Faculty Profiles
Archana McEligot, Ph.D.
Archana McEligot, Ph.D., is an epidemiologist and professor of Public Health at California State University, Fullerton. Dr. McEligot received her PhD in Public Health Epidemiology from the joint doctoral program between UCSD and SDSU. Dr. McEligot’s primary research interests include examination of the association between dietary intakes and behavioral factors with chronic disease control and prevention, including Alzheimer's disease, cancer and other co-morbid conditions in vulnerable populations. Also, she is interested in assessing the relationship between dietary circulating biomarkers, such as folate and carotenoids in conjunction with genetic polymorphisms on disease risk via population-based, large cohort studies. Further, through strong interest, and the support of nationally recognized, externally funded grants, Dr. McEligot has developed curricula, guided students through research, and directs training programs in efforts to support the success of underrepresented students. She serves as the director and principal investigator (PI) of NAARE.
Meredith N. Braskie, Ph.D.
Meredith Braskie, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Keck School of Medicine of USC. She is also the Director of Education at The USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging & Informatics Institute. Dr. Braskie received her PhD in neuroscience from UCLA and worked at UCLA & UC Berkeley as a postdoctoral fellow. The focus of Dr. Braskie’s lab is to evaluate how genetic and environmental risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD) relate to brain structure, function, and connectivity throughout adulthood, with an emphasis on cognitively intact adults and those with early mild cognitive impairment. She seeks to understand the biological mechanisms and signaling pathways that may contribute to or protect against AD-related changes. In Dr. Braskie's lab, they use relevant blood and cerebrospinal fluid measures, multimodal imaging, and when possible, they engage in collaborative research with laboratories investigating similar concepts in a wet lab environment. Dr. Braskie is a co-PI of NAARE.
Arthur W. Toga, Ph.D.
Arthur W. Toga, Ph.D. is the Director of the Institute of Neuroimaging and Informatics (INI) and a Provost Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, Psychiatry, Behavioral Sciences, Radiology and Engineering at USC. Prior to joining USC in 2013, Dr. Toga was a Distinguished Professor of Neurology at UCLA, held the Geffen Chair of Informatics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Associate Director of the UCLA Brain Mapping Division within the Neuropsychiatric Institute, and Associate Dean, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal NeuroImage and holds the chairmanship of numerous committees within NIH and a variety of international task forces. Dr. Toga is interested in the development of new algorithms and the computer science aspects important to neuroimaging. His laboratory (Laboratory of Neuro Imaging) has been working on the creation of three dimensional digital neuroanatomic and functional neuroanatomic atlases for stereotactic localization and multi-subject comparison.
✉ : toga@usc.edu
Math P. Cuajungco, Ph.D., M.S.c.
Math Cuajungco, Ph.D., M.S.c., is a professor of Biological Science at California State University, Fullerton. He earned his doctorate in Neuroscience from the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 1999. Part of Dr. Cuajungco’s PhD thesis work was undertaken at Harvard Medical School as a pre-doctoral scholar, where he investigated the effects of abnormal zinc metabolism in the brain, and the role of zinc, copper, and iron in Alzheimer's disease pathology. In 2000, Dr. Cuajungco began his postdoctoral work at Harvard (Massachusetts General Hospital), where he studied a rare genetic disease known as familial dysautonomia (a sensory neuropathy). He then moved to another lab to study the sensory system and molecular players involved in hearing at Harvard (Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary), and at Stanford University School of Medicine. His investigations focused on TRPV4 and TRPML3 ion channels, both of which belong to the superfamily of membrane channels known as the transient receptor potential (TRP). The TRP ion channels are known to mediate signal transduction processes in response to various sensory stimuli in an organism. Dr. Cuajungco’s current research interests include the TRPML ion channel subfamily, transmembrane (TMEM-163, 176A and 176B) proteins, and the cellular zinc transport system. Dr. Cuajungco is one of the co-investigators of NAARE.
Sam Behseta, Ph.D., M.S.
Sam Behseta, Ph.D., M.S., is a professor of Mathematics at California State University, Fullerton. He received his PhD in statistics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003. Dr. Behseta is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. His main area of research is statistical modeling of neuronal spike train data. Dr. Behseta is currently serving as the director of Center for Computational and Applied Mathematics (CCAM) at the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM). He is an associate editor of Journal of the American Statistical Association and American Statistician, the flagship journals of The American Statistical Association (ASA). Dr. Behseta also served as the Executive Editor of CHANCE, the magazine of ASA during 2011-14. He has research interests in Bayesian statistics, statistics in neuroscience, modeling epidemiological data, foundations and history of statistics, statistics education, probabilistic watermarking, and epidemiology. Dr. Behseta is the recipient of the Outstanding Research Award at the NSM in 2014, and CSUF’s 2022 Outstanding Professor Award. He is one of the co-investigators of NAARE.
Lohuwa Mamudu, Ph.D.
Lohuwa Mamudu, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health at Cal State University, Fullerton. He received his Ph.D. in Statistics from University of South Florida, USF, MSc degree in Mathematical Science (Statistics concentration) from East Tennessee State University, ETSU, and BSc degree in Mathematics with Economics from University for Development Studies, UDS. Dr. Mamudu's research interest is data-driven, and interdisciplinarily focused on statistical/analytical modeling and the application of qualitative and quantitative statistical methods in Health Science, Economics & Finance, Environmental Science, and Cybersecurity. In Health Science, his research interest has focused on cancer disparity, survivorship, and treatment/therapeutic, infectious disease outcome, as well as immigration health. He collaborates with the National Institute of Health (NIH) as a Freelance Data Analyst researching into cancer diseases outcomes in the U.S., and immigration health on depression, anxiety, and psychological distress. His future research in health science will focus on genomics and Big Data.
Sanam Kazemi, DrPH, MPH
Sanam Kazemi, DrPH, MPH, is a part-time faculty in the Department of Public Health at California State University- Fullerton. Dr. Kazemi earned her doctorate and master’s degree in Public Health from Loma Linda University. She joined CSUF in 2012 and has been teaching courses such as Nutrition, Measurement & Statistics in Health Science, Program Design in Kinesiology and Health Science, Community Health Education, Personal Health, and Applied Statistics in Health Science. Dr. Kazemi received the Jeffrey Fortuna Outstanding Lecturer Award in 2018. She is very passionate about teaching and working with NAARE as an advisor.
Sinjini Mitra, Ph.D.
Sinjini Mitra, Ph.D., is a professor at the Department of Information Systems and Decision Sciences in the Steven G. Mihaylo College of Business and Economics at CSUF. Prior to joining CSUF, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the USC’s Information Sciences Institute, and a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Statistics and CyLab at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Mitra received her B.Sc. degree from Presidency College, Calcutta, India in Statistics, M.Stat. degree from the Indian Statistical Institute, and Ph.D. degree in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Mitra's research is interdisciplinary and primary interests include data mining and business analytics, biometric authentication and security-related topics, and statistical methodologies for data analysis, modeling and inference in education, healthcare and information systems. She has published and edited a book called “Biometrics in a Data driven world: Trends, Technologies and Challenges”. Dr. Mitra conducts student learning and content assessments for the students exposed to NAARE curricula, and conducts research on the topics of aging in healthcare and biomedical sciences.