2025-2026
EMERGING SCHOLARS PROGRAM
Eun Seok Choi, PhD
Eun Seok Choi, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB). He received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from Yonsei University in
2018 and completed his doctoral training through a joint research program with the National Cancer Center (NCC), where he conducted his dissertation research and developed strong expertise in translational cancer biology. His multidisciplinary background spans aging biology, cancer biology, and RNA biology, with additional translational experience from the biotechnology industry.
Dr. Choi’s research focuses on elucidating the molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, through the study of regulatory small non-coding RNAs, with an emphasis on tRNA-derived fragments (tRFs), a novel class of RNAs that exhibit disease-specific and species-specific expression patterns. His recent work involves identifying tRF-based biomarkers in patient blood samples from individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis,
with an expanding interest in sex-specific differences in neurodegenerative diseases. As a Black Men’s Brain Health Emerging Scholar, Dr. Choi investigates whether the APOE3 (R145C) mutation increases neuronal vulnerability by altering pathways involved in cellular stress, inflammation, and responses to environmental challenges. By leveraging human cellular and organoid models to examine genetic and viral risk factors, he aims to bridge the gap between basic molecular discovery and the development of precision diagnostics and therapies for brain health.
Maurice Haskins, DSW, LCSW-C
Maurice Haskins, DSW, LCSW-C, is a licensed clinical social worker with over fifteen years of experience in healthcare and community-based practice. His work focuses on aging, caregiving, and promoting positive health outcomes across the lifespan. Dr. Haskins has held clinical and leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Inova Health System, and Luminis Health, providing therapeutic and crisis interventions, care coordination, and programmatic support to individuals and families navigating complex health transitions. With a multidisciplinary background in community development, education, nonprofit management, and healthcare, he brings a holistic approach to practice and leadership. His clinical expertise includes supporting
individuals and families affected by Traumatic Brain Injury, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. Guided by dignity and empathy, he integrates person-centered, evidence-informed strategies to strengthen outcomes for clients and organizations. Dr. Haskins earned a Bachelor of Sociology and Master of Social Work from Morgan State University and a Doctor of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania. His doctoral research explored identity reconstruction following intensive caregiving experiences, enhancing understanding of the emotional and psychological dimensions of caregiving and aging. He is an alum of the American Society on Aging’s RISE Leadership Program and the National Collaboratory to Address Elder Mistreatment Mentorship Program.
I currently work as a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University in the Department of Neurology. My background is in the cognitive neuroscience of sleep, aging, and episodic memory performance in racially and ethnically diverse groups. My research investigates associations between disparities in sleep quality and
disparities in cognitive aging. I am particularly interested in environmental sleep barriers and sleep facilitators that are related to brain health in older, Black adults. A long-term goal of my research is to identify precise sleep interventions that reduce brain health disparities in older age.
Emily Hokett, PhD
Essa Mohamed, PhD
Dr. Essa Mohamed is a biomedical researcher and medical device innovator whose work integrates translational science, biomedical engineering and community-engaged research to address health disparities and inequities. He completed an NIH-funded T32 postdoctoral fellowship in Lung Physiology and Biomedical Engineering and transitioned to a scientist role with the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in 2023.
Dr. Mohamed’s research examines the biological and social pathways linking sleep-disordered breathing, inflammation, metabolic dysfunction (including fatty liver disease), cardiovascular disease and dementia. His work emphasizes racial/ethnic and sex-based differences in disease risk and progression through the integration of non-traditional disease markers such as social determinants of health, migration history and structural exposures with mechanistic and clinical data.
With over 16 years of experience conducting translational research from bench to bedside to curbside, Dr. Mohamed has extensive training in biomedical sciences with a strong focus on health disparities and immigrant health. He has led the development of community advisory boards and established long-standing partnerships with community-based organizations both nationally and internationally to address chronic disease inequities and barriers to research participation. This work has contributed to improvements in clinical assessment practices and increased inclusion of underrepresented populations in clinical and observational studies.
Dr. Mohamed’s current research focuses on aging and Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias in African-descended populations, with the goal of strengthening inclusive research infrastructure and advancing equitable precision medicine
Chukwuanugo is a physician–scientist and neurosciences researcher with expertise spanning global health, clinical research, and academic medicine. My work centers on community-engaged aging brain health
programs, integrating population neuroscience with lived experience to improve early detection of cognitive change. I focus on developing and deploying culturally responsive tools and care pathways that reach marginalized populations, particularly in elderly Black men, who are often underrepresented in research and diagnosed late in the disease course. By partnering with communities, primary care systems, and faith- and community-based organizations, my research reduces stigma, builds trust, and supports timely screening and follow-up. Ultimately, this approach aims to enable early intervention, strengthen brain resilience, and advance equity in dementia prevention and care.
Chukwuanugo Ogbuagu, MD, PhD
Kendra Ray, PhD, MBA, MPH
Kendra Ray, PhD, MBA, MPH, NYS-Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, Nationally Board-Certified Music Therapist, is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at NYU Langone, Chief Research Officer at CaringKind, and Adjunct Faculty at the John J. Cali School of Music. She holds a Ph.D. in Creative Arts Therapy, a Master’s in Public Health, and a Master’s in Business Administration in Sports and Recreation Management, bringing interdisciplinary expertise in music therapy, public health, and community-based care.
Her research focuses on nonpharmacological interventions for aging populations and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). She has led studies showing music-based activities reduce depression, agitation, and other neuropsychiatric symptoms in ADRD (Dementia, 2017; Frontiers in Medicine, 2018), with sustained benefits when caregivers are trained in basic techniques. Her community-centered work includes training CNAs and home health aides in music-assisted caregiving (Music and Medicine, 2021) and co-developing a National Institute on Aging Small Business Technology Transfer proposal for algorithm-driven music dosing through her company, Autotune Me. She currently leads studies funded by the Alzheimer’s Association, the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, and Columbia University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Alzheimer’s Disease Disparities, advancing evidence-based music interventions for people living with dementia and their family caregivers.
A committed advocate for health equity, she addresses disparities among underserved groups, including people with HIV‑associated neurocognitive disorders, and serves on the board of the Black Music Therapy Network. Last year, Dr. Ray received the Margaret M. Cahn Award, recognizing outstanding Alzheimer’s research within the Hudson Valley Chapter’s territory. A 2023 NIA Startup Challenge Finalist, her current work expands into Black men’s brain health—investigating culturally relevant, personalized interventions (e.g., reduced anxiety from dosed and prescribed music) to mitigate neurological decline in high‑risk groups such as athletes.
Dr. Christopher Webster is a clinical health psychologist and an NIA T32 postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Health Outcomes and Interdisciplinary Research (CHOIR) at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School (MGH/HMS). Dr. Webster earned a dual major Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and Kinesiology at Michigan State University, where he developed an interdisciplinary research program at the intersection of clinical science, behavioral health, and sport psychology.
Dr. Webster’s current research examines how physical activity and psychological techniques influence mental, physical, and cognitive health, with the overarching goal of developing integrated exercise-based and psychotherapeutic interventions to expand access to care and improve outcomes for underrepresented populations. Supported by an NIA Resource Center for Minority Aging Research Pilot award, Dr. Webster is conducting a qualitative study examining the interest and acceptability of an integrated physical activity and behavioral activation (PA+BA) intervention for older Black men with depression and subjective cognitive decline – an understudied population at elevated risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). His long-term goal is to develop scalable, culturally congruent behavioral interventions that reduce depression, enhance cognitive functioning, and advance brain health equity among older Black men.
Christopher Webster, PhD
Faculty Mentors
Doris Molina-Henry, PhD - Associate Professor of Research Neurology at the USC Keck School of Medicine
Doris Molina-Henry is an Assistant Professor at the USC Epstein Family Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute. She is part of the leadership of the Epstein Family Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute in San Diego. Her work is focused on the science of recruitment and retention of diverse participants into clinical trials. Currently, she works on evaluating strategies that promote participation of cognitively unimpaired, at-risk, diverse adults into studies that aim to help prevent the symptoms of Alzheimer’s well before they begin.
Charles Senteio, PhD - Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at the Rutgers-New Brunswick School of Communication and Information
Charles Senteio's research investigates the collection and use of information to identify causes of persistent racial health inequities, and develop approaches to address them. He uses community-engaged approaches at each stage of the research process, from developing research questions to selecting methods to data collection, analysis, and dissemination. He also teaches graduatestudents about the challenges and opportunities to engaged scholarship.
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Senteio has been the Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on investigations funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), and the RWJF. In 2023 he received the Rutgers Public Good Pinnacle Award. He also received honorable mention for the Betty J. Cleckley Minority Issues Research Award from the APHA Aging in Public Health Section for promoting Black American elders use of health technology and the SCI LIS Distinguished Achievement in Research award for 2017-2018 and 2019-2020.
His first book will be published by Cambridge University Press in Summer 2026, "Progress Meets Backlash: Perceptions, Cycles of Backlash, and the Struggle for Racial Health Equity." Also, he is a Co-PI, along with Itzhak Yanovitzky and former SC&I assistant professor Gretchen Stahlman, on a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded project, “Articulating Clear Principles, Practices, and Tools for Centering Health Equity in Public Health Data Dashboards’ Design and Implementation". He is also the PI on a project based in Kenya and Ghana funded by the Rutgers Global Health Institute Seed Grant program, “Addressing Barriers to Mental Health Care for Young Adults in Africa."
Kellee White Whilby, PhD - Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the University of Maryland School of Public Health
Dr. Kellee White Whilby's scholarship on racial/ethnic residential segregation (i.e., the spatial manifestation of institutionalized racism) and health have helped shape the literature conceptually, methodologically and analytically and further situate segregation as a central determinant of racial/ethnic health inequalities. She has devoted increasing attention to understanding how patterns of discrimination accumulate over the life course to
influence aging-related processes and uncover resilience factors related to healthy aging. Scholarly work also investigates the role of social, psychosocial and contextual factors on accelerated aging with a focus on multimorbidity and its impact on aging-related outcomes, quality of life and health care utilization across the lifespan. Emerging research employs novel and rigorous analytical methods to understand factors that propagate gender and racial/ethnic inequalities in late-life cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.
Her research has been published in leading public health and medical journals and has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer’s Association. Additionally, Dr. White has mentored numerous undergraduate, master and doctoral-level students and junior faculty.
Edward D. Vargas, PhD, MPH - Associate Professor at the School of Transborder Studies, Arizona State University
Edward Vargas' primary areas of interest are the effects of poverty and inequality on the quality of life, focusing specifically on health, immigration status and social policy, and how these factors contribute to the well-being of vulnerable families. In addition, poverty and inequality are strongly tied to race and ethnicity; thus, he is also interested in the methodological issues involved in the quantitative study of race and ethnicity.
To address these issues, Vargas has developed two programs of research. The first examines how anti-immigrant climate is impacting Latina/o health. A second area research examines methodological issues in the quantitative research on race and ethnicity among Latina/o populations. He is a Co-PI on the 2015 Latino National Health and Immigration Survey and Co-PI on the 2016 and 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) which is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Currently, Dr. Vargas is funded by the Robert W. Johnson Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on work related to the collection of racial and ethnic data across Federal Agencies. He is a leading expert on health policy and Latino politics, he regularly provides political commentary to several state, national, and international
media outlets including the Washington Post, NBC News, Univision, and Brookings Institution.