Research Team

Shufang Sun, PhD

LAB DIRECTOR (she/her)
Assistant Professor of Behavioral & Social Sciences
Brown University School of Public Health

Dr. Shufang Sun is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the Brown University School of Public Health and Department of Psychiatry at Brown University Alpert Medical School. She is a faculty member of the Mindfulness Center at Brown University and the International Health Institute of Brown Public Health.

 

Dr. Sun’s NIH-funded research primarily aims to understand minority stress and mental health among marginalized populations, with a particular focus on LGBTQ individuals in both domestic and low-and-middle-income countries. Additionally, she is dedicated to promoting minority health, disease prevention, and management through innovative, evidence-based methods such as mHealth and mindfulness-based interventions. Her work has been supported by numerous NIH grants and other funding sources, enabling her to address the needs of diverse communities in the U.S. and around the world. To learn more about Dr. Sun’s research, please visit her website.

Don Operario, PhD

CO-INVESTIGATOR (he/him)
Professor of Behavioral, Social & Health Education Sciences
Emory University Rollins School of Public Health

Dr. Don Operario is the Grace Crum Rollins Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences at the Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. His research concerns the social psychological determinants of HIV, mental health, and related health issues (substance use, structural violence, access to services) in historically marginalized communities. Further, his work focuses on the lived experiences associated with social inequality, with an emphasis on understanding the perspectives of intersectional identities and addressing health and psychosocial disparities.

 

His NIH-funded projects examine these public health issues among racial and ethnic minority populations as well as sexual and gender minority populations in the United States, the Philippines, China, South Korea, Kenya, and South Africa.

David Zelaya, PhD

CO-INVESTIGATOR (he/him/él)
Assistant Professor of Behavioral & Social Sciences
Brown University School of Public Health

Dr. David G. Zelaya is an Assistant Professor (Research) at Brown University School of Public Health (SPH) within the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies (CAAS), Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences and a research fellow at Harvard Medical School within the Department of Psychiatry.

 

His program of research focuses on examining health disparities, from an intersectionality and minority stress lens, among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and sexual and gender minority communities and links to HIV risk, mental health, and substance use. Clinically, he is interested in providing culturally competent behavioral health services to historically underserved communities (e.g., Spanish-speaking Latinx people; sexual and gender diverse people).

Arryn A. Guy, PhD

CO-INVESTIGATOR (she/they)
Investigator in Behavioral & Social Sciences
Brown University School of Public Health

Dr. Arryn A. Guy is a licensed Clinical Psychologist in Rhode Island and an Investigator in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the Brown University School of Public Health. Dr. Guy’s work focuses on community-based participatory research with queer and trans communities to develop and implement evidence-based behavioral health interventions.
Their community-engaged intervention work centers on healing from stigma and oppression, which includes dismantling HIV stigma, supporting all pathways to addiction recovery, and improving access to gender affirmative care.

Frances Saadeh, MPH

SENIOR RESEARCH COORDINATOR (she/her)
Centers for Epidemiology & Environmental Health
Brown University School of Public Health

Frances Saadeh, MPH, is a Senior Project Coordinator in the Centers for Epidemiologic Research at Brown University. Fran has worked in Public Health at Brown University for more than 15 years. She has overseen data collection on a number of different projects, with topics ranging from looking at quality of life outcomes of breast cancer survivors to studying residential moving patterns of mothers and their newborn infants.

 

Most recently she has served in the Mindfulness Center at Brown University and in Dr. Sun’s Mindfulness for Health Equity Lab (mHEAL). A two-time Brown graduate (’06, ’11) and Brown University employee, Fran lives in Rhode Island with her three children and playful pup.

Vanessa Silva

PROJECT MANAGER (she/her)
Brown University School of Public Health

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Bill Nardi, ScM

PHD CANDIDATE (he/him)
Department of Behavioral & Social Sciences
Brown University School of Public Health

Bill Nardi is a third-year doctoral student interested in patient-oriented research for the development of comprehensive, integrative treatments for comorbid substance use and anxiety. Specifically, his work focuses on designing and testing mobile health applications as adjunctive therapies to primary substance use treatments utilizing mixed methods research. Bill holds an ScM from Brown University and is a person in recovery.

Ty Scott, MPH

RESEARCH ASSISTANT (they/them)
Brown University School of Public Health

Ty is a second year Master’s student at Brown University School of Public Health. They graduated from Brown for undergrad with a BA in Public Health. Their central research interests are PrEP access, HIV and STI/STD health, and health equity. They began research work in undergrad, assisting research teams dedicated to health behaviors surrounding HIV prevention among incarcerated individuals, mindfulness within the LGBTQ+ community, and diet among women with early life adversity.

Their thesis will review effective recruitment tactics for African American study participants that identify as sexual or gender minorities. In their free time, they enjoy varying creative outlets, most particularly modern dance, makeup, and cooking.

Matthew Murphy

PHD STUDENT (he/they)

Department of Behavioral & Social Sciences
Brown University School of Public Health

Matt is first-year doctoral student in Behavioral and Social Health Sciences (BSHS). Matt seeks to apply novel analytic methodologies to examine mental health disparities among sexual and gender minority populations and explore how evidence-based interventions may disrupt stress-related health processes. Before joining the BSHS program, Matt received a Sc.B. in Psychology from the Brown University Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences (CLPS).

Volta Tran

RESEARCH ASSISTANT (she/her)
Center for Epidemiologic Research
Brown University School of Public Health

 Volta is a full-time research assistant working on Project STARS and the Trans-Led Care Study. She has a background in trans community health and approaches her work through a harm reduction framework.

Chloe Chen

RESEARCH ASSISTANT (she/her)
Undergraduate
Brown University

Chloe is a senior at Brown concentrating in Sociology and Visual Art. At Brown, she is heavily involved in the survivor activist community as a Coordinator and Peer Support Partner for End Sexual Violence @ Brown. In her art practice, she explores painting, illustration, screenprinting, and dialogical art through themes of ritual, queerness, and taboo. Chloe’s primary research interests include health resource disparities, racial formations, and interpersonal harm prevention and response. She is currently writing her thesis on socio-cultural conceptions of pain and culturally-informed healing in the aftermath of sexual violence.

Kenneth Kang

RESEARCH ASSISTANT (he/him)
Undergraduate
Brown University

Kenneth is a junior at Brown University concentrating in Psychology, and he works as a research assistant at Brown’s School of Public Health and for the Filipino Young Leaders Program. Kenneth has always been involved with community mental health, having worked as a volunteer in a mental hospital in Korea and currently being involved with a crisis hotline. Kenneth’s primary research interests are mental health and minority stress within the queer community, particularly for those at the intersection of Asian and queer identities.

Nick McCarthy-Belash

RESEARCH ASSISTANT (he/him)
Undergraduate
Brown University

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