Faculty Mentors
Are you interested in becoming a faculty mentor to a McNair Scholar? Please complete the McNair Faculty Interest form.
McNair Faculty Interest Form
For questions, comments or concerns please email McNair@csulb.edu
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Name |
Contact |
Research |
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Samar Needham |
Dr. Needhams's research interests lie in dyslexia, learning disability, handedness, and brain laterality |
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M. Keith Claybrook, PhD |
Dr. Claybrook specializes in the following areas:
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Jason Schwans, PhD |
Dr. Shwans specializes in understand the chemical and physical basis of enzyme function. Understanding the basis of how enzymes achieve their enormous rate enhancement and exquisite specificity is crucial to understanding biological function. Further, an understanding of enzymatic catalysis may aid the design and application of enzymes and enzyme inhibitors that act as drugs and may contribute to the expanding role for biocatalysts in manufacturing. Our lab takes an interdisciplinary approach, bridging organic chemistry and biochemistry, and employs a battery of techniques including organic synthesis, UV and fluorescence spectroscopy, NMR spectroscopy, and x-ray crystallography. |
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Amber Johnson, PhD |
Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on the social epidemiology of cardiovascular disease. Her research is guided by the weathering hypothesis, which posits that stress associated with racial inequities may cause health deterioration among African Americans as early as young adulthood, leading to racial disparities in health outcomes over the life span. Currently, she has been examining population-based studies to determine whether demographic (e.g., race, age, income) and psychosocial (e.g., racism, depression, social support) variables can predict cardiovascular risk profiles. |
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Gabriella Hancock, PhD |
Dr. Hancock has two main areas of research focus: human performance under workload and stress (specializing in cognitive neuroscience methods and measures), and human-technology interaction. In order to facilitate and improve overall system performance, researchers must first identify the junctures at which human performance deteriorates or fails due to stressful environmental or task demands that exceed our natural physical or cognitive capacities. |
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Jaqueline Dawson, PhD |
My research interests fall at the intersection of exercise science, computer science and cardiometabolic disease. I am primarily interested in technology-based exercise strategies to improve physiological and functional outcomes in individuals with chronic metabolic disease. This involves characterizing cardiometabolic risk factors and physical function through wearable devices, then using this information in the design of exercise interventions to improve disease outcomes. |
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Michael Schramm, PhD |
Molecular recognition is the study of how and why molecules interact. At its essence lies the attraction of molecules at energy levels “weaker than covalent.” Hydrogen bonding, metal coordination, and the hydrophobic effect cover some of these possible forces. In nature we find countless crucial interactions predicated on noncovalent interactions such as; enzyme-substrate recognition, DNA-protein binding, and ion-receptor transport. From a synthetic point of view these principles have strongly influenced areas of research from drug design to materials science to molecular self-assembly. Our research uses molecular recognition as a design principle to develop new synthetic molecules that are compatible with and capable of regulating biological function. |
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Kagba Suaray, PhD |
Nonparametric functional estimation, extreme value theory, sports analytics, and using data to improve pedagogy. |
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Judy Brusslan, PhD |
Plant Molecular Biology. Leaf senescence in Arabidopsis thaliana. Genetic and genome-wide analysis of histone modifications that accompany leaf senescence. |
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Laura Gonzalez Alana, PhD |
Behavioral finance, financial literacy, corporate and international finance, banking and financial markets, entrepreneurship, fintech. |
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Susan Carlile, PhD |
Eighteenth-century British Literature; the novel; gender theory; Adolescent Lit, English Education |
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Steven Osuna, PhD |
Racism and political economy, globalization and immigration; policing and criminalization; social theory |
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Courtney Ahrens, PhD |
Sexual and relationship violence with a particular focus on survivor disclosure and help-seeking. She also works closely with both campus and community partners to prevent and address sexual and relationship violence. |
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Jeffrey Bentley, PhD |
"The people behind the wheel: Exploring the policy changes, job stressors, and identity issues driving turnover among California truck drivers", |
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Ga-Young Kelly Suh, PhD |
Dr. Warren’s research are within Industrial and Organizational Psychology.Dr. Suh’s research focuses on application of computational analysis to human data relevant to endovascular surgery with medical devices. Her research employs a multidisciplinary approach to recruit patients, manage clinical trials, acquire medical images, and develop tools to extract measurement for vascular surgeons and device manufacturers. During graduate studies, she applied computational fluid dynamics and optimization of boundary conditions to simulate blood flows from subjects with vascular disease. Her recent work includes evaluation of in-vivo motion of vascular stents and surroundings using medical imaging and geometric analysis to find a predictor for surgical outcome. |
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Alex Washington, PhD |
Gender Identity and Human Sexuality, HIV/AIDS Primary and Secondary Prevention, Health Disparities, Web-based Research Protocols |
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Virginia Gray, PhD |
Community nutrition, Nutrition in policy, School nutrition, Global issues in nutrition, Social and cultural influences on food habits and nutrition status, Curriculum development |
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Kevin Valenzuela, PhD |
I conduct research in strength training, exercise biomechanics, running, gait, and extreme sports. I do research both inside and outside of a lab looking at how people move during different activities, and how those movement patterns improve performance and reduce injury risk. |
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Name |
Contact |
Research |
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Yada Treesukosol, PhD |
Dr. Treesukosol’s research takes advantage of animal models to ask questions related to how oral signals (e.g. taste, smell, texture) send information to the brain to control feeding and drinking behavior. BUILD and McNair scholars would be involved in experiments that use physiological procedures (e.g. injecting gut peptides, measuring contents in plasma) with behavioral measures (e.g. meal patterns, detection thresholds, preference). The conceptual questions address the relative contributions of oral stimulation, post-ingestive cues and reward-related mechanisms on eating behavior. |
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Department of Linguistics |
Michael.Ahland@csulb.edu | Dr. Ahland's primary research interests include syntax (from historical, functional, and typological perspectives), African tonal systems, historical-comparative linguistics, the evolution of grammar, and the relationship between discourse and grammar. Their research is generally carried out in the context of describing and documenting endangered languages with a particular focus on the Mao (Afroasiatic-Omotic) languages of Ethiopia and the Pahka’anil (Uto-Aztecan) language of California. |
| Judy Brusslan, PhD Department of Biological Sciences |
Judy.Brusslan@csulb.edu | Dr. Brusslan's Lab is interested in the early events that regulate leaf senescence. Leaf senescence is the regulated break down of proteins and chlorophyll that occurs in older leaves and the subsequent export of these nutrients to growing and storage tissue. Understanding and optimizing nutrient recycling during leaf senescence could reduce the use of polluting and energy-intensive fertilizers. |
| Gabriella Hancock, PhD Department of Psychology |
Gabriella.Hancock@csulb.edu | Dr. Hancock’s research interests consist of human performance under workload and stress (specializing in cognitive neuroscience methods and measures), and human-technology interaction. In order to facilitate and improve overall system performance, researchers must first identify the junctures at which human performance deteriorates or fails due to stressful environmental or task demands that exceed our natural physical or cognitive capacities. |
| Amber Johnson, PhD Department of Health Sciences |
Amber.Johnson@csulb.edu | Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on the social epidemiology of cardiovascular disease. Her research is guided by the weathering hypothesis, which posits that stress associated with racial inequities may cause health deterioration among African Americans as early as young adulthood, leading to racial disparities in health outcomes over the life span. Currently, she has been examining population-based studies to determine whether demographic (e.g., race, age, income) and psychosocial (e.g., racism, depression, social support) variables can predict cardiovascular risk profiles. |
| Matthew Jaurequi, PhD Department of Child Development and Family Studies |
Matthew.Jaurequi@csulb.edu |
Dr. Jaurequi's research explores Couple and Family Processes, Relationship, Mental, and Physical Health, Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation, Systems Oriented Education and Clinical Training |
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Department of Sociology |
Janet.Muniz@csulb.edu | Dr. Muniz's research explores Latino/a economic life; immigrant communities; ethnic Identity; qualitative methods |
| Raisa Hernandez Pacheco, PhD Department of Biological Sciences |
Rai.HernandezPacheco@csulb.edu | Dr. Pacheco's research examines Socially Driven Health Dynamics; Stochastic Processes on Demography; Extreme Events as Drivers of Individual Variability; Demography Across Spatial Scales; Field Site - Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico |
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Name |
Contact |
Research |
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Yada Treesukosol, PhD |
Dr. Treesukosol’s research takes advantage of animal models to ask questions related to how oral signals (e.g. taste, smell, texture) send information to the brain to control feeding and drinking behavior. BUILD and McNair scholars would be involved in experiments that use physiological procedures (e.g. injecting gut peptides, measuring contents in plasma) with behavioral measures (e.g. meal patterns, detection thresholds, preference). The conceptual questions address the relative contributions of oral stimulation, post-ingestive cues and reward-related mechanisms on eating behavior. |
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Selena Nguyen-Rodriguez, PhD |
Dr. Nguyen-Rodriguez's research interests lie in improving health outcomes for minority populations, based on the principles of health psychology. She believes that to attain healthy outcomes, peoples' minds and bodies must both be addressed. |
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Anna Bax, PhD |
Dr. Bax's research revolve around investigating the intersections between language, identity, power, and social justice. She employs a wide arrange of qualitative methodologies, including discourse and interaction analysis and linguistic ethnography. |
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Danielle Kohfeldt, PhD |
Dr. Kohfeldt's research interests are to understand and contribute to social contexts that facilitate and individual and collective liberation and well-being. Within an overarching programmatic framework focused on social justice. They have studied a wide range of topics: neoliberal ideology and the perceptions of refugees, ethics of care and COVID-19, anti-racist and anti-ableist organizing, disability justice and ableism in education, activist art, popular culture fandom communities (e.g., eSports, comics, women in gaming), and children’s participation in social action. |
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Alfredo Carlos Marquez, PhD |
Dr. Carlos’ research interests include:
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| Nicholas Alt, PhD Department of Sociology |
Nicholas.Alt@csulb.edu | Dr. Alt's Research includes social psychology and vision science, accuracy and bias in person perception, social judgments (e.g., social categorization, trait impressions, stereotyping). |
| Jason Schwans, PhD Department of Biochemistry |
Jason.Schwans@csulb.edu | Dr. Schwans' overall research goal is to understand the chemical and physical basis of enzyme function. Understanding the basis of how enzymes achieve their enormous rate enhancement and exquisite specificity is crucial to understanding biological function. |
| Bradley Hawkins, PhD Department of Religious Studies |
Bradley.Hawkins@csulb.edu | Dr. Hawkin's current research projects include a religious history of Southeast Asia to 1500 CE, a study of Buddhist groups in the LA area, and a comprehensive overview of small-scale religions in Indochina. |
| Wan Lee, PhD Department of Chemical Engineering |
Wan.Lee@csulb.edu | Dr. Lee's research and thesis was/is on characterizing polymeric materials using ultrasonic technique, with application in the biomedical industry. |
| William Pederson, PhD Department of Psychology |
Bill.Pederson@csulb.edu | Dr. Pederson's research is focused on factors that impact aggressive behavior and violence. They are interested in a variety of personality factors including trait rumination, narcissism, impulsivity, and religiosity. They have also investigated a variety of situational factors that impact aggression including collective rumination, priming aspects of religion, resource inequality, alcohol priming, personal control, and social exclusion. |
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Department of Finance |
laura.gonzalezalana@csulb.edu | Dr. Gonzalez' research focuses on Financial Institutions, Corporate, International, Behavioral and Entrepreneurial Finance, FinTech, Financial Literacy, Banking, Governance |
| Catilin Fouratt, PhD Department of International Studies |
Caitlin.Fouratt@csulb.edu | Dr. Fouratt’s research interests relate to refugees and forced migrants within Central America, and with state responses to shifting regional migration dynamics. She is actively involved in the Red de Jovenes Sin Fronteras, a youth association based in Costa Rica that advocates for and with refugee and migrant youth. |
| Kagba Suaray, PhD Department of Mathematics and Statistics |
Kagba.Suaray@csulb.edu | Dr. Suaray's research interests include nonparametric functional estimation, extreme value theory, sports analytics, and using data to improve pedagogy. |
| Fangyuan Tian, PhD Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry |
Fangyuan.Tian@csulb.edu | Dr. Tian's research interests are within Thin Film; Methane Capture; Drug Delivery |
| Sean Kwon, PhD Department of Electrical Engineering |
Sean.Kwon@csulb.edu | Dr. Kwon's research interests are 5G wireless system design, polarization diversity and multiplexing, body area networks for wearable computing and in-vivo communications, wireless channel modeling and its applications, and network coding-aware channel assignment. |
| Kristina Lovato. PhD Department of Social Work |
Kristina.Lovato@csulb.edu | Dr. Lovato's research explores Children and Families, Maltreatment Prevention in Latinx Immigrant Communities, Social and Structural Determinants of Health, Child Welfare and Immigration Policy |
| Deshonay Dozier, PhD Department of Chemical Engineering |
Deshonay.Dozier@csulb.edu | Dr. Dozier's research examines Critical race and gender studies, Black studies, carceral geographies, urban planning and policy, cultural geography, and social movement studies. |
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Name |
Contact |
Research |
|---|---|---|
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Yada Treesukosol, PhD |
Dr. Treesukosol’s research takes advantage of animal models to ask questions related to how oral signals (e.g. taste, smell, texture) send information to the brain to control feeding and drinking behavior. BUILD scholars would be involved in experiments that use physiological procedures (e.g. injecting gut peptides, measuring contents in plasma) with behavioral measures (e.g. meal patterns, detection thresholds, preference). The conceptual questions address the relative contributions of oral stimulation, post-ingestive cues and reward-related mechanisms on eating behavior. |
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Selena Nguyen-Rodriguez, PhD |
Dr. Nguyen-Rodriguez's research interests lie in improving health outcomes for minority populations, based on the principles of health psychology. She believes that to attain healthy outcomes, peoples' minds and bodies must both be addressed. |
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Perla Ayala, PhD |
Dr. Ayala's research focuses on developing therapeutic systems that promote optimal healing. Her research applies a multidisciplinary approach to create engineered tissues, and cohesive drug delivery platforms for applications in the clinic. During her graduate studies, Dr. Ayala developed bioengineered microstructures for cardiac repair that improve cardiac functional outcomes after a heart attack in the rat model. Recently, she engineered a stem cell laden composite tissue system for applications in tissue regeneration that promotes angiogenesis and modulation of the immune response. |
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Virginia Gray, PhD |
Dr. Gray’s research interests include:
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Alfredo Carlos Marquez, PhD |
Dr. Carlos’ research interests include:
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Name |
Contact |
Research |
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Amy Cabrera Rasmussen, PhD |
Her scholarly work examines policymaking processes, discourse, and impact. Substantively, she grounds her work in various aspects of public policy that involve health and identity, specifically issues such as environmental health, health disparities, and reproductive and sexual health. Her research utilizes interpretive methods and a theoretical framework that emphasizes the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation. Current research includes a study of environmental health policy making as it affects and is affected by the local Long Beach community. |
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Praveen Shankar, PhD |
Dr. Shankar has collaborated with researchers from NASA and Air Force Research Laboratories on several projects and authored many conference and journal papers in the field. He is the recipient of the AIAA Foundation Orville and Wilbur Wright Graduate Award for his contributions to research in aerospace engineering. At Arizona State University, he developed a simulation tool for teaching Aircraft Dynamics and Control which has received significant attention from education and technology magazines. Dr. Shankar is a Senior Member of AIAA and has served as a reviewer for journals and conferences from AIAA, ASME, IEEE, IMechE and ASEE. |
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Robert Blankenship, PhD |
Dr. Blankenship’s scholarship is concerned with nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century German literature and cinema, and he is especially interested in East German literature. He is the author of the book “Suicide in East German Literature: Fiction, Rhetoric, and the Self-Destruction of Literary Heritage.” Dr. Blankenship sees teaching as a war against apathy, and students in his classes may find themselves discussing, collaborating, writing, translating, staging dramatic productions, performing close readings, fruitfully disagreeing, and generally flexing their imagination. |
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Mahdi Yoozbashizadeh, PhD |
Dr. Yoozbashizadeh's research focuses on Automation, Additive Manufacturing, 3D-Printing of Metals, Product Development, Design of Experiments, and Process/Product Improvement and Optimization. The last three years working at CSULB, he has conducted four industry funded research projects in the fields of Automation in Aerospace (funded by Boeing), Plasma Treatment of Composite Structures (funded by Northrop Grumman), Sealant Flow Process Control and Optimization (funded by Boeing), and Metal-Ceramic Composite Manufacturing by 3D Printing. |
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Gino Galvez, PhD |
Dr. Galvez examining complex issues that affect ethnic minority populations within organizational contexts. For example, some of my research has examined the intersection of intimate partner violence, culture, and employment outcomes among Latino men. Additionally, I maintain an active research line in program evaluation in which a range of methods (e.g., surveys, interviews, and focus groups) are used to evaluate programs (e.g., student training, community services), interventions (e.g., HIV, public health), and organizations. I am an investigator and program evaluation consultant for several grant-supported research projects (e.g., NIH BUILD, HSI STEM) and community-based organizations. |
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Danielle Kohfeldt, PhD |
My research program focuses on formal and informal learning environments (broadly defined) and how these environments facilitate or hinder individual and collective empowerment and human thriving. I take an ecological approach that considers the structural, cultural, political, and institutional contexts of empowerment. In addition to examining how settings shape beliefs and behavior, I investigate how people alter settings to make them more conducive to human thriving. Most of my research is developed in collaboration with community groups and organizations. I am particularly interested in arts-based research methods and the role of the arts in fostering community development, identity, and empowerment |
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Joseph Kalman, PhD |
His research focuses on combustion of solid fuels and energetic materials (solid composite propellants) for propulsion and defense applications with an emphasis on non-intrusive diagnostic. His work seeks to understand the underlying physics and chemistry of how these materials ignite, decompose, and deflagrate. |
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Becky Nash, PhD |
Dr. Nash’s research interest include:
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Gabriella Hancock, PhD |
Dr. Hancock’s research interests consist of human performance under workload and stress (specializing in cognitive neuroscience methods and measures), and human-technology interaction. In order to facilitate and improve overall system performance, researchers must first identify the junctures at which human performance deteriorates or fails due to stressful environmental or task demands that exceed our natural physical or cognitive capacities. In these efforts, I concentrate on the study of individual differences (the psychological study of human similarities and differences in cognition, emotion, and behavior) as humans’ susceptibility and tolerances for certain stressors or workloads depend on such individual differences. |
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Name |
Contact |
Research |
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Selena Nguyen-Rodriguez, PhD |
Dr. Nguyen-Rodriguez's research interests lie in improving health outcomes for minority populations, based on the principles of health psychology. She believes that to attain healthy outcomes, peoples' minds and bodies must both be addressed. |
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M. Keith Claybrook, PhD |
Dr. Claybrook specializes in the following areas:
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Kim Phuong Vu, PhD |
Dr. Vu specializes in the following areas:
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Barbara Grossman-Thompson, PhD |
Her dissertation research focuses on the gendered implications of social change and economic development in Nepal. Her secondary research interest concerns the political economy of migration and diaspora. The growing number of Nepali women migrating abroad for work poses numerous questions about the gendered nature of migration, migration policy and remittances. Current research projects focus on migration as a process shaped by both local and global forces as well as historically dominant and emergent ways of thinking about gender and mobility. |
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Samar Needham, PhD |
Behavioral Neuroscience and Learning & Behavior |
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Caitlin Fouratt, PhD |
Dr. Fouratt’s book project Flexible Families: Transnational Migration in Costa Rica and Nicaragua explores the intimate connections between Nicaraguan migrants in Costa Rica and their families in Nicaragua in order to understand how economic crisis, environmental pressures, and failed government policies contribute to the reconfiguration of care and kinship among transnational families. Dr. Fouratt’s other research interests relate to refugees and forced migrants within Central America, and with state responses to shifting regional migration dynamics. She is actively involved in the Red de Jovenes Sin Fronteras, a youth association based in Costa Rica that advocates for and with refugee and migrant youth. |
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May Ling Halim, PhD |
Her research spans two broad areas. The first is social identity development in children of different cultures. The second is the effects of group discrimination on health and well-being. Her research papers have been published in national academic journals such as Child Development, Developmental Psychology, and Health Psychology. Her work has also been written about in the popular media, such as on NPR and in Psychology Today. |
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Oliver Wang, PhD |
Popular culture/music, race and ethnicity, identity and community formation. |
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Bradley Weisz, PhD |
Dr Weisz’ interests center on understanding how stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination contribute to disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged social groups in academic achievement and health, and how social-psychological interventions can reduce these disparities |
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Ruth Chambers, PhD |
Dr. Chambers research interests are focused in three primary areas: child neglect and its relationship to poverty, child welfare services and family outcomes, and service integration. |
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Pitiporn Asvapathanagul, PhD |
Dr. Asvapathanagul’s research focuses on using molecular tools to understand microbial activities and resolve problems in biological water reclamation processes and in the environment. She developed several molecular primers and probes for bacterial detection in water reclamation plants. Dr. Asvapathanagul is also interested in developing a novel system for sewage highly containing fat, oil and grease. |
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Aftab Ahmed, PhD |
A theme of Dr. Ahmed's research centers around the design and development of new devices and methods based on light-matter interactions at small length (nano-, meso-, micro-) scales. His motivation is to advance physics and engineering of optoelectronic devices, and to utilize this knowledge to tackle real-world problems in medical diagnostics, photonics, sustainable energy, and optical/microwave communications. His research goals include integration of unique capabilities of hybrid plasmonic nanostructures and the wealth of design guidelines and techniques in the microwave regime leading to next generation optoelectronic and all-optical devices. Such devices will not only lead to new paradigms but will also overcome existing inefficiencies in cost, speed and size. |
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Claudia Lopez, PhD |
Dr. Lopez’s research interest are Global migration, displacement, citizenship, gender, race, class, critical urban studies, collective memory, social movements, and Latin America. |
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Praveen Shankar, PhD |
Dr. Shankar has collaborated with researchers from NASA and Air Force Research Laboratories on several projects and authored many conference and journal papers in the field. He is the recipient of the AIAA Foundation Orville and Wilbur Wright Graduate Award for his contributions to research in aerospace engineering. At Arizona State University, he developed a simulation tool for teaching Aircraft Dynamics and Control which has received significant attention from education and technology magazines. Dr. Shankar is a Senior Member of AIAA and has served as a reviewer for journals and conferences from AIAA, ASME, IEEE, IMechE and ASEE. |
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Christopher Warren, PhD |
Dr. Warren’s research are within Industrial and Organizational Psychology. |
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Jiyeong Gu, PhD |
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Maythee Rojas, PhD |
Dr. Rojas’ research specializations include ethnic American literature and issues of gender and sexuality. |
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Robert Schug, PhD |
Dr. Schug’s interest include:
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Bradley Weisz, PhD |
Dr Weisz’ interests center on understanding how stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination contribute to disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged social groups in academic achievement and health, and how social-psychological interventions can reduce these disparities |
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Chuhee Kwon, PhD |
Dr. Kwon’s research interest include:
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