People

bhenwood@usc.edu

Benjamin Henwood, PhD, LCSW, is a recognized expert in health and housing services research whose work connects clinical interventions with social policy. Dr. Henwood has specific expertise in improving care for adults experiencing homelessness and serious mental illness, as well as in the integration of primary and behavioral health care. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (including the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and National Institute on Aging). He is a co-author of a book on Housing First published by Oxford University Press, and is the co-lead of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare’s Grand Challenge to End Homelessness. Dr. Henwood is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

kuhn@ucla.edu

Dr. Randall Kuhn (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1999) is a demographer and sociologist focused on the social determinants of health among vulnerable populations. He is an expert in survey design, longitudinal analysis and counterfactual research design. In the field of migration and health, Dr. Kuhn has designed new approaches to estimating the impact of migration on health. In global health, Dr. Kuhn leads a 35-year longitudinal study of the impact of health and development programs in Bangladesh. In the area of homelessness, Dr. Kuhn conducted some of the earliest quantitative research on health and substance use risks among chronically homeless adults. He led recent studies of COVID-19 mortality by homelessness status and race/ethnicity, unsheltered homelessness and health; and COVID-19 vaccination among unhoused populations. He currently leads or co-leads new studies that use mobile phones to measure the well-being of unhoused and recently-housed populations. 

Dr. Kuhn is a fellow of the California Center for Population Research, where he serves as Chair of the Executive Committee. He also serves on the advisory boards of the UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration and the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Kuhn previously chaired the Population Sciences Subcommittee of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. For 10 years Dr. Kuhn was Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver, where he developed an innovative curriculum, tripled enrollments, and built a programmatic emphasis on the health and human rights of disabled, LGBTQ, indigenous, and migrant populations as an essential component of achieving global health justice and equity. Dr. Kuhn founded the Goal 18 campaign for inclusive UN Sustainable Development Goals.

gcorlett@usc.edu

Gisele Corletto has extensive experience working with diverse populations throughout the Greater Los Angeles area, applying leadership, management, and clinical skills. She has successfully led multiple community initiatives and research projects focused on developing the best practices for underserved populations, including people experiencing homelessness and the military and veteran population in Los Angeles County. She has experience in cross-sector collaborations within higher education and the community. She currently serves as a Project Administrator at the USC Center for Homelessness, Housing, and Health Equity Research, utilizing her extensive knowledge in project management, leadership, academic research, and advocacy. Gisele holds an MSW from the Suzanne Dworak Peck School of Social Work at USC.

steinamy@usc.edu

Amy Stein serves as a Project Administrator and leads data collection for the Demographic Survey portion of the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. Prior to joining the Center she worked as an advocate for the unhoused through the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council and as an artist and educator in the field of photography. Amy holds a MSc in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

ericr@usc.edu

Eric Rice is a professor and the founding co-director of the USC Center for AI in Society, a joint venture of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Professor Rice received a BA from the University of Chicago, and an MA and PhD in Sociology from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles. He joined the USC faculty in 2009.

Professor Rice specializes in social network science and theory, as well as community-based research. His primary focus is on youth experiencing homelessness and how issues of social network influence may affect risk-taking behaviors and resilience. For several years he has worked with colleague Milind Tambe to merge social work science and AI, seeking novel solutions to major social problems such as homelessness and HIV.

Since 2002, Professor Rice has worked closely with homeless youth providers in Los Angeles and many other communities across the country. He is the creator of the TAY Triage Tool — to identify high-risk homeless youth for prioritizing them for supportive housing — which was incorporated into Orgcode’s Next Step Tool for homeless youth. Rice’s primary collaborators in Los Angeles are the Los Angeles Housing Service Authority, the United Way’s Home for Good, the LA LGBT Center, My Friend’s Place and Safe Place for Youth.

kwack@usc.edu

Stephanie Kwack currently serves as a Senior Research Programmer and helps manage the Homeless Count Project. Prior to joining the USC Schaeffer Center, she worked as an analyst at NERA Economic Consulting, an economic consulting firm producing economic expert reports and testimony for antitrust litigation. During her nine years at NERA, Stephanie worked in the healthcare department, dealing with a variety of data sources –e.g. sales data, inpatient discharge data, healthcare claims data- on antitrust, intellectual property, healthcare, labor and personal injury cases. She holds a BA in Economics from Wellesley College.

landrian@usc.edu

Dr. Amanda Landrian Gonzalez, PhD, MPH is a public health researcher and data analyst whose work currently focuses on conducting analyses related to the annual census of the sheltered and unsheltered homeless population in Los Angeles, as well as participating in numerous studies evaluating the role of housing-first approaches to improve health and quality-of-life outcomes among people experiencing homelessness. Dr. Landrian Gonzalez received her training as a social epidemiologist and demographer from the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA. Her research primarily focuses on the social and structural determinants of health among historically marginalized and vulnerable populations, with a particular interest in examining drivers of health inequities across racial and ethnic groups, immigration status, housing status, and gender and sexual minority identities.

scothick@usc.edu

Scot Hickey is a computer programmer and data analyst at the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research. He works on the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count and various other center research projects. His current work primarily relies on SAS, but he has also worked in VB/VBA, Java, Perl, Python, and SQL. Prior to joining the center, Scot spent two years at Kaiser Permanente Southern California as part of their Vaccine Safety Datalink team, and 20 years at RAND working on a wide variety of public policy research topics. He holds an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Kentucky where he focused on comparative politics and political violence.

Steveque@usc.edu

Steve Quezada is a Project Specialist with the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research. He joined USC in 2022 after years of working in the healthcare industry and public safety sector. Steve holds a BA Degree in History from Cal State LA and works primarily on the Miracle Friends and Money in California Study.

larrypos@usc.edu

Larry Posey is a Project Assistant with the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research. He has served as a data collector and team lead for the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count since 2018. He also works on other Center studies, including Miracle Friends, PCHOOSE, Vets Connect, and PATHS. Larry plans to complete his BA and continue his education with a MSW at USC.

eguadron@usc.edu

Erik Guadron is a Project Assistant with the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research. He has served as a data collector and team lead for the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count since 2022 and works on other Center studies including Miracle Friends, PCHOOSE and PATHS.

Jessie Chien is a doctoral candidate in Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health interested in examining the spatial context of health inequities for racialized and marginalized populations. She is trained in geospatial, multi-level, and longitudinal data analysis and spatial data visualization. She received her Master of Health Science at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Enehi Ameh is a 2023 USC JumpStart program Intern with the Center. The JumpStart Program aims to provide a pathway to PhD programs for underrepresented undergraduate students. Enehi is pursiuing Bachelor's Degrees in Global Mangemnt and Pycholoy at Earlham Colege, in Richmond, Indiana. She works on the Miracle Friends study.

Allan Sandoval is a 2023 USC JumpStart program Intern with the Center. The JumpStart Program aims to provide a pathway to PhD programs for underrepresented undergraduate students. Allan holds an AA in History from Santa Monica College and is pursuing a BA in Global Cultures from UC Irvine. He works on the Miracle Friends study.