Aline Duarte Folle is a Ph.D. candidate in Epidemiology and her current research focuses on risk factors contributing to sleep problems in Parkinson's disease.
She also is hoping to improve our understanding of how and why sleep problems contribute to Parkinson's disease progression. Her general research interests cover Epidemiology of Aging and Neurodegenerative diseases. She has previously worked as a Clinical Pharmacist in Brazil and has experience in qualitative research.
Celeste Romano is an M.S. student in Epidemiology with a B.S. in Human Biology and Society from the University of California, Los Angeles.
She is particularly interested in the intersection between health and society. Her research explores the effects of environmental exposures and nutrition on placental growth and pregnancy complications, specifically gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.
Chenxiao Ling is a Ph.D. candidate in Epidemiology whose research focuses on assessing health effects of pesticide exposures on adverse birth outcomes and chronic diseases including childhood cancers, autism, and Parkinson's disease.
She is also interested in identifying spatial misclassification of geo-referenced data such as agricultural pesticide applications in California. She holds a Master’s degree in geography and conducts Geographic Information System (GIS) modeling projects that involve environmental exposures such as agricultural pesticide applications and air toxics releases in California.
Clint Hall received his B.A. in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 2014 and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at UCLA with a focus on occupational epidemiology.
His dissertation examines the relationship between occupational physical activity and incident stroke risk in older women and the role of occupational exposure to livestock or animal dust before and during pregnancy and the risk of childhood cancer in offspring. He collaborates closely with Dr. Niklas Krause from the UCLA Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) and Dr. Julia Heck (Epidemiology, UCLA).
Cynthia Kusters is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She received an M.D. in the Netherlands.
After working clinically for several years, she decided to focus on etiology and progression of complex diseases. Specifically, she is interested in gene-environment interactions that influence progression and quality-of- life among Parkinson’s disease patients. She is currently focusing on genetic susceptibility to side effects of Parkinson’s disease treatment, gene-environment interaction between hormone-related genes and reproductive characteristics in women who develop PD, and the influence of sex hormones on epigenetic markers in the blood. She collaborates closely with Dr. Janet Sinsheimer from the UCLA Dept. of Human Genetics and Biomathematics.
Di He is a Ph.D. student at the UCLA Department of Epidemiology. She earned her B.S. in Biotechnology in China. Di works with Dr. Beate Ritz and works closely with Dr. Julia Heck on her projects on childhood cancers.
Di’s research interest includes environmental epidemiology, cancer epidemiology, and biostatistics and her doctoral research will examine tobacco use and its metabolomics. Di plans to explore public health research in China and investigates health outcomes among Chinese immigrants in the United States.
Keren Zhang is a Ph.D student at the UCLA Department of Epidemiology. Her research interests include epidemiological methodology, data science, and epidemiology of chronic diseases, particularly risk factors related to neurodegenerative diseases and its progress, as well as its relation to the environmental exposures.
Previously, she earned her M.D. from China in 2014 and M.P.H. from UCLA in 2016. She worked as an Epidemiology Analyst at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Policy Analysis Unit before she returned to UCLA to pursue her doctoral degree in epidemiology.
Hsiang-Chin (Lori) Chou is currently a M.PH. student in Epidemiology. Her current research focuses on the investigation of the relationship between gut microbiota and Parkinson’s disease. She received her B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from National Taiwan University and worked as a research intern in National Taiwan University College of Public Health.
Her past research interest focused on the relationship between gut microbiota and the dietary patterns of Major Depressive Disorder patients in Taiwan.
Kosuke Inoue is currently a M.S. student in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He received his M.D. from the University of Tokyo, Japan in 2013. Before he came to UCLA, he worked as an endocrinologist at Yokohama Rosai Hospital after he finished junior residency at National Center of Global Health and Medicine.
His research interests relate to long-term outcomes of chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and thyroid dysfunction.
Qi Yan is currently a Ph.D. student in Epidemiology. His research interests include integrating measures of environmental exposure with health outcomes using high-resolution metabolomics in population-based studies.
His graduate academic training focuses on epidemiological methodology and bioinformatics. His dissertation will investigate the effect of environmental exposures, particularly on air-pollution and pesticides, and the risk of childhood autism relying on metabolic phenotype profiling in in collaboration with Dr. Steve Horvath (Human Genetics, UCLA).
Sam Wing currently studies the effect of environmental exposures, specifically air pollution, on reproductive and child health with a focus on biomarkers of chronic stress responses.
In the past, he worked in clinical research, and studied tobacco use and psychosocial determinants of health. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his M.P.H. from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Xiwen Huang is currently a Ph.D. student in Epidemiology. Her research interests include cancer epidemiology, environmental epidemiology, and epidemiologic methods.
She received her M.P.H. from Columbia University in 2016. Before she came to UCLA, she worked as a research coordinator in Doheny Eye Institute.
Yu Yu is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Epidemiology. She received her MD in Shanghai, a M.S. in Environmental Health Science from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a Master of Environmental Science and Management from UCSB.
Her current research focuses on adverse health effects associated with air pollution exposure derived from spatio-temporal and land use regression models. Her dissertation involves investigating the effects that long-term exposure to air pollution has on metabolic dysfunction, including pathways through which air pollution exposures influence the development of neurodegenerative disorders such as inflammation and metabolic function. She collaborates closely with Dr. Mary Haan (UCSF) and Dr. Michael Jerrett (EHS, UCLA).