and immigrant groups to the United States covering National Institutes of Health (NIH) interest areas such as health equity, gastroenterology, and cancer prevention. My recent work focuses on assessing the impact of targeted marketing of tobacco products on Black immigrant youth using a combination of innovative mHealth and implementation science methods. I am also interested in the social and structural determinants of health and their effect on cardiometabolic diseases and sleep.
Elizabeth Jelsma, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department and School: Department of Psychological, Health, & Learning Sciences, College of Education
University: University of Houston
Location: Houston, Texas
Research Interests: My research interests include adolescent and adult health within the context of race, ethnicity, and family. Currently I am investigating how family members are affected by each other’s experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination and stress spillover within racial/ethnic minority families. My research has documented the harmful effects of race-related stressors for health and developmental outcomes, and I am interested in examining how race-related stressors at the family level are related to cardiovascular health within entire families. Reducing health disparities and eliminating racial bias from the contexts in which families are embedded are strong motivators for my work.
Melissa Flores, PhD, MS
Assistant Professor
Department and School: Department of Psychology
University: The University of Arizona
Location: Tucson, AZ
Research Interests: I am an interdisciplinary scientist focused on social drivers of health across the lifespan, with a specific focus on the conceptualization and measurement of risk and resilience factors. My research has two major foci: 1) unpacking the epidemiological paradoxes surrounding cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality in Hispanic/Latino populations, and 2) examining how social environments shape health in communities that are traditionally underrepresented in research. I am especially interested in modeling the interconnectedness of social environments using advanced statistical approaches such as social network and dyadic analyses, and in applying person-centered methods like latent class analysis to explore these dynamics through both theory- and data-driven lenses.
Tailisha Gonzalez, PhD, MPH, MS
Assistant Professor
Department and School: Health Sciences, Human Services and Nursing
University: Lehman College of the City University of New York (CUNY)
Location: Bronx, NY
Research Interests: In my research, I focus on social, structural and behavioral determinants of cardiovascular health among U.S. adults, particularly workers living with chronic health conditions. My prior work has examined the damaging effects of psychosocial work factors and work schedule characteristics on hypertension and diabetes-related outcomes.
Vivian L. Chin, M.D
Assistant Professor
Department and School: Pediatric Endocrinologist
University: SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Research Interests: I am interested in endothelial dysfunction in childhood diseases such as type 1 and 2 diabetes, obesity, and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). My previous study preliminarily investigated the association between endothelial dysfunction in children with early onset obesity and genetic variants of obesity. I hope to expand this study and further investigate whether endothelial dysfunction can be reversible with obesity treatments available.
Huishi Toh, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department and School: Integrative Genomics and Epidemiology, School of Graduate Studies
University: Meharry Medical College
Location: Nashville, TN
Research Interests: I am interested in the disease modifying potential of early life environmental exposure; shaping metabolic health and disease outcomes. It is well accepted that environmental exposure in early life from conception to childhood has large consequences in lifelong health and disease, particularly metabolic, cardiovascular and neurodevelopmental outcomes. This is also known as the Developmental Origin of Health and Disease (DOHaD) theory. Numerous famine, epidemiology and clinical studies in various human populations have supported the DOHaD theory. However, these studies do not reveal mechanistic details to find molecular targets for disease prevention. Using a diet-induced outbred Nile rat model, I would like to investigate how the organ development and maturation in early life is impacted by early nutrition due to changes in maternal diet and how that translates to lifelong susceptibility to cardiovascular diseases.