Fellows

The Center has an active research training program for postdoctoral fellows. Click here for information on the program and to view/complete the application. This page lists current fellows and describes their work. Click on any fellow's name to view their complete profile and contact information.

  • Frank Bandiera

    Frank Bandiera focused his postdoctoral studies on the association between tobacco smoke and mental health among children, adolescents, and adults.  He has also been involved in research among Hispanics and other minority groups.  He is in the process of figuring out what research to do during his CTCRE Fellowship, but would like to extend his previous research and examine how tobacco bans could affect the mental health of special populations.

  • Cati Brown

    Cati Brown obtained her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Georgia and received her BA from Agnes Scott College. Her graduate research focused on
    computational approaches to detecting deception using tobacco industry documents. With UCSF, Brown is looking forward to continuing research on the language of deception and corporate malfeasance. Other research interests include: lung cancer stigma, diffusion of smoking/anti-smoking marketing messages, low income women as a tobacco industry target, and the marginalization of smokers.

  • Amanda Fallin

    Amanda Fallin, a first year fellow, received her BSN, MSN and PhD in Nursing from the University of Kentucky. She is interested in the adoption and implementation of smoke and tobacco-free policies. During her doctoral program, Amanda was a project associate on an NHLBI-funded project to investigate factors associated with smoke-free policy adoption.

  • Mariaelena Gonzalez

    Mariaelena Gonzalez, is a third year fellow at the CTCRE.  Her interests include comparative racial/ethnic studies, public policy, health disparities, globalization, inequality, and religion and health.  Dr. Gonzalez received her Ph.D.

  • Rachel Grana

    Rachel Grana is a second-year fellow. She earned her Masters of Public Health and PhD in Health Behavior Research at the University of Southern California.  Her research at the Center focuses on smoking cessation interventions and the use of other tobacco products and electronic cigarettes. Her dissertation research investigated sociocultural stress and coping styles in the etiology of cigarette smoking and other substance use among Hispanic/Latino adolescents. Prior to her graduate work, she worked as a government-contracted analyst to the Tobacco Control Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Community Health Education, with a minor in Spanish, from the University of Arizona in her hometown of Tucson, AZ.

  • Nan Jiang

    Nan Jiang is a third-year postdoctoral fellow who received her PhD in Health Behavior from Indiana University, and BSN from Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, China.  Her research focuses on the co-use of tobacco and alcohol; the impact of smokefree policies on tobacco and alcohol use; and tobacco marketing strategies linked with alcohol.

  • Ganna (Anna) Kostygina

    Ganna (Anna) Kostygina is a first-year fellow. She received her M.A. and her Ph.D. degrees in Communication from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication.

  • Sungkyu Lee

    Sungkyu, a first year fellow, received his Ph.D. in Public Health Policy at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, and completed M.P.H. in International Health from Graduate School of Public Health at Yonsei University in South Korea.  Sungkyu’s research interests include transnational tobacco companies’(TTCs) strategies to gain access into emerging markets and their marketing activities to influence tobacco use of youths and young adults.  He is also interested in enhancing supply-side measures in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.  Recently, he has become interested in use of electronic-cigarette among South Korean youths.   

  • Emily McDonald

    Emily Anne McDonald received her PhD in Anthropology in 2011 from Rutgers University. Her dissertation focused on transnational medical travel between the United States and Argentina, and included fifteen months of ethnographic research supported through a Fulbright Hays Dissertation Award and the National Science Foundation. After receiving her PhD, she spent a year at Princeton University offering courses on embodiment and the relationship between the human and nonhuman.

  • Sam Oh

    Sam's doctoral work (PhD in epidemiology, UCLA) focused on the molecular and genetic epidemiology of smoking-related cancers, particularly in the investigation of immune-related hypotheses. He also has a Master of Public Health degree from San Diego State University (health promotion) and a Bachelor of Science in animal physiology and neuroscience from UCSD. Sam’s research interests include health disparities, gene-environment interactions, cancer, and heart disease.