Research Team
HEAL PROJECT TEAM 2024/2025
HEAL PROJECT TEAM SUMMER 2025
Dr. Lucie Kalousova
Co-Principal Investigator
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.
Dr. Deborah Carr
Co-Principal Investigator
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).
Dr. Clifford Ross
Postdoctoral Researcher
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.
Joyal Mulheron
Consultant
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.
Dr. Elizabeth Luth
Consultant
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.
Bennie Damul
Project Coordinator
Benmun is a Global Health MPH student at Vanderbilt University, with research interests in mental health and how stigma, discrimination, and inequalities affect healthcare outcomes in marginalized communities. She graduated from Xavier University with a BSc in Psychology. While at Xavier, she was a Community Engaged Fellow and a Brueggeman Research Fellow.
Emmy S. Schuler
Research Assistant
Emmy is a Medicine, Health, and Society Masters student with a focus on social epidemiology. She has worked with the San Francisco Department of Health on The Partners Study and recently launched a pilot study at the Vanderbilt Pediatric Hemostasis Treatment Center assessing psychosocial needs of adolescent patients transitioning to adult care. Emmy hopes to further explore the role of psychosocial support and social networks in infectious and chronic disease management.
Zheng (Noah) Lian
Graduate Student
Noah is. a first year PhD. Student in the sociology department at Vanderbilt University. His primary research interests are the ways in which different aspects of social relationships affect individuals’ health-related behaviors. His contemporary project looks at how social support, as a multidimensional construct, directly or indirectly affects end-of-life healthcare decision-making with a special focus on the moderation effect of racial-ethnic identity. He graduated from Emory University with a B.S. in Quantitative Sciences and a double major in Sociology.
Brina Ratangee
Research Assistant
Brina Ratangee is a master’s student in Medicine, Health, and Society (MHS) at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests span aging, dementia, caregiving, and end-of-life care. She earned her B.A. in MHS and Neuroscience from Vanderbilt, where she conducted her senior honors thesis on family caregiver mental health. Her master’s thesis will explore disparities in end-of-life care, and she hopes to bridge population and policy research with clinical care in her future career.
Iliana Behague-Mentzel, Iliana
Intern
Iliana is a current senior at the University School Of Nashville. She is passionate about public health and hopes to pursue a topic in that field. Outside of high school, she is part of the PEAs, focused on helping others and teaching peers about important subjects such as Seasonal affective disorder or the realities of Drunk Driving. In addition to this group, she is passionate about the organization she founded called Women in STEM where she has hosted multiple panels and inspired young women in high school. Pursuing both the sciences and the arts she also loves glass making, this year she won a gold key at the Middle Tennessee Scholastic Art Awards.
Call
615-343-2636
healproject@vanderbilt.edu