Project Coordinators
Cassandra Gastelum Lugo, M.S. is the Clinical Research Coordinator for the SUPERA project at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital for the University of California, San Francisco. Cassandra received her B.A. in Psychology and her B.S. in Human Biology from UC Merced in Winter 2018 and her M.S. in Biomedical Sciences from Western University of Health Sciences in 2021. Within the SUPERA project she helps manage, organize and implement digital cognitive behavior therapy for patients from underserved backgrounds with a diagnosis of depression and anxiety. Cassandra hopes to pursue her PhD and continue to research different methods of intervention for depression and anxiety for underserved communities.
Leonel Ochoa, B.A. is the Research Coordinator for the Digital Health Equity and Access Lab (dHEAL). Leonel earned his B.A. in Psychology from UC Berkeley in Summer 2021, and as an undergrad, was a Research Assistant with the Family & Culture Lab at UC Berkeley and the Addiction Research Program at UCSF & SF VA Medical Center. Prior to joining dHEAL, Leonel helped establish an intensive bilingual case management program in SF's Mission District, and he is passionate about using digital mental health interventions as a bridge to create broader public access to evidence-based behavioral health treatments. Currently, Leonel jointly coordinates the SUPERA project, and in the future hopes to pursue medical training with a focus on community health.
Stephany Garcia, B.A., is a Research Coordinator with the Digital Health Equity & Access Lab (dHEAL). Stephany earned her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Riverside and is currently pursuing her M.A. in Counseling Psychology at Santa Clara University, where she is training to become a licensed therapist with a concentration in Latinx Counseling. She is passionate about expanding access to culturally responsive mental health care for under-resourced and marginalized communities. At dHEAL, Stephany supports research focused on developing and implementing digital mental health interventions that improve access to care. Through her research and clinical training, she hopes to advance equitable, evidence-based mental health services that are culturally and linguistically accessible to diverse communities.
Jennifer Rosario Arriaga, B.A., is the research coordinator for the SUPERA project for the Technology and Mental Health (TEAM) Lab at UC Irvine. Jennifer was born in Mexico and immigrated to the U.S. at a young age. She received her B.A. in Psychology with minors in Chicano/a and Central American Studies and Applied Developmental Psychology from UC Los Angeles (UCLA) in Spring 2023. At UCLA, Jennifer researched mental health disparities for BIPOC youth through the Culture, Race, and Ethnicity (CARE) in Youth Mental Health Lab. Through fieldwork research and as a previous assistant director of a child care facility, she is also passionate about providing developmentally appropriate and culturally inclusive care to under-resourced communities. In the future, Jennifer aspires to pursue her PhD to research culturally and linguistically competent mental health interventions for low income, undocumented, and Latine families.
Jaylen Lee, Ph.D. is a statistician for the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design unit for the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science at UCI. He completed his PhD in Statistics at UCI in 2022 where his thesis was in developing statistical methods to quantify functional connectivity between brain regions using fMRI data. His current research interest is in Bayesian methods for spatio-temporal data. Before coming to UCI, Jaylen spent a year as a high school math teacher in his home state of Virginia. He is passionate about diversity and inclusion in academia, serving as a mentor to UCI undergraduates from underrepresented backgrounds during his time as a graduate student. Jaylen is an avid NBA fan and enjoys all things Disney.
Students
Marymar Vacio Lazalde, MPH, is a first-generation Ph.D. student in the School of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley. She earned her BAs in Public Health Policy and International Studies from UC Irvine and her Master of Public Health from Brown University. Prior to her Master's program, Marymar was a Project Assistant at the University of Southern California where she supported two NIH-funded projects focusing on Latine health disparities research. At Brown, she became a Health Equity Scholar and research assistant that helped conduct qualitative interviews with behavioral health teams and community health workers in Rhode Island. Her Master's thesis, using data from the National Survey of Children's Health, assessed the association between parental mental health and the use of mental health care among Latine adolescents in the US. Through her research and advocacy, she hopes to destigmatize mental illnesses and the use of mental health services, especially in the Latine community, and work on making these services more accessible for those that may need them.
Adú Matory, MSc, is a Ph.D. student in the Computational Precision Health joint program at UC Berkeley-UCSF. Adú completed their B.A. in Psychology at New York University and MSc in Computational Neuroscience at Humboldt University of Berlin. Adú's passion lies in the development & evaluation of emerging technologies that demonstrate potential to improve the mental and behavioral health of populations affected by systemic discrimination. Spanning academia and industry, Adú's research projects have leveraged neuroimaging, wearables, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and GenAI chatbots to develop clinical decision support tools and personalized patient-facing services. At dHEAL, Adú uses machine learning & causal inference to (1) identify psychosocial mechanisms that mediate clinical outcomes and (2) develop methods to mitigate health disparities experienced by gender- and ethnoracial-minoritized populations. They ground their research in principles of harm reduction, anti-racism, human-centered design, data dignity, and culturally responsive care.
Melissa Gaillard, MSW, is a Ph.D. Student in the School of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley. She earned her B.S. in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience and MSW from the University of Michigan. Her professional journey includes clinical roles, such as her work as a Clinical Social Work Intern at Acacia: A Place for Personal & Family Development, where she provided individual therapy to clients of all ages using evidence-based practices like Circle of Security Parenting and play therapy. In her role as a Survey Specialist Associate at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, she managed longitudinal data collection for nationally recognized studies, programming surveys, and ensuring data quality. Malaika’s earlier roles, including as a Research Technician at Michigan Medicine and a Lab Assistant at the Naval Postgraduate School, display her experience in participant recruitment, data analysis, and behavioral study implementation. Her career thus far has reflected a strong commitment to advancing mental health and developmental research through both clinical application and rigorous inquiry. Through her work and research, Malaika seeks to further enhance her dedication to these efforts.
Past Staff
Karina Rosales, B.A. is the Research Coordinator for the Digital Health Equity and Access Lab (dHEAL). Karina received her B.A. in Psychology and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley in Summer 2020. During her time as an undergrad, Karina volunteered as a Health Advocate for Alameda Health System at Highland Hospital where she supported patients by connecting them to community resources with the goal of minimizing health disparities. Within the Digital Health and Equity Lab she organizes, manages, and implements a variety of different digital health interventions. Karina is passionate about reducing mental health disparities in underserved communities of color by bridging behavioral health care and primary care.
Yazleen Reyes, M.S. is the project coordinator of SUPERA and the Technology and Mental Health Lab (TEAM). Yazleen recieved her B.A. in International Studies from UC Irvine in Spring 2018 and her M.S. in Counseling Psychology from California Baptist University in 2022. In the past, Yazleen has worked providing mental health services to underrepresented populations and connecting them to community resources. Yazleen intends to pursue her PhD and work on expanding access to mental health services for disadvantaged populations. When she is not working, Yazleen enjoys spending time with her loved ones (this includes her cats!), working out, reading, and traveling.
Rosa Hernandez-Ramos, B.A. is the Project Coordinator of LMHRP and the Digital Health Equity and Access Lab (dHEAL). Rosa received her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Education Studies from UCLA in Spring 2018. During her time as an undergrad, Rosa worked as a Research Assistant for UCLA’s Department of Psychology where she studied the needs of underserved groups including children with anxiety disorders, Latinos, and rural populations. Rosa’s current research interests include analyzing the impact of socio-demographic factors in treatment adherence and the linguistic analysis of depressed populations. She is involved in the management and implementation of a variety of different digital interventions for patients from underserved backgrounds with a diagnosis of depression and diabetes. Rosa intends to pursue a PhD in the near future and focus on alleviating racial mental health disparities in underserved populations.
Post-Doctoral Candidates
Juan C. Jauregui, PhD, MSW, MPH, is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. His research examines how health systems create and reinforce inequality across global and U.S. contexts, with a focus on stigma, HIV, and population mental health, particularly among communities whose access to care is shaped by structural disadvantage. Drawing on community-engaged approaches, his work examines how policies, institutions, and access to resources shape who receives care, under what conditions, and whose health and well-being are protected. At dHEAL, Dr. Jauregui’s work with the SUPERA project focuses on the peer-supported arm of the intervention, including supervision of the project’s apoyadores who support participant engagement. Dr. Jauregui earned his B.S. in Psychobiology from UCLA and his MSW and MPH from the University of Michigan. He holds a PhD in Social Welfare from UCLA. As the son of Mexican immigrants and a first-generation scholar from California’s Central Valley, he is committed to advancing more equitable and culturally responsive systems of care.
Stephanie H. Yu, PhD (she/her) is a NIMH T32 Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from UCLA. Her program of research advances mental health equity by partnering with communities to co-create and implement accessible, culturally responsive, and community-led approaches to mental healthcare that promote healing and wellness. Her work seeks to understand how mental health is shaped by structural inequities and socioecological contexts, including racial stress and trauma as consequences of structural racism. She integrates community-based participatory research, implementation science, and digital innovation to design and implement interventions across systems of care that are responsive to the lived realities of racial/ethnic minoritized communities.
Sameer Neupane, PhD is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Medicine at UCSF, conducting research in the TECH Lab under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Washington. His research lies at the intersection of Wearable AI, human-computer interaction, and personal health informatics, with a focus on actionable mental health, including stress tracking and behavior change. His work also includes multimodal AI for ADHD and autism assessment, JITAIs for nicotine vaping cessation, and collaboration with Dr. Adrian Aguilera on Wearable AI for predicting anxiety and depression. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Memphis under the mentorship of Dr. Santosh Kumar at the mDOT Center.
Namuun Clifford, PhD, RN, FNP-C is a postdoctoral fellow in the National Clinician Scholars Program at the University of California, San Francisco and a primary care nurse practitioner at the San Francisco VA. She brings over 14 years of clinical experience across primary care, telehealth, community health, and acute care settings. Her research focuses on equitable precision digital health for chronic disease prevention and management, using informatics, wearable data, and advanced analytic methods to inform more personalized and adaptive approaches to care.
Past Post-Doctoral Candidates
Marvyn Arévalo Avalos, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Latinx Center of Excellence in Behavioral Health (LCOEBH) and the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare. Dr. Arévalo Avalos earned his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Arizona State University where his research focused on prevention of mental and behavioral health concerns among Latinx adolescents. Dr. Arévalo Avalos’ current research interest focuses on developing and testing culturally grounded digital health interventions with underserved populations, particularly Latinx. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, Dr. Arévalo Avalos completed his predoctoral internship in psychology at the University of Maryland Counseling Center, his Bachelor of Science in Human Development at UC Davis, and has experience working in a behavioral health nonprofit organization. On a personal note, Marvyn enjoys spending time outdoors, playing board games, cooking, and spending time with his partner, family, and friends.
Giovanni Ramos, Ph.D. is a UC Chancellor’s and Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in TEAM Lab. Born and raised in Mexico, he received a BA in Psychology from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and is a licensed clinical psychologist. After immigrating to the US in 2013, he obtained further training in clinical child and adolescent psychology, completing a BA at Florida International University, a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his Clinical Internship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center. His research program aims to reduce mental health inequities affecting racially and ethnically minoritized populations, with an emphasis on Latinx groups. To achieve this goal, he focuses on three interconnected areas: 1) identifying risk & resilience factors that influence mental health outcomes, 2) improving the cultural and contextual fit of treatments using data-driven approaches, and 3) employing digital tools to make mental health services widely available in disenfranchised communities. As part of the TEAM Lab, his work is focusing on ensuring digital mental health interventions are culturally robust for diverse and historically marginalized populations.
CAROLINE FIGUEROA, MD Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare. She obtained her MD degree and Ph.D. degree at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. During her PhD, she spent 1,5 years at the University of Oxford for a research traineeship. Her research has focused on cognitive and neurobiological vulnerability factors for recurrence of depression in patients recovered from Major Depressive Disorder. Dr. Figueroa's current research interest is on digital interventions for depression, with an emphasis on developing cutting-edge innovations that tailor to the needs of underserved populations. She is involved in the analysis, testing, and implementation of digital applications for depression and diabetes in ethnic minority patients with a focus on Latinx patients. Through these innovative projects, she hopes to contribute to improving the impact and efficacy of digital interventions for Latinx communities.