Director: Naomi Chesler, PhD

Dr. Naomi Chesler is Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence and Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering (BME). She has 25 years of experience in cardiovascular engineering research and is a nationally known change agent for anti-racism in STEM. Through her consulting business (Building STEM Equity, LLC), she has trained hundreds of engineering faculty and staff members in best practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion; creating caring communities; and building representational, interactive, and structural diversity. Dr. Chesler is the Director of the Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center (CIRC), where she is leading efforts to accelerate advances in cardiovascular health and health equity. She serves on the External Advisory Board for the University of Minnesota Institute of Medicine and Engineering, which oversees the NSF-funded Engineering Research Center ATP-BIO, led three NSF-supported Big10+ Women Faculty Workshops, and has won awards for mentoring from the Biomedical Engineering Society, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, and North American Vascular Biology Organization.

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Bernard Choi, PhD

Dr. Bernard Choi is is the Director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic. Over his career, he has supervised 14 PhD, 15 M.S., and 138 undergraduate students. He mentored three PhD students in the NSF IGERT project “Biophotonics Across Energy, Space, and Time,” three PhD students supported by NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, and two PhD students funded by the NIH Clinical Translational Science Award at UCI. He also has served as a faculty mentor in three NIH-funded T32 training grants. He has mentored three undergraduate HBCU students participating in two UC-HBCU programs supported by the University of California Office of the President. He currently serves as a PI (multi-PI mechanism) of a five-year NIH R25 IPERT program designed to train participants on multiscale biophotonics and team science. This program provides year-long sustained career and technical mentorship during a guided, individualized problem-based learning project.

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Jason Douglas, PhD, MA

Dr. Jason Douglas is Vice Chair of Health, Society, and Behavior. He has developed undergraduate and graduate courses in community-based participatory research (CBPR) at San José State University and Chapman University. These courses train students to conduct community-engaged health inequities research in partnership with nonprofit organizations in historically marginalized communities. Grounded in empowerment theory and a critical understanding of community organizing as a pathway to social change, students developed active partnerships with local organizations to investigate social and environmental determinants of health inequities and develop grassroots-informed solutions. Douglas also led the development and implementation of the NASA-funded Research Leadership Academy (RLA) in partnership with Communities for a Better Environment, a community-based organization working with underserved communities to advance environmental health and justice. The RLA program trains adult and youth residents in underserved communities to investigate and address environmental health inequities through community-based participatory research. He has developed CBPR programs for high school youth in New York City and Los Angeles.

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Christine King, PhD

Dr. Christine King is Director of the Undergraduate BioENGINE Program and Concentration Director of the Biomedical Engineering Master of Engineering Program at UCI, which provide undergraduate and master’s students with hands-on real-world experiences in biomedical engineering design and innovation. Her recent efforts also include developing a virtual reality clinical immersion program in which students perform unmet clinical needs finding for medical device invention and innovation. The BEST program is synergistic with these efforts as it lays the foundation for how graduate fellows can identify and evaluate unmet clinical needs throughout their community-engaged research training experience. Dr. King has been a teaching faculty member since 2018, with expertise in engineering design. King is trained in engaged instruction through the Active Learning Institute, is an AB540 and Undocumented Student Ally, and trained in Digital Learning as well as Inclusive Course Design.

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Dylan Roby, PhD

Dr. Dylan Roby is Professor and Chair of the Department of Health, Society, and Behavior, which currently operates a PhD in Public Health with concentrations in Disease Prevention, Global Health, and Biobehavioral Mechanisms of Health. Dr. Roby is also the director of the MPH in Health Systems and Policy, which aligns with his research in health insurance coverage, health care quality, and access to care. Prior to arriving at UC Irvine in 2021, Dr. Roby was a faculty member at the University of Maryland, where he co-created a new course with faculty from his department and experts from the University’s Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship that used design thinking approaches to guide the development of a new community clinic.

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Meet the Core Faculty Participants

Jessica Borelli, PhD

Dr. Jessica Borelli is a Professor in Psychological Science and Associate Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at UC Irvine. Dr. Borelli serves as the main liaison with the School of Ecology, and directly supervises and mentors graduate student trainees that support Themes 1 and 2 of the BEST program.

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Michelle Digman, PhD

Dr. Michelle Digman is William J. Link Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC Irvine, Joint Professor in the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, the Beckman Laser Institute, and Director of the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics and W.M. Keck Nanoimaging Lab. She assists with the recruitment and retention of biomedical engineering BEST trainees, as well as the summer Bootcamp.

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Amir Rahmani, PhD

Dr. Amir Rahmani is a Professor of Nursing and Computer Science at UC Irvine, and the Associate Director of the UC Irvine Institute for Future Health. He serves as the liaison with the Institute for Future Health, School of Nursing and School of Informatics and Computer Science, assists with the BEST Bootcamp, and directly supervises and mentors BEST graduate student trainees.

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Maritza Salazar Campo, PhD

Dr. Maritza Salazar Campo is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of Organization and Management in the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine. She leads the implementation and training of the Team Scholarship Acceleration Lab (TSAL) and the team science training activities of BEST trainees.

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Margaret Schneider, PhD

Dr. Margaret Schneider is a Researcher in the Department of Population Health and Disease Prevention in the School of Publich Health. She is the lead evaluator of the BEST program, which includes evaluating the program as well as its short-term, medium-term, and long-term impacts.

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Participating Research Mentor Faculty