Our Team
Executive Director
Billy Caceres, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAHA
- Associate Professor of Nursing
Research Areas of Focus: Psychosocial stressors; Cardiovascular and sleep health across the lifespan
Co-Directors
Walter Bockting, PhD, LP
- Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry and Nursing)
Research Areas of Focus: identity development across the lifespan, transgender health, SGM aging
Core CUSON Faculty
Kasey B. Jackman, PhD, RN, PMHNP-BC, FAAN
- Associate Professor of Nursing at CUMC
Research Areas of Focus: Prevention and Treatment of Mental Health Disparities Among SGM People
Jean-Marie Bruzzese, PhD
- Professor of Applied Developmental Psychology (in Nursing)
Research Areas of Focus: understanding and reducing health disparities in children and adolescents
Maureen George, PhD, AE-C, RN, FAAN
- Professor of Nursing at CUMC
Research Areas of Focus: community-based participatory research, health inequities, health beliefs, behavioral interventions
![Profile Headshot]( "Maureen George, PhD, AE-C, RN, FAAN")
Corina Lelutiu-Weinberger, PhD, MPhil, BA
- Associate Professor of Health Sciences Research (in Nursing)
Research Areas of Focus: racial, ethnic, sexual and gender minority health equity; stigma and discrimination; mental health; substance and alcohol use; HIV/AIDS continuum of prevention and care; global health; multi-level intervention research; mobile health technologies; implementation science
![Profile Headshot]( "Corina Lelutiu-Weinberger, PhD, MPhil, BA")
Core Columbia Affiliates
Patrick J. Lao, PhD
- Assistant Professor of Neurological Sciences (in Neurology and in the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center)
Research Areas of Focus: neuroimaging and biofluid biomarkers, ontextual factors that capture relevant mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease in underrepresented and underserved groups
Jessie Ford, PhD
- Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences
Research Areas of Focus: influences of expectations and inequalities around gender and sexuality on sexual health, violence, and pleasure
Sarah McKetta, MD, PhD
- Assistant Professor of Epidemiology
Research Areas of Focus: structural stigma, behavioral health (including alcohol use, sexual health, and mental health), lifecourse approach, measurement, policy impacts and health dispartities
Founding Director
Tonda L. Hughes, PhD, RN, FAAN
- Henrik H. Bendixen Professor of International Nursing (in Psychiatry)
Research Areas of Focus: Sexual minority women's health; alcohol and substance use epidemiology; mental health outcomes
Fellows
Tyler Gaedecke, PhD, RN
- Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Area of Focus: Research Areas of Focus: Access to care and healthcare teams for transgender and gender-diverse individuals, care delivery after gender-affirming surgery, mixed-methods research, social network analysis
Ana Vasquez, DNP, MPhil, RN, PMHNP-BC
- PhD Candidate
- Predoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: Policy and mental health; immigrant and Latinx mental health; minority stress; culturally responsive, community-based interventions to advance mental health equity among SGM and other minoritized communities
Susan Maloney, BSN, RN
- PhD Candidate
- Predoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: Transgender and gender diverse adolescent sexual health as it relates to policy at the school-, district-, and state-levels; gender diverse populations, pediatrics, sexuality and gender, and an intersectional approach to public policy
Sophia Kalomeris, BSN, RN
- PhD Student
- Predoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: Sexual minority women, improving sexual health outcomes by mitigating barriers to care, STD/STI status
Former Pre and Postdoctoral Fellows
Cindy Veldhuis, PhD
- Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: Role of intimate relationships in sexual minority women's alcohol use
Current position: Assistant Professor of Medical Social Sciences, Impact Institute, Northwestern University
Lauren Bochicchio, PhD, LCSW
- Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: mechanisms linking childhood sexual abuse and hazardous drinking among sexual minority women
Current Position: Assistant Professor of Social Work, College of Staten Island, City University of New York
Jeremy D. Kidd, MD, MPH
- Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: clinical research, culturally adapted psychosocial interventions, alcohol use, opioid use, transgender health, medical education
Current position: Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Program Director, Mount Sinai Morningside/West Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship; Medical Director, Outpatient Treatment, The Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai West Hospital
April Ancheta, PhD, MSHP, RN
- Former Predoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: SGM adolescent health, bullying and obesity-related health disparities
Current position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Clinician Scholars Program at Penn and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Kodiak Soled, PhD, MPhil, MSN, RN
- Former Predoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: Social support experiences among SGM+ childbearing individuals
Current position: Senior Evaluator, Seattle / King County Department Of Public Health
Joseph Belloir, PhD, MSN, RN, PMHNP-BC
- Former Predoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: SGM mental health, relationship between traumatic/adverse experiences and sleep disturbances in transgender and nonbinary individuals
Current position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Columbia University School of Nursing
Yashika Sharma, PhD, RN
- Former Predoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: Impact of minority stress on substance use and mental health of SGM people
Current position: Assistant Professor, Elisabeth DeLuca School of Nursing, University of Connecticut
Sarah Zollweg, PhD, RN
- Former Predoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: Structural influences on sexual minority women’s substance use and mental health
Current Position: Assistant Nurse Manager, Stanford Health
Sarah Leonard, PhD, MSN, RN
- Former Predoctoral Fellow
Research Area of Focus: Intersectional discrimination as an underlying cause of SGM mental health disparities
Current position: T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Population Health Science Scholars Program, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Tyler Gaedecke, PhD, RN
- Former Predoctoral Fellow
Research Area of Focus: Access to care and healthcare teams for transgender and gender-diverse individuals, care delivery after gender-affirming surgery, mixed-methods research, social network analysis
Current position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Psychiatric Epidemiology Training (PET) Program, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
David Lopez Veneros, PhD, MA, BSN, RN
- Former Predoctoral Fellow
Research Areas of Focus: Mindfulness and mind-body connection, stress management, physical activity, cardiovascular health, and health disparities among sexual and gender minority populations
Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow in Integrative Medicine at Harvard Medical School