Dr. Stefano M. Bertozzi is dean emeritus and professor of health policy and management at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Previously, he directed the HIV and tuberculosis programs at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Bertozzi worked at the Mexican National Institute of Public Health as director of its Center for Evaluation Research and Surveys. He was the last director of the WHO Global Programme on AIDS and has also held positions with UNAIDS, the World Bank and the government of the DRC.He is currently the interim director of the UC systemwide programs with Mexico (UC-MEXUS, the UC-Mexico Initiative and Casa de California). He recently co-edited the Disease Control Priorities (DCP3) volume on HIV/AIDS, Malaria & Tuberculosis. He has served on governance and advisory boards for the East Bay Community Foundation, HopeLab, UNICEF, WHO, UNAIDS, the Global Fund, PEPFAR, the NIH, Duke University, the University of Washington and the AMA. He has advised NGOs, and ministries of health and social welfare in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and a PhD in health policy and management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his medical degree at UC San Diego, and trained in internal medicine at UC San Francisco.
As Executive Director for the UC Berkeley Center for Global Public Health and the UCB-UCSF Center for Global Health Delivery, Diplomacy, and Economics, Hildy Fong Baker is responsible for leading global health education and research initiatives, including programs such as the Gilead Fellowship for the Advancement of Global Health, the SPH Global Health Specialty, Bay Area Global Health Innovation Challenge, and RR:C19. She participates in strategic planning for campus and Bay Area global health initiatives, including the Bay Area Global Health Alliance of which UCB serves as current Secretariat. She is a Lecturer in the UC Berkeley MDP program and online MPH program. She is the PI for UC Berkeley’s involvement in the USAID HEARD project. Baker studied health policy and management at UNC-Chapel Hill, Johns Hopkins University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University, and has worked in various roles at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, WHO Child and Adolescent Health Unit in Geneva, NKF Singapore, the U.S. Senate, and Ogilvy Public Relations.
Michael Cronce is a PhD candidate in the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint Program in Bioengineering co-advised by Drs. Jeffery Cox and Jay Keasling. His research focuses on developing novel antiviral therapeutics, including those targeting SARS-CoV-2. He received his undergraduate degree in Biology (B.S.) from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill with a double minor in Marine Sciences and Chemistry. Following graduation, Michael researched distal lung stem cell biology under Dr. Brigid Hogan, developed translationally-relevant tissue engineering approaches under Dr. Jay Vacanti, and designed new microfluidic organ-on-chip platforms under Dr. Donald Ingber. He was the first Assistant Editor for the Biological, Chemical, Physical Sciences and Engineering Domain.
Ángel Ibarra graduated in 2018 from UC Berkeley where he received his undergraduate degree in Sociology with an emphasis in medicine, global health, and health inequalities. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he is pursuing a career in medicine with the aim of providing health care to historically excluded, financially disenfranchised, urban communities. Following graduation from UC Berkeley, Ángel has been a key contributor to the Rapid Review enterprise at every step, helping as a domain coordinator, volunteer outreach coordinator, and executive assistant to the Editor-in-Chief. He is passionate about enhancing access to quality peer reviewed science, and closing the gap between research, policy and practice.
Angel Paul is a current MPH student at UC Berkeley with a program concentration in Epidemiology/Biostatistics. She received her undergraduate degree from UC Irvine in 2020, with a double major in Public Health Sciences and Public Health Policy. Angel is particularly interested in learning how to employ data-driven research models to create effective study designs that promote health equity.
Suraj Rajan is a current undergraduate student at UC Berkeley majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in Neurobiology and Data Science with an emphasis in Neurotechnology. In the future, Suraj hopes to pursue a career in surgery and would like to bring the automation of surgeries to third-world countries.
RR\ID relies on student-powered engine of graduate and undergraduate students, post-docs and fellows. A core team of Assistant Editors and specialists spearhead review teams across 3 subject domains. On a daily basis, teams search, screen and assess preprints across the domains: Biological and Chemical Sciences | Physical Sciences and Engineering; Public Health | Social Sciences and Humanities; and, Medical Sciences. AI tools also support this work. Assistant Editors are also closely involved with outreach to the Editorial Board and peer review networks in subsequent stages of the RR\ID process. See a list of students and early career researchers supporting each of our domains here.
Anushka Gupta is a Scientist at 10x Genomics in the Bay Area, where she focuses on building novel tools and assays that enable bio-molecular measurements at single-cell resolution, both in situ, and in dissociated tissues. Prior to this, Anushka graduated from the UC Berkeley-UCSF Graduate Program with a PhD in Bioengineering, where her research focused on elucidating obesity pathogenesis by building novel microfluidics and molecular tools that enable investigation of adipose tissue biology at the single-cell level. Anushka received her undergraduate and master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.
Gina Borgo is a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF. She graduated with her PhD from UC Berkeley in 2022 where her research in Dr. Matt Welch's lab focused on tick-borne Rickettsia and how bacterial phospholipases facilitate adaptation and pathogenesis in the host. She received her undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cell Biology (B.A.) from UC Berkeley in 2012. Following graduation, Gina studied Bartonella in Dr. Jane Koehler's lab at UCSF. While in Dr. Koehler's lab, Gina worked on Bartonella quintana transcriptional regulation when transitioning from human infection to body lice, investigating Bartonella isolates from wild animals, humans, and lice, and overseeing diagnosis and clinical coordination of Bartonella patients in the Bay Area.
Liane graduated from UC Berkeley in the spring of 2022 with a Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering and a minor in Data Science. She plans to pursue a graduate degree and career in Data Science and is particularly enthusiastic about the intersection between medical research and predictive modeling. She has a deep interest in physical sciences and engineering research and is enthusiastic about the work she does within her domain to learn more about emerging BCSPSE studies related to COVID-19 and broader infectious diseases.
Allie recently graduated from UC Berkeley’s 4+1 MPH program with a concentration in Epidemiology and Biostatistics after completing undergraduate degrees at Berkeley in Molecular and Cell Biology (Immunology) and Public Health. While at Berkeley, Allie was a part of the Madsen Research Group and Falbe Lab where she contributed to multiple projects surrounding obesity and chronic disease prevention. She completed her graduate practicum with Vitalant Research Institute conducting phylogenetic analyses to identify drug resistance patterns in HIV-infected blood donors, and is now a Data Analyst at UCSF's F.I. Proctor Foundation. Allie joined RR:C19 in June 2021 and is excited to still be working with the group as the dissemination of accurate, accessible research remains essential to addressing the long-term implications of Covid-19.
Mindy graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor’s in Statistics in 2021. After graduation, she did a service year with National Health Corps, serving at the San Francisco Department of Public Health as a COVID-19 Responder/Behavioral Health Coordinator. She is currently pursuing a MPH in Epidemiology at University of Washington and hopes to pursue a PhD in the future. She is interested in study methodology, causal inference, and mathematical epidemiology.
Helena Archer is an epidemiology PhD candidate in the School of Public Health and studies the intersection of infectious disease and the natural and structural environment. Prior to joining Berkeley, she worked as a CDC PHAP fellow in maternal and child and injury epidemiology at a local health department in Arizona, in health informatics at a nonprofit in Lusaka, Zambia, and in global health research consulting while completing her MPH at the University of Washington in 2020. At Berkeley, her research focuses on evaluating environmental and individual risk factors for COVID-19, including the environment of California state prisons and exposure to oil and gas well production; she also works with Dr. Sandra McCoy on a trial to evaluate pharmacy-based PrEP distribution for people who sell sex in Zimbabwe.
Sarah Goksoy is a junior at the University of California, Berkeley pursuing a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology with an emphasis in genetics and genomics. She began working with RR:C19/RR:ID as a volunteer in her sophomore year and continued as an intern for the summer where she learned how to find reviewers and preprints on the impact of COVID-19 and various infectious diseases in the public health domain. After she finishes her undergraduate education, she plans to attend medical school.
Dr. Bryan Tegomoh is a Cameroonian-born physician and medical epidemiologist. He obtained his MD from the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon and worked for several years in Cameroon. He was previously a visiting researcher at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, in the Division of Biology and Biological Sciences, and later completed his MPH in Infectious Diseases at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. He sits on several organizations and societies on tropical medicine and applied epidemiology, with interests in emerging infectious diseases, epidemic and pandemic preparedness, and building capacity in outbreak response. His work has facilitated genomics-informed outbreak investigations. Dr. Tegomoh is very passionate about pathogen genomics, clinical research and investigative medicine, and public health, and how research findings can be directly translated into policies that impact the lives of vulnerable populations.
Grace Hildebrand is a second year medical student at the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint Medical Program. Her interests include policy and infectious diseases, along with health equity and community interventions addressing health disparities. Prior to medical school, she spent two years completing a fellowship at the Science Technology Policy Institute where she conducted policy research and analysis for Federal science agencies. A significant amount of her efforts focused on supporting the COVID-19 response, and she also supported projects on the US research infrastructure and health and life sciences.
Sean is a second-year medical student at the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program. He graduated from Brown University in 2019 with a concentration in immunobiology. He pursued basic science research in microbiology, with a parallel interest in global health policy. After graduating college, he worked as a clinical research coordinator at UCSF for projects in the field of electrophysiology and COVID-19. His medical school interests lie in infectious diseases, with a thesis on molecular epidemiology of urinary tract infections.
Iran Torres Aleman is a senior at UC Berkeley majoring in Public Health. She is a part of Alison’s Gopnik Cognitive Development and Learning lab where she contributes to multiple projects about children’s exploratory and learning behavior through spatial objects. She is particularly interested in medical research that may help implement health policy to decrease morbidity and mortality rates in low-income communities.