The Center faculty come from all four UCSF schools and conduct research and teaching in every aspect of tobacco control, from efforts by the tobacco industry to manipulate international politics to the molecular biology of nicotine addiction.
Dr. Sung is Professor of Health Economics at the Institute for Health & Aging at UCSF. Her tobacco-related research areas focus on 1) estimating the healthcare costs of cigarette smoking, other tobacco use, and secondhand smoke exposure; 2) economic evaluation of tobacco taxation, other tobacco control policies, and smoking cessation intervention programs; 3) economic impact of smoking on vulnerable populations such as African Americans, Hispanics, low-income people, and persons with mental illness; and 4) global health economics of tobacco use. Dr.
I am a practicing clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). I also serve as Co-Director of the Asian American Research Center on Health (AsianARCH.org). The mission of my research program is to promote health equity by developing accessible interventions that can empower individuals and families to make informed health decisions and to take an active role in staying healthy.
Dr. Candy Tsourounis is Professor of Clinical Pharmacy in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy in the School of Pharmacy at the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Tsourounis is involved in providing evidence-based reviews of recently approved prescription medications and performing medication utilization analyses in the Department's Medication Outcomes Center.
Yvette did a PhD in public health ethics at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore and a BSc in Biochemistry (Pharmacology) at the University of Surrey, UK. As part of her studies, she was also based at the University of Turku (Finland), Hastings Center (New York), University of Tübingen (Germany), Brocher Foundation (Switzerland), and WHO Regional Office for Europe (Denmark). After her PhD she worked as a Public Health Analyst at Newcastle City Council, UK, and as a freelance consultant for the WHO Regional Office for Europe's tobacco control programme.
My research focuses on tobacco use in vulnerable populations, with a particular emphasis on interventions with the homeless population. My population-based research includes the analysis of cross-sectional and longitudinal data, including the analysis of national data, to examine the use of novel tobacco products and the efficacy of tobacco control policies on reducing tobacco use in low-income populations.
Manali Vora, DDS earned her DDS in Dental Surgery from Gujarat University, India in 2014, recently received her MPH in Epidemiology at University of Washington, Seattle. She was sensitized to the tobacco epidemic during her training as a dentist and has since then been passionate about tobacco dependence prevention and treatment research.
Priyanka Vyas, PhD started her career as a journalist in New Delhi, after completing her BA in political science from Wilson College, Mumbai. During her stint as a reporter covering trade and policy issues, she became interested in how policies could be better analyzed and implemented. This single most desire to influence policy decisions led her to move to the US for further education.
Dr. Wang is a health economist with research interest in economic analysis of tobacco use behaviors and economic evaluation of tobacco control policies.
Shannon Lea Watkins is a scholar of public affairs whose work aims to illuminate social and structural barriers that individuals face in achieving their full health potential to inform efforts to promote health equity. Her current work investigates patterns of tobacco initiation, product change, and cessation among youth and young adults, with a particular focus on the role of additive flavors in tobacco initiation, use, and tobacco-related health disparities.