Global Health

Our global health experts are leaders in researching and addressing diseases and conditions impacting the world’s most vulnerable populations in more than 36 countries. Our experts have advanced HIV/AIDs research and treatments as well as vaccine development and administration to address leading risks such as malaria, COVID-19, and typhoid. Our emergency medicine experts have helped to set the standard globally, and all of our experts spanning the globe have worked to foster standards and policy in global health.

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Maureen M. Black, PhD

Global child development

Nutrition and child development

Health disparities

Dr. Black is a pediatric psychologist who has made significant contributions to the intersection of child development and nutrition. Dr. Black’s training is in developmental science and pediatric psychology. She is a licensed psychologist, chaired the Division of Growth and Nutrition in the Department of Pediatrics from 2003-2021, and directed an interdisciplinary Growth and Nutrition Practice for children with growth and /or feeding problems for 25 years. She spearheaded advances in child development by co-authoring three series of papers on early child development, published in The Lancet (2007, 2011, and 2017), including leading the first paper of the 2017 Lancet series, Advancing Early Childhood Development: from Science to Scale. That paper provided the scientific basis for the Nurturing Care Framework, which has been adopted by the World Health Assembly (2018) and advanced globally by WHO, UNICEF, and the World Bank Group. In recent work, she demonstrated that the principles of Nurturing Care apply from pre-conception through adolescence. Dr. Black has been instrumental in the development of the Global Scales for Early Development (GSED), a WHO-led, population-based scale to evaluate children’s development globally.

Wendy Camelo Castillo, MD, MSc, PhD

Health Disparities

Pharmacoepidemiology

Comparative Effectiveness and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research

Dr. Camelo Castillo is an assistant professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research, where she has been a faculty member since 2017. Dr. Camelo Castillo trained as a physician at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, where she also obtained an MSc degree in physiology. Her PhD training in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focused on pharmacoepidemiology, after which she joined the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the School of Pharmacy as a postdoctoral fellow in patient centered outcomes and comparative effectiveness research. Her research integrates methods in pharmacoepidemiology and patient preferences to develop evidence for populations in whom best practices of care are limited, such as women, youth, and minority communities. Her goal is to inform and improve clinical and policy decision making by providing evidence of benefits or harm of interventions used in real world settings in these populations. She brings an innovative approach into this work by integrating the patient perspective into pharmacoepidemiology and health services research. Her research agenda focuses on improving methods to assess effectiveness of treatments in the context of multimorbidity, and development and implementation of patient-centered methods to address health disparities in minority communities.

Heather Congdon, PharmD, BCPS, CDE

Interprofessional Education

Ambulatory Care

Dr. Congdon received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed a pharmacy practice residency with emphasis in community care from the University of Maryland. Her teaching focuses on interprofessional education, diabetes, and the abilities lab series. She has a clinical practice at Mercy Health Clinic, providing care for underserved, uninsured patients on multiple medications and with various chronic conditions. Dr. Congdon’s research interests relate to her practice at Mercy Health Clinic. She has evaluated the impact of pharmacist-provided medication therapy management (MTM) on clinical outcomes, such as hemoglobin A1C, blood pressure, and cholesterol. Furthermore, her team has demonstrated the importance of interprofessional, coordinated care on clinical outcomes for patients with poorly controlled diabetes.

Sarah Dababnah, PhD, MPH, MSW

Autism

Developmental Disabilities

Parenting

Sarah Dababnah, PhD, MPH, MSW is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Social Work (United States), a Faculty Affiliate at Yonsei University School of Social Welfare (South Korea), and a recent US Fulbright Scholar at the American University in Cairo (Egypt). She specializes in practice, policy and research related to the health and well-being of families of individuals with intellectual and developmental differences. Dr. Dababnah’s research focuses on family-centered, community-engaged and culturally relevant strategies to address racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in autism services. Dr. Dababnah received specialized training in early childhood and disability practice, research, and policy at the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Chapel Hill, NC), the Kennedy Krieger Institute (Baltimore, MD), the Columbia University National Center for Children in Poverty (New York, NY), and the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health (Washington, DC). She earned advanced degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Johns Hopkins University.

Peter Doshi, PhD

Credible Evidence Synthesis

Drug Safety and Regulation

Evidence-Based Medicine

Peter Doshi, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and senior editor at The BMJ. His research focuses on the drug approval process, how the risks and benefits of medical products are communicated, and improving the credibility and accuracy of evidence synthesis and biomedical publications. Dr. Doshi campaigns for greater transparency of clinical trial data and has received wide recognition for his work. In 2013, the New York Times reported on his work to increase public access to clinical study reports. The same year he was also chosen for The Wired “Smart List.” In 2015, he received a New Investigator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. Dr. Doshi has presented on the topic of clinical trial data sharing to the Institute of Medicine in 2013 and 2014, and served on advisory panels to the European Medicines Agency regarding its policy on proactive publication of clinical trial data. Much of Dr. Doshi’s research has examined the science and politics of influenza policy. His most cited publication is a Cochrane systematic review of neuraminidase inhibitors for influenza. This review—the first Cochrane review to be based exclusively on clinical study reports and other regulatory documents—challenged previous understandings of the drugs’ effectiveness, raised new questions about their safety, and led to governmental inquiries in the United Kingdom. It is cited as a milestone in the James Lind Library, which chronicles the evolution of fair tests and research synthesis. Dr. Doshi leads the RIAT Support Center. The Restoring Invisible and Abandoned Trials (RIAT) initiative enables researchers everywhere to address two long-standing problems in the biomedical literature: non-publication and misreporting of trials. The RIAT Support Center aims to accelerate the correction of the scientific record of clinical trials by making publications more accurate and more complete, addressing these problems of publication bias and reporting bias. Dr. Doshi earned an AB in anthropology from Brown University, an AM in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and PhD in history, anthropology, and science, technology and society from MIT. During his PhD, he was an intern at the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, a research student at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, and studied as visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo Center for Biomedical Ethics and Law. Dr. Doshi completed a fellowship in comparative effectiveness research at Johns Hopkins University before joining the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

Lori A. Edwards, DrPH, BSN, RN, CNS-PCH, BC, FAAN

Public Health and Public Health Nursing

Social Determinants of Health and Health Equity

Community Engagment and Community-Based Participatory Research

Dr. Edwards is the associate dean for the Master of Science in Nursing program at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. She is also an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Health. She is a leader of University-wide community engagement initiatives and has extensive experience working in local and global communities. Her research has focused on community-based participatory and engagement efforts focused on occupational health with immigrant workers. She teaches courses on health equity and social determinants of health, program planning, and leadership. She has served as the president of national organizations and boards of community agencies. Dr. Edwards earned her BSN from University of Maryland School of Nursing and her MPH and DrPH degrees from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is board certified as a clinical specialist in public health nursing.

Carlos A. Faerron Guzman, MD, MSC

Health Equity

In addition to his Graduate School roles, Dr. Faerron Guzmán is the director of the Centro Interamericano para la Salud Global (CISG) in Costa Rica, the associate director of the Planetary Health Alliance at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology at Harvard University. Dr. Faerron Guzmán began his career as a primary care doctor in a rural area of Costa Rica, where he worked closely with migrant and Indigenous populations. His work seeks to redefine the meaning of leadership and global health through innovative educational approaches. Dr. Faerron Guzmán follows a framework of equity in health and human rights as guiding principles and firmly believes in progress in health through community empowerment, action/research, and participatory education. He earned his medical degree at the University of Costa Rica and his MSc degree in international health at Queen Mary University in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Additional studies include social justice at the International Institute for Health and Development in Scotland and social innovation for health from INCAE Business School in Costa Rica. He is a fellow of the Central American Healthcare Initiative.

Agnes Ann Feemster, PharmD, BCPS

Pharmacy Practice Management

Experiential Learning

Interprofessional Education

Dr. Agnes Ann Feemster is an associate professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and the medication safety officer for oncology with the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She received a bachelor’s degree in pre-professional health studies from Clemson University, a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the Medical University of South Carolina, and a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of South Carolina. She completed a pharmacy practice residency at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and is a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist. She has more than 15 years of clinical, leadership, and management experience in health-system pharmacy practice at large teaching hospitals. Before joining the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, she served as interim director of pharmacy at the University of Maryland Medical Center and assistant director of clinical pharmacy, investigational drug, and central production services. She leads the School’s pharmacy practice management and health-system pharmacy course and coordinates the international training program for the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research. Dr. Feemster also manages a practice laboratory for first year pharmacy students. Dr. Feemster’s research interests include pharmacy practice management and leadership, medication safety, educational methods and outcomes, pharmacy informatics, global health, and interprofessional education.

Matthew Frieman, PhD

Virology

Coronaviruses

Therapeutics

I am the Alicia and Yaya Professor of Viral Pathogen Research in The Department of Microbiology and Immunology in The University of Maryland School of Medicine. My laboratory focuses on the pathogenesis of Coronaviruses to better understand how they cause disease. For the past 17 years, I have studied the highly pathogenic SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 via genetic, molecular, virological, immunological, and cell biological techniques. We focus on identifying viral proteins that control replication and host protein pathways as well as assessing those viral proteins and host proteins in animal model systems. In addition, we have investigated other human respiratory viruses including seasonal coronaviruses, rhinovirus, influenza virus and respiratory syncytial virus. We have used the combination of in vitro (air-liquid-interface, Lung Chip, human immortalized lung cells) and in vivo models (mouse models of SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, Influenza virus) to identify host factors that affect multiple viruses and for the development and evaluation of therapeutics for these important respiratory viruses.

Joga Gobburu, PhD

Clinical Pharmacology and Translational Research

Pediatrics

Pharmacometrics

Dr. Gobburu is a world-renowned scientific leader in the area of quantitative disease models and their applications to decisions. He is best known for transforming the field of pharmacometrics into a decision-supporting science. His experience as a senior biomedical research scientist and director of pharmacometrics at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives him unique insight into the technical, regulatory, and decision-making aspects in all phases of drug development. He obtained his BPharm and MSc in chemistry from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, his PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from North Dakota State University, and his MBA from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Gobburu’s research interests include pediatrics, clinical pharmacology and translational research, comparative effectiveness, and pharmacometrics.

Emily Heil, PharmD, MS

Infectious Diseases

HIV

Antimicrobial Stewardship

Emily Heil, PharmD, MS, BCIDP, AAHIVP is an Associate Professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She is the Pharmacy Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at the University of Maryland Medical Center and provides direct patient care on inpatient and outpatient infectious diseases teams. She completed her undergraduate and PharmD at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and subsequently completed her pharmacy practice and infectious diseases pharmacy residency training at the University of North Carolina Hospitals. She is an Associate Editor for Clinical Infectious Diseases and is professionally active in the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists. Her research interests include individualization of antimicrobial dosing, particularly in critically ill patients, antibiotic allergies, gram-negative resistance, and antimicrobial stewardship (domestic and international).

Cherokee Layson-Wolf, PharmD, BCACP, FAPhA

Immunizations

Medication Therapy Management

Pharmacy Education

Dr. Cherokee Layson-Wolf received her PharmD from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She completed a community pharmacy residency at Virginia Commonwealth University and Ukrop’s Pharmacy. She is associate dean for student affairs, the residency program director for the PGY-1 Community Pharmacy Residency Program, and is board-certified in ambulatory care pharmacy. Dr. Layson-Wolf is also a faculty member of the American Pharmacists Association's Pharmacy-Based Immunization Delivery certificate course. Dr. Layson-Wolf’s research interests include evaluations of immunization programs, point of care testing, medication adherence, and innovative patient care program implementation.

Valli Meeks, DDS, MS, RDH

Oral Health - HIV AIDS

Community Engagement - Oral Health or Education

UMB’s 2018 Public Servant of the Year, Dr. Meeks is director of the School of Dentistry’s PLUS Clinic, which focuses on treating people who are living with HIV disease and in need of oral health services. Halfway around the world, Dr. Meeks supports a second vulnerable population by collaborating in an effort that formed the first school of dentistry in Rwanda. She also has taught at, helped form the curriculum, and assisted an orphanage in becoming a dental education outreach center. Additionally, Dr. Meeks works with students in Baltimore to donate dental equipment that she delivers to Rwanda. The project involves teaming with two Rwanda nonprofits, the Urukundo Learning Center (ULC) and the Rwanda Village Concept Project (RVCP). ULC began as an orphanage for children displaced by the genocide of 1994 and now serves as a primary and secondary school for children in the area. RVCP is an organization run by the students at the University of Rwanda College of Medicine and Health Sciences that works to advance the health of Rwandans living in rural areas.

C. Daniel Mullins, PhD

Pharmacoeconomics

Comparative Effectiveness Research

Health Disparities

Dr. Mullins’ research and teaching focus on community-engaged, patient-centered comparative effectiveness research to advance health equity. He has received funding as principal investigator from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Food and Drug Administration (through its CERSI initiative), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), various pharmaceutical manufacturers, patient advocacy organizations, and the insurance industry. In addition to his faculty appointment, Dr. Mullins is executive director of The PATIENTS Program at the School of Pharmacy and director of the Community & Collaboration Core for the UMB Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, as well as editor-in-chief for the journal Value in Health.

Yolanda Ogbolu, PhD, NNP, FNAP, FAAN

Health Equity

Social Determinants of Health

Social Isolation

Dean Ogbolu’s interprofessional and community-engaged research and scholarship teaching, and professional activities have focused on addressing health inequities and disparities in care locally and globally. Her projects have centered on strengthening nurses’ capacity to impact global health, improving the provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate care in rural and urban hospitals, and addressing social isolation and social determinants of health in marginalized communities. Her international efforts have sought to improve nursing practice in low-resource communities in Nigeria, Rwanda, and Liberia, and later to apply lessons learned from communities in Brazil to issues of social isolation in West Baltimore. She has garnered more than $12 million in funding, as principal investigator and co-investigator, from diverse state and federal agencies and foundations. She has received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) for three global learning for health equity projects, one translating a social inclusion program from Brazil to Baltimore to reduce family social isolation in West Baltimore and the other building on this work to lead the development of a national global learning network to advance health equity by catalyzing communities across the United States. She is highly regarded for her collaborative spirit and currently leads the West Baltimore RICH (Reducing Isolation and Inequities in Cardiovascular Health) Collaborative, under a $2.4 million Pathways for Health Equity grant from the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission. This project includes a network of 15 community and faith-based organizations, academic institutions, and health care organizations working together to address hypertension and social isolation in West Baltimore. Engaged in local policy advocacy, Dean Ogbolu serves as the chair of the Social Determinants of Health Taskforce of Baltimore City, a novel policy intervention and the first legislatively mandated such committee in the nation. She has also served on taskforces to reduce disparities in newborn outcomes and to improve delivery of culturally and linguistically appropriate care.

Ebere Onukwugha, MS, PhD

Pharmacoeconomics

Health Care Resource Utilization

Health Disparities

Dr. Onukwugha is a professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and executive director of the School's Pharmaceutical Research Computing center. She received a Bachelor of Science in economics and French from the University at Albany, State University of New York, a Master of Science in agricultural and applied economics, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy in economics (concentration: econometrics) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Dr. Onukwugha completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacoeconomics and health outcomes research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Dr. Onukwugha’s research interests are in pharmacoeconomic analysis, health disparities, and medical decision-making by individuals and institutions. She examines the costs and health outcomes associated with health-related decisions as well as the institutional and environmental context framing individuals’ health-related decisions. The health-related decisions of interest include the decision to receive guideline-recommended treatment, self-care following a hospital discharge, and health care resource utilization in the oncology and cardiovascular disease settings. Her research on cost-effectiveness and regression modeling has received Contributed Research Awards at international conferences sponsored by the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. Dr. Onukwugha’s research has been published in journals such as Cancer, Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations, Journal of General Internal Medicine, JCO: Clinical Cancer Informatics, PharmacoEconomics, Journal of Geriatric Oncology, Value in Health, Ethnicity & Disease, Medical Care, Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, Journal of Oncology Practice, and Medical Decision Making. She is an editorial board member for PharmacoEconomics and an associate editor for Ethnicity & Disease.

Neha Pandit, PharmD, BCPS, AAHIVP

Infectious Diseases

HIV

Dr. Pandit is a clinical pharmacy specialist at the HIV ambulatory care clinic at the University of Maryland Medical System's Evelyn Jordan Center and the Oncology Infectious Diseases Clinic. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree at the University of Sciences in Philadelphia and completed her pharmacy practice residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. She also completed an HIV/Infectious Diseases Specialty Residency at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Pandit is credentialed as an HIV pharmacist by the American Academy of HIV Medicine and a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist by the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties. She is a member of the Drug Utilization Board of Maryland Medicaid and the Board of Directors of Chase Brexton Health Services in Baltimore. Dr. Pandit’s research interests include adherence, HIV treatment outcomes, HIV complications, antiretroviral drug-drug interactions, education, and other chronic diseases.

Danya Qato, PhD, PharmD, MPH

High-Risk Medications in Vulnerable Populations

Health Disparities

Pharmacovigilance

Dr. Danya M. Qato is a practicing pharmacist, epidemiologist, and health services researcher. She holds a PhD in health and pharmaceutical services research from the Brown University School of Public Health, a PharmD from the University of Illinois, and a MPH with a concentration in international health and humanitarian studies from Harvard University. In 2020, she was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader. Her research is currently funded by the National Institute on Aging, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. At Brown, Dr. Qato was funded as an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and National Institutes of Health doctoral and postdoctoral research fellow in comparative effectiveness research. Dr. Qato’s substantive areas of research pertain to improving regulatory and policy tools to reduce use of high risk medications in vulnerable populations, substance use and women’s health, risk management and post-marketing surveillance, drug pricing and access to essential medicines, environmental and global health systems development, pharmacovigilance, and global health equity. She was previously a Schweitzer Fellow, a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow (for support of her MPH at Harvard), and a U.S. research fellow of the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) and the Arab Council for the Social Sciences funded by the Swedish International Development Agency. In the 2015-2016 academic year, Dr. Qato was based at the Institute for Community and Public Health at Birzeit University in Palestine, where she was a Fulbright Scholar and served as an expert consultant to the World Health Organization. In addition to her role as an associate professor at the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Qato holds a secondary appointment in the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, is a faculty affiliate at the University of Maryland Institute for Global Health, and a faculty member of the joint UMB/UMBC PhD Program in Gerontology. She is former chair of the Drug Policy and Pharmaceutical Services Committee of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association and is a member of the Public Health subcommittee of the Maryland State Taskforce on Reconciliation and Equity.

Wendy Shaia, MSW, EdD

Positive School Climate

Community Outreach

Wendy Shaia, Clinical Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Restorative Change, is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Wendy obtained her Doctor of Education in Human and Organizational Learning from The George Washington University. She has more than 20 years of experience developing, implementing, and leading organizations and programs. In New York, she developed and operated a shelter for homeless pregnant and parenting young women in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and built transitional and affordable housing in East New York, Brooklyn. She provided technical assistance to community organizations for the Enterprise Foundation, and conducted the summative evaluation of the Red Cross’ long-term recovery effort after hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Most recently, Wendy worked as a strategic planner for the Department of Defense, where she led change management efforts, and developed strategies around Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity. Wendy is also the co-founder of the Positive Schools Center at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Her work focuses on creating positive school climate and reducing the disproportionate suspensions and expulsions of children of color and children with disabilities from Maryland schools, particularly where children, families and school staff have experienced, complex, secondary and vicarious trauma. Wendy has been trained in restorative practices by the International Institute for Restorative Practices and in mindfulness by the Center for Mindful Awareness. She is passionate about issues related to poverty, social justice and oppression. Wendy is on the Board of Directors of the Community Law Center.

Fadia Shaya, PhD, MPH

Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmacoepidemiology

Health Disparities and Social Determents of Health

Health Policy and Regulatory Science

Dr. Shaya directs the Informatics Core in the UMB Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and is executive director of the School of Pharmacy's Behavioral Health Research and Resource Team (BHRT). She serves on the Faculty Advisory Council of the Maryland Higher Education Commission and on the Board of AcademyHealth, and is the regional director of the Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association. She is a member of HIMSS, AMIA, AcademyHealth, AACP, APHA, ISPE and ISPOR. Dr. Shaya’s work focuses on building strategic partnerships, taking into account the social determinants of health, to optimize the effectiveness and reduce the risk of prescription drugs and medical devices. Her implementation/dissemination research is based in human data science and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning methods. With multidisciplinary collaborations, she develops and applies new methods in pharmacoeconomics, pharmacoepidemiology, public health, and clinical informatics to inform practice and policy.

Ester Villalonga Olives, PhD, MsC

Patient-Reported Outcomes

Social Epidemiology

Health Inequities

Dr. Villalonga-Olives is a social epidemiologist with a PhD in biomedicine, specializing in epidemiology and public health. She obtained her BsC and MsC in sociology and health from the University of Barcelona, with an international stint at the Università degli Study di Trieste in Italy. Her PhD, with International Doctor Distinction, was from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and she completed stays at the London School of Economics in the UK and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany. During her PhD, she conducted public health interventions for non-governmental organizations in India and Cuba. Currently an adjunct professor at New York University, she has also been a teaching and research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, guest lecturer at Yale School of Public Health and the University of Tarapacá, Chile, and a research scientist at the University Medical Center of the Georg-August-University of Goettingen in Germany. Dr. Villalonga-Olives is a member of the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center and the International Expert Group on Operationalizing Social Capital Interventions in Forced Displacement Situations led by the United Nations. She was part of the Early Investigators Advancement Program of the NIH, received a GLOBALtimore teaching fellowship, served on the board of the International Epidemiology Association for 10 years, and received an award from the Spanish Society of Epidemiology to train at the European Epidemiology Program in Florence (Italy). Her research focuses on the social determinants of health, emphasizing social capital, health inequalities, structural racism, and health intervention design. She has a background in psychometrics and works with patient-reported outcomes, particularly health-related quality of life, and developed a measure for assessing bridging social capital. She leads various projects, including an NIH R01 grant creating a measure of structural racism. In her research she is exploring social capital's link to health outcomes in underserved populations, adapting cancer knowledge tools for Hispanics/Latinos, studying racial Differential Item Functioning in social indicators, and implementing social capital interventions to boost cancer screening among Hispanic/Latino immigrants. She co-investigates two NIH R01 projects on social connectedness's impact on mental health in Black adults and creating a shared decision-making measure in maternity care. Her research methodologies encompass mixed methods, structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, and Rasch analysis. Dr. Villalonga-Olives has received awards for multiple conference presentations, published in prestigious journals like the American Journal of Epidemiology, Social Science and Medicine, and the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. She serves on the editorial board of Frontiers in Public Health and actively contributes to scientific committees at international events.