Cardiovascular Research Inst

Narges Neyazi, MSc, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Research and Education. She has worked for the WHO Afghanistan country office for three years as a national technical officer in Health System Development. In 2022, she completed her Doctor of Health Service Management. During her tenure as Advisor to the General Directorate of Policy and Planning at the Afghanistan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), she made direct contributions to national policy and strategy development.

Allison A. Temourian, PhD, received her doctorate in Psychological Sciences (Health Psychology) from the University of California, Merced under the mentorship of Drs. Anna V. Song and Anna E. Epperson. Prior to joining the CTCRE, Allison worked extensively with the Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center to examine 1) cognitions as they relate to addictive behavior and 2) antecedents to health risk behaviors with an emphasis in dual use of tobacco products and co-use of cannabis and tobacco. As a postdoctoral fellow at the CTCRE, Dr.

Vuong Do, PhD, received his doctorate in Public Health (Epidemiology) from the School of Public Health, Georgia State University. During his four years at Georgia State, he received the Second Century Initiative fellowship and worked as a graduate research assistant for faculty members of the tobacco control group.

Peter Kovacs, PhD, received his doctorate in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas at Austin. His research interest is the intersection between the history of audio-visual mass media and marketing communication. Dr. Kovacs' first book, Big Tobacco and American Broadcasting, 1923-1971, is slated for publication by UT Press.

Mark Hawes, MSW, PhD, is a licensed clinical social worker and a postdoctoral fellow at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (CTCRE) and the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. His research focuses on tobacco- and substance use-related health disparities among people with behavioral health conditions and those experiencing homelessness or living in permanent supportive housing (PSH).

Deanna M. Halliday, PhD, received her doctorate in Psychological Sciences (Health Psychology) from the University of California, Merced under the mentorship of UCSF alumna Dr. Anna Song. Prior to joining the CTCRE, she was awarded a TRDRP pre-doctoral fellowship for her dissertation work on tobacco and cannabis co-use. Her work examines the multi-level factors that contribute to tobacco and cannabis use spanning from internal psychological factors to social and community-level factors. Dr.

Karla Llanes, PhD, received her doctorate in Health Psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). During her PhD training, she worked for A Smoke Free Paso del Norte, a west Texas, southern New Mexico, and Juarez, Mexico regional initiative targeting tobacco control in adolescents and adults. She has also taught several Statistics courses and Motivation and Emotion courses at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Jelena Mustra Rakic, PhD, received her PhD in Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition from Tufts University in Boston. Her dissertation was focused on elucidating the effect and mechanisms of the naturally occurring carotenoid, lycopene, on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung carcinogenesis and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The important finding from her PhD implicated smoking-related alterations in lipid metabolism as one of main pathways leading to chronic inflammation and lung diseases development.