Meet Our Team

Asa Bradman

Asa Bradman, a UC Merced faculty member since 2020, specializes in exposure assessment and epidemiology. He leads studies on various environmental exposures, focusing on pregnant women, children, and farmworkers. Co-founder of CERCH at UC Berkeley, he engages in extensive community outreach and interfaces with policymakers and industry.
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Alec Chan-Golston

Dr. Chan-Golston, a biostatistician, specializes in Bayesian spatial statistics applied to Public Health. He studies finite population estimation, complex sampling designs, and spatial associations. His interests include the food environment, adolescent and mental health, wildfire prevention, disease detection, and zebra stripes. Raised in Clovis, he's dedicated to Central Valley health.
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Kate DeMarsh

Kate DeMarsh is a PhD student in Environmental Systems at UC Merced. She researches air pollution and atmospheric chemistry in California’s Central Valley. Kate holds a BA in Biophysics from Scripps College and studied Environmental Science of the Arctic at the Denmark International School in Copenhagen.
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Sidra Goldman-Mellor

Sidra Goldman-Mellor, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Public Health at UC Merced. A psychiatric epidemiologist, she studies the determinants and outcomes of suicidal behavior and mental health issues using big data. Her work focuses on vulnerable groups and is funded by NIH and other organizations.
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Sandie Ha

Dr. Sandie Ha, an epidemiologist, researches environmental determinants of health, focusing on perinatal and pediatric health. Using large datasets and clinical data, she examines how prenatal exposures affect mothers' and babies' health. She also identifies vulnerable subgroups for targeted interventions and participates in studies to mitigate environmental health impacts.
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Estrella Herrera

Dr. Estrella Herrera-Molina, with a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from UT El Paso, investigates air pollution's health effects post-dust events in Texas and the San Joaquin Valley. Her focus includes disparities in health determinants and their relation to pollution vulnerability. Her work spans predictive modeling, pollution control, and environmental management strategies.
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Trevor Hirst

Trevor Hirst, Executive Director of UC Merced Health Sciences Research Institute, shifted from law to education in 2002. He manages operations, staffing, strategic planning, budgets, and funding pursuits. With a background in civil litigation, he fosters research initiatives and facilitates collaborations in health sciences.
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Kimberly Valle

Kimberly Valle is a Public Health doctoral student at the University of California, Merced. Her research focuses on air quality and pediatric respiratory health.
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Deborah Wiebe

Dr. Deborah Wiebe, with a PhD in Clinical Health Psychology and an MPH from UAB (1988), helped develop Health Psychology training at the University of Utah. At UT Southwestern, she was Director of Research. Now at UC Merced, she leads the Health Psychology group. Her NIDDK-funded research focuses on managing type 1 diabetes in youth.