Research Team

Dr. Kalousová is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Health & Society, and the Department of Sociology at Vanderbilt University. As a co-principal investigator, she co-leads all aspects of the project.

Dr. Kalousová received a PhD in Sociology and Health Services Organization and Policy and Sociology at the University of Michigan and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Nuffield College at University of Oxford. She received extensive training in quantitative methods and survey research and has a portfolio of independent and collaborative research on health disparities and policy.

At Vanderbilt, she teaches courses on social determinants of health, poverty and social programs, and disparities within the US healthcare system.

Deborah Carr is director of the Center of Innovation in Social Science and a professor of sociology at Boston University. She has written extensively on inequality in old age, death and dying, bereavement, and end-of-life planning. She has published more than 120 articles and chapters, and several books including Aging in America (University of California Press, 2023) as well as several co-authored textbooks. Her 2019 book Golden Years? Social Inequality in Later Life (Russell Sage) received the 2020 Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award from the Gerontological Society of America. She is also co-editor of the Handbook of Aging & Social Sciences, 9th ed. (Elsevier, 2021).

Clifford Ross is a medical sociologist whose research investigates the unique ways in which health disparities are socially patterned throughout the life course. Currently, his work emphasizes institutional level factors, and how these factors may influence the relationship between social environments and health. 

Founder & Executive Director, Evermore

Ms. Mulheron spent twenty-five years advising high-ranking politicians, including governors and The White House, and translating basic science into public policy. She has enjoyed leading significant initiatives for the National Governors Association, the National Academies of Science, and the American Cancer Society. Ms. Mulheron holds a master’s in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University, a degree in biochemistry and English from Virginia Tech, and a minor in chemistry. After a series of high-profile death events and the death of her daughter, Ms. Mulheron founded Evermore to change policy, advance research, and improve the lives of bereaved children and families. 

Assistant Professor, Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers University. 

Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Dr. Luth is a Core Faculty member at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, & Aging Research and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on identifying racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in palliative and end-of-life care and developing practical, inclusive, and scalable tools to reduce disparities and promote health equity. Dr. Luth holds a PhD in Sociology from Rutgers University trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Emmy is a recent graduate of the Medicine, Health, and Society M.A. program at Vanderbilt University. Prior to joining the HEAL Project, she conducted research at the San Francisco Department of Health, the Children’s Healthcare, Illness, Legacy, and Loss (CHILL) Lab, and the Vanderbilt Pediatric Hemostasis Treatment Center examining psychosocial and relational influences on health behaviors and wellbeing. Her primary research interests include social networks, healthcare decision-making, and chronic disease management.

Zhe is a fourth-year Sociology Ph.D. student. His research focuses on the social determinants of health and health disparities throughout the life course, with a particular interest in the roles of social relationships and social networks, stress/adversity, and social/political contexts. One line of his current research investigates the health and well-being of the single and living-alone population. Another line of his research examines whether state-level policies alleviate or exacerbate the mental health consequences of pandemic-related stressors.

Nashell is a first-year Master of Public Health (MPH) student at Vanderbilt University, concentrating in Health Policy. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences with a minor in Business from The Ohio State University.

Nashell is passionate about increasing healthcare access for vulnerable populations, with a particular focus on communities of color. She aims to advance health equity in a scholarly and culturally relevant way, through local community engagement and policies that directly reflect the needs of the populations served.