FIU experts available to discuss coronavirus

The first doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine were delivered today and the first vaccine in the U.S. was given to a nurse in New York. 

FIU experts are available to discuss various topics surrounding coronavirus and vaccinations. 

Health

Aileen Marty
Professor
Department of Translational Medicine
Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
Dr. Marty has more than 40 years of experience in the fields of infectious diseases, public health, mass gatherings and disaster response. Most recently she has consulted local and state governments on how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Marty currently serves as an advisor to the World Health Organization and is also working with Qatar’s Ministry of Health in advance of their 2022 FIFA World Cup. 
Dr. Marty is also available for interviews in Spanish.
Email: amarty@fiu.edu 
Office: 305-348-0377

Mary Jo Trepka
Infectious Disease Epidemiologist & Chair
Department of Epidemiology
Robert Stempel College of Public Health
Trepka was the director of epidemiology and disease control for the Miami-Dade County Health Department from 1998–2003 and joined Florida International University full time in 2003. She is board certified in preventive medicine and public health and a fellow in the American College of Preventive Medicine. Her particular interest is the role of social determinants in health disparities in HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. Trepka trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the GSF-Research Center for Health and Environment in Munich, Germany from 1994-1996 and as an epidemic intelligence service officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1996-1998.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Trepka is part of the team that launched the Miami-Dade COVID19 Trend Tracker, where her expertise is related directly to the epidemiology of the virus in Miami-Dade County.
Email:trepkam@fiu.edu 

Eneida O. Roldan
Chief Executive Officer, FIU HealthCare Network
Associate Dean, Office of International Affairs
Associate Dean, Master in Physician Assistant Studies
Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
Dr. Roldan currently serves as the clinical director for the Miami-Dade County COVID-19 testing site staffed by FIU. Roldan is the immediate past president and CEO for the Jackson Health System, one of the largest safety net health systems in the country. She is internationally renown in the areas of obesity, health policy, health care reform, health care management and systems, and leadership.
Dr. Roldan is also available for interviews in Spanish.
Email: eoroldan@fiu.edu
To speak with Dr. Roldan, please contact Ileana Varela: 305-348-4926, ilvarela@fiu.edu

Patria Rojas
Assistant Professor, Department of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention 
Research Associate Professor, Center for Research on US Latino HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse (CRUSADA)
Robert Stempel College of Public Health
For more than two decades, Dr. Rojas has focused on prevention efforts to address HIV/AIDS and substance abuse health disparities affecting Latino populations. Prior to completing her doctoral work in social welfare at Florida International University, she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Merrimack College, and earned graduate degrees in social work and public health from Boston University. Her research focuses on Latino health behaviors and health disparities among Latinos –particularly in the area of HIV/AIDS, substance abuse and mental health. Dr. Rojas has published papers in the field of minority health promotion and disease prevention, which have helped spearhead interventions for alcohol and substance abuse and HIV prevention among Latino immigrant women in South Florida.
Dr. Rojas can speak to the public health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to Latino communities and minority health disparities, including migrant and farmworker communities in Florida.
Dr. Rojas is also available for interviews in Spanish.
Email:proja003@fiu.edu 

Cheryl Holder
Associate Professor
Department of Humanities, Health, and Society
Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
Dr. Holder is a board-certified internist and HIV specialist who has dedicated her medical career to serving underserved populations. As president of the Florida State Medical Association she has spearheaded efforts to address the risk of COVID-19 among African-Americans. She also co-chairs Florida Clinicians for Climate Action, where she works to increase climate literacy and enhance awareness of the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations.
Email:clholder@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-0698

Carlos Espinal
Director
Global Health Consortium
Robert Stempel College of Public Health
Dr. Espinal’s expertise is in tropical and geographical diseases, epidemiology and malaria vaccine development. He earned his degree in medicine at the University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia. He continued his academic career as a fellow at both the New York University School of Medicine and the University of New Mexico School Of Medicine, where he specialized in tropical geographical diseases, epidemiology and malaria vaccine development. Sequentially he also earned a certificate in Public Health and Vaccinology from the Carlos Slim Health Institute, Mexico. He is the editor of multiple consensus and guidelines on pediatric, adult vaccination, occupational health and travel medicine in Latin America.
Dr. Espinal is also available for interviews in Spanish.
Email:caespina@fiu.edu

Shed Boren, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor
School of Social Work
Robert Stempel College of Public Health
Boren is a social worker and healthcare executive recognized for his advocacy for others. He has worked for, and on behalf of, vulnerable populations for more than 30 years, with a focus on those living with HIV/AIDS, chronic and infectious diseases, mental health challenges and poverty. Dr. Boren has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Camillus Health Concern, Camillus House, Sister Emmanuel Hospital and as the founder of Mercy Hospital’s AIDS program. Over the years he has developed a special interest in working with people making difficult healthcare decisions, people experiencing homelessness, the LGBTQ community and those in contact with the criminal justice system. Dr. Boren served as the Executive Producer of the Emmy Award-winning film, The Day It Snowed in Miami (2014) and Sisters, a film about Sister Helen Prejean (2018). He remains active in the community and he is on the Board of Directors of LEAP and Guitars over Guns. He holds several graduate degrees, including an MSW (counseling), MBA (Health Administration), PhD (sociology), and post-graduate training in bioethics.
Email: sboren@fiu.edu
Mobile: 305-632-6647

Zoran Bursac
Chair, Department of Biostatistics
Director, Biostatistics Consulting Service Center
Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work
Dr. Bursac obtained a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center in 2003. During his career Dr. Bursac has worked on over 40 grants with a total value of over $75,000,000. Dr. Bursac has authored/co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications in various areas of public health, preventive and clinical medicine, and biostatistics. These publications have been cited approximately 4000 times.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Bursac is part of the team that launched the Miami-Dade COVID19 Trend Tracker, where his expertise is related directly to data topics.
Email:zbursac@fiu.edu 

William W. Darrow
Professor
Department of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Robert Stempel College of Public Health
Before accepting a position at Florida International University (FIU) in 1994, Darrow was chief of the Behavioral and Prevention Research Branch, Division of STD/HIV Prevention, National Center for Prevention Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He currently conducts scholarly research and teaches courses to doctoral students on the history and foundations of Public Health as well as on ethical issues in Public Health. In both courses, we look at historical precedents to see how they might shape contemporary policies and practices in global, national, and local perspectives. 
Email:darroww@fiu.edu
Cell: (305) 248-6619

Tomás R. Guilarte
Dean
Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work
A renowned expert in public health, Guilarte joined FIU after serving as the inaugural Leon Hess Professor and Chairman of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University School of Public Health in the City of New York. Prior to Columbia University, he received his doctorate and spent three decades as a professor and researcher in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Email: tguilart@fiu.edu
Office: (305) 348-5344

Leslie Frazier, Ph.D.
Associate professor 
Department of Psychology
College of Arts, Sciences & Education
Frazier's current research areas focus on stress and coping with life transitions in an effort to maximize mental and physical health outcomes. Of special interest is understanding the adjustment to living with chronic illness and the processes associated with developing resilience and avenues toward successful aging. More recently, Dr. Frazier has become interested in psychosocial factors that influence body image, disordered eating, and risk of developing eating disorders in young adults.
Email:frazier@fiu.edu

Contact Tracing 

Jacqueline R. Evans, Ph.D.
Associate professor
Department of Psychology
College of Arts, Sciences & Education
Evans leads the Theory-based Research on Interviewing, Interrogation, Intelligence-gathering, and Assessing Deception Lab. She studies the application of psychological theory to the criminal justice system, with a primary focus on investigative interviewing contexts. Evans can discuss issues related to witness memory and best practices for investigative interviewing including the cognitive interview. She is a co-investigator in a new study funded by an NSF Rapid Response grant to identify a more effective way to conduct contact tracing.
Email: jacevans@fiu.edu

Deborah Goldfarb, J.D., Ph.D.
Assistant professor
Department of Psychology
College of Arts, Sciences & Education
Goldfarb is an attorney and assistant professor of psychology at Florida International University. She studies a number of topics at the intersection of law and psychology, including the development of children’s memory for past events. Goldfarb has published several articles on children’s eyewitness memory and testimony, delay in disclosure of prior events, and how children think about the legal system. She is the principal investigator in a new study funded by an NSF Rapid Response grant to identify a more effective way to conduct contact tracing.
Email:deborah.goldfarb@fiu.edu 

Inhibitor Research 

Yuk-Ching Tse-Dinh, Ph.D.
Director
Biomolecular Sciences Institute
College of Arts, Sciences & Education
Yuk-Ching Tse-Dinh is a leader in the study of topoisomerases, enzymes that regulate the winding of the DNA helix. Tse-Dinh's biomedical and biomolecular research spans across disciplines of chemistry, structural biology and genetics. Topoisomerase III-ß was recently identified as an enzyme coronaviruses and other RNA viruses require to replicate and spread infection in a person efficiently. Tse-Dinh and research partners are searching for an inhibitor that can block Topoisomerase III-ß in an effort to slow the spread of infection and increase a person's chance of survival from COVID-19. She studies the structure and function of DNA topoisomerases as the basis for discovery of antibacterial and anticancer drug leads from synthetic molecules and natural products. 
Email:ytsedinh@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-4956

Prem Chapagain, Ph.D.
Associate Director, Biomolecular Sciences Institute
Associate Professor, Department of Physics
College of Arts, Sciences & Education
Chapagain specializes in computational biophysics. His research focuses on biomolecular dynamics and function, a topic that is highly interdisciplinary in nature. Current projects include several important human health-related topics including functions of Ebola and Marburg virus proteins, epitope identification for vaccine development, and drug discovery for antibiotic-resistant pathogens. He is among a team of collaborators working with Yuk-Ching Tse-Dinh to find an inhibitor for Topoisomerase III-ß in an effort to slow the spread of infection and increase a person's chance of survival from COVID-19.
Email:chapagap@fiu.edu 

Financial markets, Economy & Interest Rates

Brian Van Hook
Regional Director
Florida Small Business Development Center
College of Business
Brian is a certified Business Continuity Professional with 15 years of experience in business continuity and disaster recovery. As small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic struggle to hang on, the Florida SBDC at FIU Business (FSBDC) has helped owners in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties navigate disaster assistance programs, getting funds into the business’ hands and developing strategies to weather the crisis. Areas of assistance include growth acceleration, business strategy, access to capital and market analysis
Email:bvanhook@fiu.edu

Sheng Guo
Professor
Department of Economics
Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs
Guo is an expert in macroeconomics, labor economics, financial economics, the economics of sports and household finance. He is from the region in China where the outbreak began. 
Email:sguo@fiu.edu 
Office: 305-348-2735

Deanne Butchey
Teaching Professor
Department of Finance
College of Business
Butchey and holds a PhD in Finance. Before joining FIU Business, professor Butchey worked as an Investment Banker and Financial Services Stock Research Analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston in their Toronto offices. Prior to this, she was a stock broker at Scotia McLeod and Merrill Lynch in Toronto.
Email:butcheyd@fiu.edu 
Office: 305-348-7238

Mark del Pezzo
Assistant Teaching Professor
Department of Finance
College of Business
Pezzo is a CFA and former investment banker and portfolio manager for numerous depository institutions and trust departments. The courses he teaches include advanced investments and financial management. He has worked as a portfolio manager at both Raymond James and Deutsch Bank.
Email: mdelpezz@fiu.edu 
Office: 305-348-2680

Mihaela Pintea
Associate Professor
Department of Economics
Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs
Pintea focuses on public policy and the way governments can affect welfare and growth through taxation and the provision of public goods (such as in infrastructure) with different productive characteristics.
Email:pinteam@fiu.edu
Office: (305) 348-3733

Supply Chain & Logistics 

Sebastián J. García-Dastugue 
Assistant Professor
Department of Marketing & Logistics
College of Business
García-Dastugue’s main area of research is how technology innovations impact supply chain management. His interest in innovation is twofold: examining how technology innovations disrupt supply chains, and also how supply chain professionals can assess and communicate these disruptions. He also works in B2B relationship management and supply chain strategy. His research has been published in Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Logistics, Journal of Supply Chain Management and The International Journal of Logistics Management.
Email:sgarciad@fiu.edu
Office: (479) 595-9282

Craig Austin
Assistant Teaching Professor
Department of Marketing & Logistics
College of Business
Austin specializes on export marketing, import/export and international logistics, as well as transportation logistics. Austin has more than fifteen years of experience in international logistics, CFS & Gateway operations, and supply chain logistics. He is director of Business Development & Supply Chain Logistics at PolePixie.com, a division of NetOrg.com. Previously he was the regional cargo ops manager at Laparkan Air & Ocean Shipping, International Division.
Email:laaustin@fiu.edu
Office: (305) 348-6747

Greg Maloney
Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Global Leadership and Management
Director, MS in Logistics & Supply Chain Management
College of Business
Specializes in marketing analytics plus marketing channels. He can discuss marketing analytics, its role in brands’ messaging, as well as multi-channel/omni-channel strategy, which has gained traction in the industry. Earlier in his career Maloney led the analytics department at Bacardi USA, driving marketing and sales outreach.
Email: Gmaloney@fiu.edu

Unemployment

Marc Weinstein
Clinical Professor, Department of Global Leadership and Management
Director, MS in Human Resource Management
College of Business
Weinstein specializes in the areas of occupational safety and health and employee wellness and is the Faculty Advisor for the FIU Student Chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management. He has published in a wide range of journals including Applied Ergonomics, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Management Research, International Journal of Occupational Environmental Health and The Journal of Construction and Engineering Management. Professor Weinstein has consulted with numerous companies and governmental organizations in the areas of labor and management relations as well as occupational safety and health. He previously held faculty positions at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Oregon. He received his Ph.D. in Human Resources from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Email: weinstei@fiu.edu

Politics

Thomas Breslin 
Professor of Politics and International Relations
Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs
Breslin is an expert on U.S. diplomatic history; China’s foreign relations history; U.S.-China relations; and ethnicity and religion in foreign affairs. Breslin is the author of the groundbreaking exploration of the effect of presidential ethnicity on American foreign relations from George Washington to George W. Bush, The Great Anglo-Celtic Divide in the History of American Foreign Relations.
Email: thomas.breslin@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-3765

Brian Fonseca
Director
Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy
Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs
Fonseca's technical expertise is in U.S. national security and foreign policy. His 2018 publications focus on Russian engagement in Latin America—including information operations, diaspora diplomacy and Russian-Venezuelan relations.
Email:fonsecab@fiu.edu
Office: (305) 348-2977

Eduardo Gamarra
Professor
Department of Politics & International Relations
Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs
Gamarra has been involved in research and public policy issues, academic exchanges, fund raising, and other multiple activities in most countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. He has served as the principal consultant on security sector reform, foreign policy, campaign strategy and strategic communications to several heads of state and government in the Americas.
Email:gamarrae@fiu.edu
Office: (305) 348-1718

Remote Learning & Working from Home 

Ravi Gajendran 
Chair
Department of Global Leadership and Management
College of Business
Gajendran's research focus is virtual work arrangements such as telecommuting, virtual teams, distributed teams and computer mediated communication. Before joining FIU he worked in the business industry for more than six years in sales, marketing, and market research. He held positions at Procter and Gamble and Cadburys India Limited.
Email: rgajendr@fiu.edu
Office: (305) 348-1102

Valentina Bruk-Lee, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
College of Arts, Sciences & Education
Bruk-Lee's research focuses on interpersonal conflict in organizations, employee satisfaction, occupational health and well-being, employee selection. Bruk-Lee has consulted with both private and public sector organizations in the areas of employee selection, job analysis, performance measurement, and competency modeling. Bruk-Lee is available for interviews in English and Spanish.
Email:vblee@fiu.edu 

Jose F. Rodriguez, Ph.D.
Instructor
Honors College and Department of Psychology
College of Arts, Sciences & Education
Rodriguez's academic and research interests intersect a number of different disciplines (psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, history, literature, philosophy, art). His research agenda is varied including stress and health in the workplace, indicators of success among college students, identity and adjustment of immigrant population, among other interests. Rodriguez is available for interviews in English and Spanish.
Email:jrodrigej@fiu.edu 

Crisis Communication

Aileen Izquierdo
Director
Global Strategic Communications master’s degree program
College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts
Izquierdo is a communications professional with more than 25 years of strategic communications, branding and crisis communications experience in private and public sector organizations. She has held several executive and management positions throughout her career, including serving as vice president for communications and marketing at multiple institutions. Izquierdo currently serves as the chair for the communication department at Florida International University and is part of the faculty. She also oversees the Global Strategic Communications master’s degree program at FIU.
Izquierdo is available for interviews in English and Spanish.
Email:aiizquie@fiu.edu
Office: 305-348-1984 

María Elena Villar, PhD
Associate professor, Department of Communication
Co-Director, Steven Cruz Institute for Media, Science and Technology
College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts
Villar teaches courses in research methods, multicultural communication, and advanced seminars in strategic communications. Her research focuses on culturally competent communication and communication as a tool to reduce social disparities, with a focus on science and health communication. She is currently conducting research on vaccine related communication. She has published her work in dozens of interdisciplinary Journals such as Journal for Immigrant and Minority Health, Journal of Hispanics in Education, Science Communication, Journal of Community Practice, Journal of Consumer Marketing, and Howard Journal of Communication, among others. She has been PI or co-PI on two NIH-funded pilot projects around health disparities and how minorities address health issues. In her career as a researcher and consultant, Dr. Villar has focused on diverse topics that range from culture and communication, evaluation of program outcomes, and racial and ethnic disparities. 
Villar is available for interviews in English and Spanish.
Email: mevillar@fiu.edu