2013 Fellows

David Córdova, PhD

Assistant Professor, School of Social Work
University of Michigan

IRTI Mentor: Sheana Bull, PhD

David Córdova received his PhD from Michigan State University and graduated a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Minority Fellow. After completing his National Institutes of Health-funded postdoctoral training at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Professor Córdova joined the faculty at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. Currently, he holds a NIH-funded visiting professorship at the University of California San Francisco Center for AIDS Prevention Studies. His research focuses on adolescent health inequities, particularly as it relates to the prevention of drug abuse and HIV. Most recently, Professor Córdova received a grant from the NIH, to develop and test the feasibility of a mobile-health drug abuse and HIV preventive intervention. He is the recipient of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Loan Repayment Program.

Karina Gattamorta, PhD

Research Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Health Studies
University of Miami

IRTI Mentor: Hortensia Amaro, PhD

Karina Gattamorta is a Research Associate Professor at the School of Nursing and Health Studies at the University of Miami. She earned her PhD in Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation in 2009 from The School of Education at UM and an EdS in School Psychology in 2005 from Florida International University. In her current role, she teaches courses in introductory and intermediate statistics, measurement, and research methods in both graduate and undergraduate programs. In 2013 she was awarded a Diversity Supplement that allowed her to expand on her interests tackling health disparities among Hispanic adolescents, and in particular, the interconnectedness of family functioning, mental health, and substance abuse. More recently, she began pursuing research interests examining the relationships between family functioning, mental health, substance abuse, and risky sexual behaviors in Hispanic lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adolescents. Her current research examines the role of families and the coming out experiences of Hispanic sexual minorities. Her research aims to understand and ultimately help reduce health disparities in mental health, substance abuse, and HIV risk among sexual minorities.

Alice Hernandez Grant, PhD

Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Psychology/Neuroscience
University of Texas at El Paso

IRTI Mentor: Jill Becker, PhD

In order to create targeted treatments for specific metabolic disorders involving the brain, it is imperative to understand the organization of the central nervous system and how it responds to blood-borne signals such as glucose and insulin that help maintain normal metabolism. Alice is interested in identifying the specific combinations of neurons and intracellular activation markers that respond selectively to circulating hormones, and mapping their locations onto a reference atlas of the brain to help neuroscientists understand the neural substrates controlling metabolism. In addition to these pursuits, Alice is using the same reference atlas to integrate multi-scale data – from genes and proteins to connections and behavior – onto a common reference map. Within individual maps of the brain, such legacy data can be validated and, in turn, provide insights about more modern datasets collected on brain function.

Michaeline Jensen, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

IRTI Mentor: Christopher Browning, PhD

Michaeline Jensen is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro’s Clinical Psychology Program. She conducted her postdoctoral research as an NICHD funded postdoctoral scholar in the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Center for Developmental Science.  Michaeline’s research focuses on better understanding the development of adolescent substance use and risk taking behaviors within family, peer, neighborhood, and cultural contexts.  Michaeline is particularly interested in the interplay between individual vulnerabilities (e.g. disinhibition) and aspects of the social-cultural environment.  Her dissertation research examined how sensation seeking risk for adolescent substance use could potentially be moderated by individual executive inhibition, parental controls, and level of neighborhood organization.  Findings highlighted that both relatively advantaged and relatively disadvantaged neighborhoods can facilitate the expression of sensation seeking risk for adolescent substance use initiation.  Michaeline’s research has also included a focus on the role of social processes in preventive intervention, finding that a middle school prevention program tailored for Mexican American youth reduced levels of parent-adolescent conflict, and that these reductions in parent-adolescent conflict mediated program effects on late high school levels of internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and substance use.

Catalina Lopez-Quintero, MD, PhD, MPH

Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology
University of Florida, Gainesville

IRTI Mentor: James Anthony, PhD

Catalina Lopez-Quintero is an assistant professor with the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She completed her postdoctoral research at the Substance Use and HIV Neuropsychology (SUHN) Lab at the Center for Children and Families at Florida International University, one of the and 19 research sites conducting the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. At the SUHN lab her research focuses on studying neurocognitive antecedents and consequences of substance use, HIV and risk behaviors associated with both. As part of her training and research experience in psychiatric epidemiology at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI ) – Columbia University (w/ C. Blanco), drug dependence epidemiology at Michigan State University (MSU) (w/ J. Anthony), substance use and HIV/AIDS among Latino populations (w/ M. De La Rosa) she developed diverse projects that aimed to disentangle the role that factors at different levels of influence (e.g. biological, behavioral, socio-cultural, or political) exert on the transitions from the early stages of drug use involvement to the development of drug use disorders and other related outcomes. Her long term career goals are to: 1) Develop a comprehensive and interdisciplinary insight of the mechanisms that explain drug use trajectories across the drug use continuum, by focusing on the complex interactions between neuropsychological and socio-cultural level factors; and 2) Contribute to the design of effective drug use prevention and treatment strategies to reduce drug use disparities.

Oralia Loza, PhD

Associate Professor, Public Health Sciences
University of Texas at El Paso

IRTI Mentor: Cynthia Gomez, PhD

In 2009, I graduated from the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University Joint Doctoral Program, PhD in Public Health, Epidemiology. My dissertation was entitled “Factors Associated with Early Initiation Into Sex Work and Sexually Transmitted Infections among Female Sex Workers in Two Mexico-U.S. Border Cities”. At my present position at The University of Texas at El Paso, I continue to focus my research on understanding and documenting the relationship between substance abuse and risks behaviors for HIV, Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among high-risk populations on the U.S.-Mexico border region, including transgender women, injection drug users, migrants, and men who have sex with men, to then develop or adapt appropriate prevention strategies and interventions. I have had the opportunity to mentor graduate students by integrating them in all stages of research process. I strive to conduct meaningful research by collaborating with community partners who work closely with the target populations and an interdisciplinary team of investigators. My participation as an IRTI Fellow June 2013 – June 2014 was an instrumental opportunity to learn from a community of substance abuse researchers, both at junior and senior levels, who acknowledge the unique needs of our Hispanic communities and our great potential to collaborate to bridge science, resources, and services to those who need them most.

Dr. Rafael E. Perez-Figueroa, MD, MPH

Associate Dean for Community Engagement & Public Health Practice
Rutgers University

IRTI Mentor: Ronald Stall, PhD

Dr. Rafael E. Perez-Figueroa is an Adjunct Professor at the York College of the City University of New York’s Department of Behavioral Sciences. He also teaches with Montclair State University’s Department of Public Health as an adjunct professor and currently serves as a research scientist at the Center for Research on Cultural & Structural Equity in Behavioral Health at the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research. Dr. Perez-Figueroa’s research work focuses on the study of health disparities among vulnerable populations including Latino immigrants and sexual and racial minorities. He studies public health issues related to HIV prevention and care, sexually transmitted infections, and substance use and abuse. He does this by engaging in theoretically driven research studies that seek to disentangle the effects of different social determinants of health on the health outcomes of these populations. He is a fellow on Hispanic drug abuse from National Institute of Drug Abuse and a fellow of the NYU Postdoctoral and Transition Program for Academy Diversity. His research work has been published in the American Journal of Public Health, AIDS Patient Care and STDs, and Prevention Science, among other high-impact journals, and he served on the editorial board of Behavioral Medicine. He holds a MD from the Pontifical “Madre y Maestra” Catholic University in the Dominican Republic and an MPH degree from New York University in Global Health Leadership.

Argentina E. Servin, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases & Global Public Health
University of California, San Diego

IRTI Mentor: J. Bryan Page, PhD

Argentina E. Servin is a bilingual and bicultural clinician-researcher trained in preventive medicine, infectious disease and clinical epidemiology. Dr. Servin received her Medical Degree and Masters in Public Health from Centro de Estudios Universidad Xochicalco (CEUX), School of Medicine in Tijuana, Mexico. She also received training in HIV and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her research has focused on sexual violence, substance abuse and HIV/STI risk among at-risk youth, female sex workers (FSWs), children of FSWs, migrant women and people who inject drugs (PWID) in the U.S. – Mexico border region and Central America. Upon finalizing the Interdisciplinary Research Training Institute (IRTI) she has successfully received independent funding from different institutions such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), the Health Initiative of the Americas and the World Bank. Most recently, she was awarded a K23 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (1K23HD084756-01A1; PI: Servin) and is being appointed as an Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and CEUX in Tijuana, Mexico.

Christine E.  Spadola, PhD, MS, LMHC

Assistant Professor, Phyllis and Harvey Sandler School of Social Work 
Florida Atlantic University 

IRTI Mentor: Geoffrey Hunt, PhD

Christine E.  Spadola earned her PhD from the Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work at Florida International University in December of 2015. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic University at the Phyllis and Harvey Sandler School of Social Work. She completed her postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders in conjunction with Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Spadola’s research interests include health and wellness promotion, mindfulness, and racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in physical and mental health, with specific interests in yoga research, appetitive disorders and substance abuse. Christine’s dissertation focused on psychosocial adaptations of young adult, Hispanic/Latino bariatric surgery patients and is entitled “A Mixed-Methods Exploration of Alcohol Use among Racially/Ethnically Diverse Young Adult Bariatric Surgery Patients.”

Dr. Spadola is also a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who has over 13 years of clinical and behavioral research experience working with culturally diverse and at-risk populations. Prior to her doctoral studies, Christine received extensive research experience and was formerly the Project Coordinator for six RO1 grants working with at-risk populations in the areas of drug use, HIV, and health promotion. Most recently, Christine served as a post-doctoral fellow with FIU’s Banyan Research Institute for Dissemination, Grants, and Evaluation (FIU-BRIDGE) and was the Project Coordinator for a quasi-experimental study investigating yoga as a complementary therapy for at-risk youth.

Mabel Terminel, PhD

NIH AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow

IRTI Mentor: Carlos Bolaños-Guzman, Ph.D.

Mabel Terminel is a Ph.D. student in the Social, Cognitive Neuroscience program at the Texas A&M University. Her main research interest is in neurobiological changes that occur in drug addiction and Parkinson’s disease. She is intrigued by the similarity in dopamine activity taking place in both cases that suggests there might be common mechanisms increasing dopamine activity – these findings might accelerate interventions for multiple disease states. Moreover, she has specific interests in changes that take place in basic functions of the brain during neurogenesis and that contribute to development of hard-wired circuits (neural plasticity), and how these mechanisms might contribute to behavioral compensation in neurodegenerative disorders or drug addiction. Studies about plasticity during development or recovery from brain damage or learning mechanisms suggest a seemingly infinite number of factors that contribute to underlying neural substrates. Neuroplasticity of dopamine systems for movement, reinforcement, and learning and memory can be applied to substance abuse disorder. Repeated exposure to stimulant drugs produces sensitization, characterized by greater dopamine release and stronger behavioral responses. Other studies have also shown the same increase in dopamine release in sensitized animals in response to conditioned environmental cues even in the absence of the drug. There is a lack of understanding for the presynaptic mechanisms that lead to behavioral sensitization. Therefore, she is interested in studying presynaptic mechanisms that modulate increases in dopamine release, which is believed to be responsible for the relentless craving in drug addiction. In her graduate research she seeks to explore mechanisms of exocytosis that likely modulate release as a conditional response to drug-associated discriminant cues.