MENTORS 2023
Each SHARP scholar is matched with a mentor team, with whom they work throughout the summer. These mentors provide guidance on the scholar’s project, serve as a sounding board for the scholar’s educational career and goals, and provide coaching on how to work in a public health research environment.
Phillip Coffin MD, MIA is a board-certified and practicing internist, infectious disease specialist, and addiction medicine specialist. He attended or trained at Brown University, Columbia University, the University of California San Francisco, and the University of Washington. He directs the Center on Substance Use and Health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, including clinical trials assessing medications for multiple substance use disorders and interventions for opioid safety, overdose prevention, HIV prevention, and Hepatitis C treatment.
Dr. Phillip Coffin also conducts several studies into the impacts of changing opioid prescribing practices on vulnerable populations, substance use epidemiology, and initiatives addressing substance use and opioid safety in clinical care. To be perfectly candid though, he’d rather be kitesurfing.
Vanessa McMahan, PhD is a Research Scientist at CSUH. She received her doctorate and Master of Science from the University of Washington in Health Services. She is dedicated to harm reduction and evaluating programs to improve well being among marginalized communities. Previously, Vanessa coordinated PrEP studies among people who use methamphetamine and has volunteered with syringe services programs since 2000.
Natasha Ludwig-Barron, PhD, MPH, is a Chicana Epidemiologist and TAPS Fellow at UC San Francisco, Department of Medicine, with more than 15-years of public health research and practice experience. She applies mixed methods and ecological approaches to understanding the syndemic of HIV/AIDS, substance use, and gender inequity, with the goal of improving the health and wellbeing of marginalized communities in the US (Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Diego, Seattle), Mexico and Kenya. After earning her MPH at Emory University, Dr. Ludwig-Barron completed a Hispanic-Serving Health Professions Schools (HSHPS) Fellowship where she conducted HIV and substance use research along the U.S.-Mexico Border in San Diego, CA, and later served as an Epidemiologist with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Division of HIV and STD Programs, Research and Innovation Unit. She completed her doctorate in Epidemiology at the University of Washington, which was funded through a NIDA Diversity Supplement, and largely focused on HIV-HCV risk environments and predictors of suboptimal HIV care among sub-groups of persons who inject drugs living with HIV (PWID-LH) in Kenya. In addition, Dr. Ludwig-Barron collaborated with the University of Washington Latino Center for Health to complete a statewide policy initiative that highlighted the Latinx physician shortage using geospatial analysis, which was instrumental in capacity building and increasing funding for pathway programs. At UC San Francisco, Dr. Ludwig-Barron will collaborate with a binational, bicultural and bilingual research team at UCSF, University of Texas-El Paso, and Compañeros, a harm reduction organization based in Ciudad Juárez. She will apply an ecological approach to investigating HIV and substance use along the US-Mexico Border by conducting geospatial analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis and assessing ethical research questions within underserved communities. In addition, Dr. Ludwig-Barron is a lifelong advocate of JEDI programs like SHARP that support the next generation of Latinx and underrepresented groups in higher education, medicine and research.
Judy Hahn, PhD, is Professor of Medicine in the HIV, ID, and Global Medicine Division in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She is an epidemiologist with extensive experience studying the behavioral and biological intersections of substance use and infectious diseases. She is particularly interested in the intersection of alcohol use and HIV, including comorbidities and consequences, and has led numerous NIH-funded research projects in Uganda. She is particularly interested in researching ways to reduce the burden of heavy alcohol use on health and social outcomes, and she is a pioneer in the use of objective alcohol biomarkers to increase ascertainment of heavy alcohol use. She has been the Principal Investigator (PI) on several NIH grants, and has published numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts. She is a committed teacher and mentor of researchers in the US and internationally; her mentees have written many peer-reviewed publications and funded research awards.
Dr. Cristina Espinosa da Silva is an epidemiologist and Post-Doctoral Scholar in the Division of HIV, Infectious Disease, and Global Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Prior to joining UCSF, she received her Masters in Public Health (Epidemiology) from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and her doctoral degree (Epidemiology) from the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Espinosa da Silva’s research interests include HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), HIV/STI behavioral epidemiologic intervention research, substance use disorders, mental health, and marginalized and underserved populations. She is also interested in applying advanced methods (e.g., causal mediation analysis, machine learning) to her research.
Jeffrey Hom, MD, MPH is the director of the Population Behavioral Health section of the Behavioral Health Services division in the San Francisco Department of Public Health, which uses population-level and equity-driven approaches to address behavioral health challenges and promote the well-being of San Franciscans.
Jeff most recently served as the medical director of the Division of Substance Use Prevention and Harm Reduction in the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, establishing the division and helping lead the City’s response to addiction and overdose. He was also a policy advisor in the department and participated in the City’s Covid-19 response, providing medical leadership to its surge hospital, isolation and quarantine site, and community vaccination clinics.
Dr. Margaret (Waru) Gichane, PhD, MSPH, is an Assistant Professor and social and behavioral scientist at ANSIRH. Her research is dedicated to identifying and addressing the structural and social factors that produce disparities in sexual and reproductive health outcomes in the United States and Sub-Saharan Africa. In her work, she utilizes a variety of participatory and applied qualitative methods to explore quality of sexual and reproductive health services, adolescent sexual behavior, and HIV prevention and treatment interventions.
Asher O’Donnell has an interdisciplinary academic background. Asher completed a bachelor’s of science in biochemistry, which provided four years of experience in university wet lab settings. In parallel, he completed a bachelor’s degree in women’s and gender studies with a minor in philosophy, which broadened the dimensions of his growing interest in public health beyond the lens of microscopes in the lab to include cultural and social components that impact health outcomes.
As a research coordinator at UCSF since 2016, Asher regularly engages with vulnerable populations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most recently, he has worked with patients admitted to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and clients at community-based organizations in California that provide food support for low-income people living with chronic health conditions and experiencing food insecurity, or at risk of food insecurity. He has managed multiple randomized clinical trials testing the health impacts of an intervention that includes medically tailored food support paired with nutrition education using quantitative and qualitative methods. Asher’s experiences working in food insecurity and chronic disease have been humbling. He aims to continue supporting projects that focus on improving practices and policies to improve health outcomes in vulnerable populations.