Dr. Calia Morais is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Alabama in 2019. Her research focuses on understanding mechanisms influencing pain inequities as well as developing culturally-responsive pain assessment tools and psychosocial treatment for chronic pain. More recently, Dr. Morais has become interested in resilience research and identifying resilience factors protecting against the negative impact of pain on functioning. Dr. Morais utilizes an antiracism framework and community-engagement research practices to facilitate the implementation and sustainability of evidence-based treatments for chronic pain in medical and community settings. Dr. Morais has extensive experience delivering psychosocial treatments for pain management, such as Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and she is currently the pain psychologist at the Adult Sickle Cell Center at UAB.

Kevin Lu, PhD, FISPE, BPharm, is an Associate Professor (with tenure) of Pharmacy Administration at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Lu is an elected Fellow of International Society of PharmacoEpidemiology (ISPE), and chaired or is chairing numerous committees of international or national organizations. Dr. Lu is also an Associate and Guest Editor for several journals. He has extensive experience in mentoring junior faculty, PhD students, and PharmD students. Dr. Lu earned his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Health Services Research from the University of Maryland. His research interests include medication use and patient outcomes and related health disparities among older populations based on big real-world data.

Dr. Melody K Schiaffino is a bilingual, bi-cultural health services researcher and epidemiologist. Her primary research interests center around identifying disparities in the organization and delivery of health services to diverse older adults. Using systems science and big data approaches to study how care is delivered, her work leverages the information and technology to improve sub-optimal outcomes for minority aging populations. Her current work addresses treatment variation in timely care to diverse and older adults with cancer as well as the role of language, social and other demographic barriers in access to care and advanced care including the role of telehealth and telemedicine.

Dr. Bubu is an Assistant Professor and physician scientist at NYU Grossman School of Medicine (NYUSoM), in the Departments of Psychiatry and Population Health, with a programmatic research focus on sleep, aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Dr. Bubu has graduate, internship, and fellowship-level clinical and research training in neurology, neuro-epidemiology and public health. His research examines how age-related and age-dependent sleep changes, and vascular risk, impact cognitive decline and AD risk, and how they drive AD related disparities.

Pamela G. Bowen, PhD, CRNP, BBA, is a board-certified family nurse practitioner. Given the mounting evidence that numerous social inequities contribute to health disparities, my pursuit of racial health equity and justice for minority and vulnerable populations is motivated by the desire to improve health outcomes for these groups by creating and evaluating interventions to encourage healthy lifestyle behaviors. Being a part of the RCMAR Scientist Advisory Board excites me because it responds to the demands of its RCMAR members. This board is crucial because it will give scientists a way to talk about, report on, and deal with sensitive topics including systematic racism, gender discrimination, and power relationships in academia that could have an adverse effect on a scientist’s personal and career trajectory. I also have the added distinction of representing the scientists at UAB Deep South RCMAR.

Dr. Romeo L. Escobar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He earned a PhD in Leadership Studies and a master’s degree in Social Work from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. He began his career in academia as an Adjunct Professor in 2014 and in 2015, he was offered a full-time faculty position as an Assistant Professor in the tenure track program at the university. Currently, he is serving as the Program Director for the traditional MSSW program and Faculty Advisor for the Graduate Association of Student Social Worker. Prior to transitioning into academia, Dr. Escobar worked in both the private and public sector and held positions in the clinical, leadership, and administrative arena. He has practiced social work for the past 48 years of which the last 34 years have been in the field of mental health, aging, and substance use. He maintains his licensure as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and is certified through the national Academy of Certified Social Workers. He has participated as a RCMAR (Resource Center for Minority Aging Research) scientist at UTRGV for the past four years and has served as a member of the RCMAR National Scientist Advisory Board for two years. He has presented his research findings in local, state, national, and international conferences and has published several manuscripts together with other colleagues of the School of Social Work. His interests in research are in working with Latinos, mental health, aging, Alzheimer’s Disease, substance use, and social work competency. Dr. Escobar is very involved as a member of the Cameron County Mental Health Task Force in the Rio Grande Valley area and has served as Board Member since 2017.