2003-2004 Scholars in Health Disparities

Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo received her undergraduate degree at Princeton University in molecular biology and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Before starting her graduate studies, she spent two years at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Dr. Bibbins-Domingo received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco and went on to complete medical school and clinical training in internal medicine.

As a general internist, Dr. Bibbins-Domingo is interested in the care of patients with chronic disease, and her research has focused on race and gender disparities in the care of patients with heart failure. She is currently a fellow in general internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Bibbins-Domingo is at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Vanessa Burt earned her medical degree at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina before settling in San Francisco to complete her training. She is an attending physician in internal medicine at Alameda County Medical Center (ACMC), UCSF and serves as a School of Medicine faculty member and Director of the ACMC Office of Diversity Affairs. Dr. Burt also serves as co-director of the Comprehensive Diabetes Management Program at ACMC.

Her research interests include identifying patient perceptions of illness control as contributors to diabetes disparities and evaluation of health outcomes with videoconference medical interpretation. Dr. Burt is at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Joseph P. Gone received an A.B. in psychology at Harvard University. Following a year of living and working at the Fort Belknap Indian reservation in north-central Montana, he pursued and received his doctorate in clinical and community psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. During his graduate training, he served as the Charles A. Eastman Dissertation Fellow in Native American Studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, before accepting an Internship in Psychology at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School in in Belmont, MA. Gone earned his Ph.D. in 2001.

Dr. Gone’s experience with Native American communities has shaped his academic research at the interface of anthropology and psychology in the emerging field known as cultural psychology. More specifically, he is committed to re-envisioning mental health service delivery for American Indian communities. His research interests encompass cross-cultural psychopathology; alternative clinical and community interventions; innovative mental health program development; and the ethno-psychological investigation of self, identity, personhood, and social relations in American Indian cultural contexts. His study of these phenomena are interdisciplinary, drawing upon formal training in psychological clinical science as well as currents of theory and practice in psychiatry, cultural anthropology, sociolinguistics, and community psychology. Dr. Gone is at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Melva Green graduated from Meharry Medical College. She completed her internship in Pediatrics at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. followed by three years of residency training in Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. She has received numerous accolades and appointments in the American Psychiatric Association as well as other political and social engagements.

Dr. Green’s research interests relate to health disparities in the treatment of patients with psychiatric disorders from multiple perspectives, e.g. political, economic and general social awareness. Dr. Green is at Morgan State University.

Dr. Sandra Jee received a B.A. in English from Yale University and her M.D. with Distinction in Research from the University of Rochester. She recently received an M.P.H. degree in Health Management and policy from the University of Michigan. She completed two years of pediatric residency training at New York University-Belleview Hospital and one year at the University of Michigan. She currently is completing a fellowship in Pediatric Health Services Research at the University of Michigan in the Division of General Pediatrics.

Dr. Jee’s current research interests include health status and health care utilization of children in foster care, continuity of care in home and medical settings, and social support for families of young children. As a fellow in Pediatric Health Services Research, Dr. Jee has been a grantee of the American Academy of Pediatrics Mentorship and Technical Assistance Program and the Ambulatory Pediatric Association’s Young Investigator Grant Award. Dr. Jee is at the University of Michigan.