Our Team
Sonali Saluja, MD, MPHDirectorSonali.Saluja@med.usc.edu |
Sonali Saluja: Sonali Saluja, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, is the director of the Gehr Center for Health Systems Science and Innovation. Dr. Saluja is a health services researcher and is board certified in Internal Medicine. She completed her residency at Providence Portland Medical Center and a fellowship in General Internal Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research aims to uncover systemic causes of health inequities and provide plausible strategies that lead to a more equitable healthcare delivery system. Her work has examined the implications of the Affordable Care Act on healthcare utilization and affordability and the disparate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on minoritized and low-income groups. Dr. Saluja received a KL2 award to understand barriers to primary care for patients in the safety net. Additionally, she has examined community-based interventions such as patient navigation to improve connections to primary care and care manager-led motivational interviewing to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates. Dr. Saluja developed and directs the Health Systems Science curriculum at the Keck School of Medicine and now co-directs the Health Justice and Systems of Care curriculum. Dr. Saluja currently sees patients at LAC+USC hospital where she teaches and supervises residents and medical students.. |
Cameron Kaplan, PhDFacultykaplanc@usc.edu |
Cameron Kaplan: Cameron Kaplan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, is a health economist and health services researcher whose work focuses on the impact of health policy and insurance benefit design on healthcare utilization, health outcomes, and disparities. Dr. Kaplan received his PhD in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2011. Following his Ph.D., Dr. Kaplan completed a two-year post-doctoral program in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of Pittsburgh. He most recently joined the Gehr Center faculty from the University of Tennessee health Science Center in Memphis. He is currently the principal investigator of two large research grants. An R01 from NIA examines the impact of the Medicare prescription drug donut hole closure on medication adherence and health outcomes. A research scholar grant from the American Cancer society examines the impact of premium surcharges for tobacco uses in the ACA health insurance exchanges on enrollment. |
Albert Farias, PhD, MPHFaculty |
Albert Farias: Albert Farias, PhD, MPH Assistant Professor of Clinical Preventive Medicine is a health services researcher who is devoted to helping eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in cancer outcomes by furthering our understanding of how evidence-based cancer prevention strategies and treatment are delivered within the health care system and how that influences patient adherence. His research not only identifies health care inequalities but identifies health care-related factors that explain racial/ethnic disparities in cancer outcomes. To carry out tdis research, Dr. Farias applies a variety of complex methodologies and analytic approaches. His research has focused on the use of cancer registry and medical claims data such as the SEER/Medicare-linked data and more recently the use of the rich SEER/Medicare/CAHPS-linked dataset to identify health care inequalities in patient reported outcomes and health care experiences. Dr. Farias possess a PhD in health Services Research from the University of Washington, a Master’s in Public health from Columbia University, and a BS in Biology from UCLA. |
Michael Cousineau, Dr.PHSenior Advisercousinea@med.usc.edu |
Michael Cousineau: Michael R. Cousineau, DPH, is a researcher at the Gehr Center and a Professor of Clinical Preventive Medicine in the Departments of Family Medicine and Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the USC Price School of Public Policy. He attended University of California, Berkeley and received his doctorate from the UCLA School of Public health. Dr. Cousineau studies health policy, the determinants of health care utilization for low-income populations, models of health insurance coverage, health care disparities, effectiveness of outreach and enrollment systems for public insurance programs, the operation of safety-net providers including community health centers and public hospitals, and health needs of vulnerable populations including the homeless and immigrants. Dr. Cousineau teaches health policy in the Masters in Public health Program at USC and in the Keck School of Medicine. He has published in health Affairs, Medical Care, health Services Research, the American Journal of Public health, and Academic Medicine. |
Barbara Turner, MD, MSED, MACPSenior Adviserturnerb@usc.edu |
Barbara Turner: Barbara Turner, MD, MSED, MACP is a Clinical Professor of Medicine and a practicing general internist with over 30 years of experience in health disparities research and community-partnered research. In 2010, she established the Center for Research to Advance Community health (ReACH) as a partnership between the University of Texas (UT) health San Antonio and the UT School of Public health (UTSPH). Her research has focused on health disparities through administrative database studies, randomized trials, and implementation & dissemination projects. She has been principal investigator (PI) on four federal- and state-funded projects to implement Hepatitis C Virus screening and management in diverse primary care practices. Dr. Turner has over 175 peer-reviewed publications and editorials from research funded by the NIH, the Agency for health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Substance Abuse and Mental health Services Administration, and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Dr. Turner has served as Regent of the American College of Physicians (ACP) and President of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM). In addition to working with the Gehr Center, Dr. Turner edits the Internal Medicine volume of Dynamed, an online medical textbook. |
Todd Schneberk, MDFaculty |
Todd Schneberk is an assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine and an assistant program director of the Los Angeles County+USC Emergency Medicine Residency program. He completed his residency in emergency medicine at LAC+USC Medical Center and subsequently earned a fellowship in health policy and research at UCLA. His research and advocacy interests include social determinants of health, immigration status as a health barrier, opioid use disorder and leveraging the Emergency Department to address upstream factors affecting the health and stability of vulnerable populations. |
Susanne Hempel, PhDFaculty and Director of the Evidence-Based Practice Center |
Susanne Hempel is a professor of research preventative medicine at USC. Before joining USC, she was a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School. She is the codirector of the Southern California Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC), leading contracts for the Agency for healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Psychological health Center of Excellence (PHCoE) and other federal agencies, and she holds an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) to provide the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) with evidence maps, topic briefs and topic refinement. She carries out systematic reviews in health care research and metdodological projects aiming to improve evidence syntheses. She teaches systematic review metdodology and applied psychometrics. Prior to joining RAND, she worked at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), University of York, United Kingdom. She earned her PhD in psychology from the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. |
Alissa Maier, MPHProject Manager – Quality and Population health |
Alissa Maier, MPH is the project manager for Quality and Population health at the Gehr Family Center for health Systems Science and Innovation in the Department of Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. She has spent most her career working on chronic disease prevention and management programming at national nonprofit organizations. Her passion and interest in quality improvement inspired her to join the Gehr Center team. She holds a BS in Psychology from the University of Dayton and an MPH with an emphasis on health Education and Promotion from the University of Cincinnati. |
Aneesa MotalaProgram Administrator, Southern California Evidence Review Centeraneesa.motala@med.usc.edu |
Aneesa Motala is a Program Coordinator at the USC Gehr Family Center for health Systems Science & Innovation, where she also serves as program coordinator for the Southern California Evidence Review Center (ERC). She supports and manages numerous project teams consisting of literature reviewers, data programmers, principle investigators and co-principle investigators, and statisticians to produce systematic reviews, updates to prior reports and meta-analyses. Ms. Motala’s background is in mental health, working with marginalized populations, and youth development. Prior to USC, she spent 11 years at the RAND Corporation as a policy analyst and 4 years in Bulgaria serving as a Peace Corps volunteer for the youth Development program working with the Roma youth. Ms. Motala earned her B.A. in Sociology from the University of California in Santa Barbara. |
Danica Tolentino, MSAdministrative AssistantDanicamarie.Tolentino@med.usc.edu |
Danica Tolentino is it the Administrative Assistant for the Gehr Family Center for Health Systems Science and Innovation, where she also assists the Southern California Evidence Review Center. She supports all the faculty and staff of the Gehr Center in various areas, including, scheduling, research, and budget management. She holds a BS in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Exercise Science and a MS in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Adapted Physical Activity, both from California State University, Northridge. Prior to working with the Gehr Center, she provided wellness and personal training services to senior living communities. Her specialty in working with individuals with disabilities and passion for improving the quality of life of marginalized communities inspired her to join the Gehr Center. . |