Red Hot Research 3

She is an appointed member of the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ Geriatric and Gerontology Advisory Committee and the NIH’s Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee. Dr. Baker is also the Editor-in-Chief of Ethnicity & Health (Taylor & Francis Group). She is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), and founder member and co-convener of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Collaborative Interest Group. Her background in Gerontology, Psychology, and Biobehavioral Health has evolved into an active research agenda that focuses on understanding the behavioral and psychosocial predictors and outcomes of chronic pain and symptom management among older adults from historically marginalized populations. Specifically, she examines health disparities and inequities in access and availability to pain management resources among older Black adults.

Jung-Ah Lee, PhD, RN, FGSA, FAAN, FADLN is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, serving as Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing and President of the Asian American Pacific Islander Nurses Association. Recognized for her work in caregiving science for vulnerable older adults, her 20-year research career focuses on improving care quality and addressing racial and ethnic disparities. Currently, she leads an NIH/NIA funded study on dementia caregiver support, targeting ethnic minority caregivers with community health worker-led interventions. This program aims to reduce health disparities in dementia care through stress reduction, compassionate support, and education, potentially enhancing caregivers' health and quality of life. Dr. Lee's contributions have earned her a Research Mentor Award and induction into the Hall of Fame of the International Researcher Award by Sigma Nursing Honor Society.

Carlos Irwin A. Oronce, MD, Ph.D, is a general internist at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. He received his MD and MPH from Tulane University, completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and received his PhD in Health Policy from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health as a fellow in the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Program. He is an alum of the UCLA National Clinician Scholars Program and the VA Advanced HSR Fellowship. His research focuses on the role of the health care system in improving population health, advancing health equity, and delivering better value in care, with a focus on older adults and racial and ethnic minoritized populations. He has a growing focus on data disaggregation as a tool to improve health equity for Asian American communities.

Dr. Moushumi Roy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Virginia State University. Roy’s primary area of research focuses on the ways social determinants and processes influence health outcomes among minority populations in the US and India. Her research interests lie at the intersection of structural inequality, social condition, and population health among different groups of people in the US and India. Her research examines the way structure and systems of different societies change the experiences of different groups of people –i.e., immigrants, migrants, race/caste, ethnicity, gender, older people – to produce inequality (e.g., advantaged, disadvantaged, and ultra-disadvantaged) and health disparity among populations. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Aging and Health. Her recent publication titled, “It Makes a Difference!” Religion and Self-Assessed Health among Healthcare Support Professionals of Asian-Indian Origin is published in Religions, 2023. Her collaborative publication, forthcoming in November 2024 used qualitative method-autoethnography- to explore interaction between transnational immigrant parents and adult children abroad during COVID-19. She is currently serving as the Vice President of Virginia Social Science Conference.