WELL for Life Staff

Connie Huang
Research Administrative Assistant

Connie earned a Bachelors in Supply Chain, Information Analytics from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University. Following her graduation, Connie joined the WELL Bay Area team in June 2019.

Previously, Connie statistically analyzed consumer data and product data to assess product/production quality and consumer behavior. She is interested in utilizing similar methods to contribute to the various domains of well-being analyzed through the WELL studies, specifically for WELL China and WELL Bay Area.

Valerie McGuire
Senior Research Scientist 

Valerie obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from the University of Ottawa, Master of Public Health in Nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Washington. Her research has focused on clinical and epidemiologic studies of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurological disorders.

Valerie worked with the Toronto-McMaster Lipid Research Clinic (LRC) as the Director of Nutrition Research, a multi-center study of coronary heart disease. She then worked as a research nutritionist at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and contributed to the development and implementation of studies looking at the relationship of diet and other risk factors on cancers of the breast and colon. At Stanford, she has worked on studies of cancers of the breast and ovary as well as studies of neurologic disorders, including Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Yan Min
Research Assistant

Yan obtained her Bachelor of Medicine from Peking University Health Science Center, and Master of Arts in health policy from Stanford University. Her research was focused on health inequity, population aging and long-term care in developing countries.  

Yan has worked at the World Health Organization Department of Health care System Financing. Her research there included investigations of long-term care insurance programs, and analysis of healthcare system efficiencies within Eight East Asian Countries. As a visiting researcher, Yan was involved in two fieldworks conducted by National Taiwan University School of Public Health with a focus on the elderly’s living arrangements in Taipei.

Katy Peng
IT System Analyst

Katy has more than thirteen years of experience working in large high-tech corporations including DELL and HP. She started as a programmer analyst, working on building enterprise integration platform to reduce cost and complexity for data integration within businesses. She then held a project manager position, responsible for team building, coaching team members in multi-culture global areas, and managing large-scale EAI projects through all phases of project lifecycles.

Katy earned Master of Arts in Biological Science from University of Texas at Austin, and Master of Science in Computer Science from Texas State University.

Tamkinat Rauf
PhD Candidate

Tamkinat is a PhD candidate in Sociology. She is broadly interested in the role of macro and meso social factors in shaping well-being, health, and opportunities for human flourishing. In her graduate research, she uses longitudinal data to study the causal effect of social forces, such as life course transitions and networks, on subjective and objective aspects of well-being.

Her work with WELL investigates the relationship between disease and various domains of well-being. She has a Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from the University of Chicago and earned her undergraduate degree in Pakistan. Prior to starting her PhD at Stanford, she worked at the central bank of Pakistan and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.

Tia Rich
Senior Research Assistant

Tia Rich earned a PhD and MSW in Social Welfare form the University of California, Berkeley and a MA in Health Psychology and BA in Human Biology from Stanford University. In 1981, Dr. Rich completed fifteen months of full time residential training as a mindfulness yoga and meditation teacher while living at the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy.

Dr. Rich’s education also includes training and experience in Chinese Medicine, Buddhism and Christianity, and Chinese brush painting and pastel portraiture.

Patricia Rodriguez Espinosa
Postdoctoral Researcher

Patricia, a native of Habana, Cuba, earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 2018 and a Master of Public Health (Health Policy concentration) in 2017, both from the University of New Mexico. Her graduate research work concentrated on health equity, racial residential segregation and the science of Community-Based Participatory Research. She is currently a research fellow with the Stanford Prevention Research Center. She is currently working with WELL analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data.

Janice Zhang
Research Assistant

Janice obtained her Bachelor of Science in Human Biology from Stanford University, with a concentration in Epidemiology and Public Heatlh.

She has perviously worked to implement public health interventions and improve chronic disease management in China. Janice is excited to utilize her international experience to bridge well-being research in San Francisco Bay Area and abroad. In the future, she hopes to attend medical school and continue working globaly.