HOPe Lab 

Dr. Irene Yen, MPH

Irene Yen is the principal investigator and director of the HOPe Lab. She received her B.A. from Stanford University and her MPH and PhD from UC Berkeley. She is a social epidemiologist, a public health professor at the University of California Merced and a Robert Wood Johnson Interdisciplinary Research Leadership fellow. Irene's current research is centered on the question of how place influences health. That is, how things like transportation, walkability, the food environment, and socioeconomic status influence health. 

 Rebecca Martinez, MPH

Rebecca Martinez, MPH, was born and raised in California’s Central Valley. She received her BA in Public Health at UC Merced and her MPH at the University of Southern California. She is a full-time staff researcher for UC Merced’s HOPe Lab, working alongside residents in Merced and Fresno counties advocating for equitable housing for all. Rebecca a member of Power CA Action where she is also a member on their policy committee, advocating for bills that ensure safe and affordable housing for all Californians. She also interns at the Iris Cantor WHERC, training and working alongside promotoras, highlighting the environmental effects on women's reproductive health. Through her experience and upbringing, Rebecca is passionate about working towards a California where everyone is housed, healthy, and thriving. During her free time, she enjoys going to the gym, reading a good book, and cuddling with her pitbull Apollo. 

  Nylah Hassaan-Warren

Nylah Hassaan-Warren serves as a Volunteer Research Assistant at the HOPe Lab at UC Merced. She was raised in the Central Valley and recently earned a Bachelor of Arts in Public Health from the University of California, Merced. Nylah brings experience from the non-profit sector, where her current work centers around addressing disparities related to cardiovascular health in underserved communities of the Central Valley. With aspirations of becoming a social epidemiologist, she is deeply committed to promoting health equity and diminishing disparities in vulnerable populations. Nylah will begin her pursuit of a Master of Public Health with a concentration in epidemiology in the Fall of 2024. During her free time, she enjoys going to the gym, photography, sewing, and traveling. 

Faith in the Valley, Fresno

Dr. Janine Nkosi

Alexandra Alvarado

Cultiva Central Valley 

Claudia Corchado

David Frausto

Juan Zavala- Sandoval

Anabel Serna

MIT

 Sylvia Jiménez Riofrío 

Sylvia holds an architecture diploma from the School ofArchitecture, Design, and Arts from thePontifical Catholic University of Ecuador-PUCE, where she has served as associate professor, former Dean of the School, and Coordinator for the Master of Urbanism program. She has postgraduate degrees in Development and Planning from University College London,Bartlett School of the Built Environment through an Inter-American Development Bank fellowship.

Currently, she is a doctoral student at MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning as a Fulbright and Norman B.and Muriel Leventhal Fellow at the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism–LCAU while a principal investigator at the Center for Research in Health for Latin America CISeAL-PUCE at the HealthyHomes for Healthy Living Initiative. Her research interests encompass sustainability indicators of the built environment at the building and urban scale and their repercussions on human health and well-being

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