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I'm the Principal Investigator and Director of the Lab. I'm a social epidemiologist, a public health professor at the University of California Merced and a Robert Wood Johnson Interdisciplinary Research Leadership fellow. My research is currently centered on the question of how place influences...

Educational Trajectories and Health This is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded study investigating education trajectories, the paths people take to complete their education, how it differs by sex, race/ethnicity, and family circumstances, and what the effect of different trajectories is on...

Sofia Aguilar, a native of Los Angeles, California, graduated from the University of California, Merced in 2024 with a bachelor's degree in Public Health. She was a Student Researcher in Dr. Yen’s Housing, Opportunity and Place (HOPe) Lab in the Department of Public Health. In this role, Sofia...

Undergraduate Research Assistant Alum Sofia Aguilar, a native of Los Angeles, California, graduated from the University of California, Merced in 2024 with a bachelor's degree in Public Health. She was a Student Researcher in Dr. Yen’s Housing, Opportunity and Place (HOPe) Lab in the Department of...

Merced City News/Upcoming Events: HOPe Lab and Cultiva Central Valley are collaborating with the Rural Health Equity and Learning Collaborative (HEAL) to host 1 of 3 a lunch and learning series in Merced. This series presents on immigration, health, and wellbeing in the San Joaquin Valley. Everyone...

We Investigate Social Factors Influencing Health and Well-Being The Housing, Opportunity and Place (HOPe) Lab is a research group at the University of California, Merced investigating key social factors affecting health and health inequities in California's Central Valley, the heart of California.