ACTRI Executive Committee

David (Davey) M. Smith, MD, MAS, FACP, FIDSA, Director of ACTRI

Michael Hogarth, MD

Assistant Vice Chancellor
Clinical Research Information Officer (CRIO)
Director of ACTRI Biomedical Informatics, Biostatistics, and Data Science
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

mihogarth@ucsd.edu

Michael Hogarth, MD, joined the ACTRI Executive Committee in 2017. Dr. Hogarth is an Internist and UCSD faculty in the Division of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) and currently serves as UCSD’s inaugural Clinical Research Information Officer (CRIO). As CRIO, Dr. Hogarth leads efforts to align and integrate resources in Information Services with clinical research informatics, including ACTRI services. He also develops and optimizes strategies to use our current technology and systems to support the integration of research with patient care, including the use of the electronic health record (EHR) for clinical research. Dr. Hogarth graduated from the biomedical engineering program at Texas A&M University and received his medical degree from the University of Texas-Southwestern. Dr. Hogarth completed Internal Medicine training and a medical informatics fellowship at UC Davis. He subsequently joined the faculty at UC Davis where he practiced as an Internist in the Division of General Medicine and served as Vice Chair of Informatics in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine with primary responsibility over the laboratory information system.  Dr. Hogarth has taught and conducted research in medical informatics in the University of California for over two decades and currently teaches in the UCSD informatics curriculum, the ACGME-accredited clinical informatics fellowship, and the DBMI internship program for undergraduate and high school students. His current research interests include the use of clinical natural language processing,  large language models, and knowledge representation with biomedical ontologies. He has won the prestigious UC Sutter award for innovations in information technology and has been a primary contributor on several informatics endeavors including UC-Research eXchange (UC-ReX), pSCANNER, the I-SPY2 adaptive breast cancer trial, the WISDOM breast cancer screening trial, the California Integrated Vital Records System (Cal-IVRS), and CTSA’s ENACT (Evolve to Next Generation Accrual to Clinical Trials).

Elizabeth (Liz) Johnson

Administrative Director
Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute | PREPARE Center | The HIV Institute | San Diego Center for AIDS Research
ACTRI Executive Committee Member
liz@health.ucsd.edu 

Liz Johnson joined the ACTRI as their Administrative Director in August 2024. In this role, she oversees administrative and financial operations as well as contributes to the overall short- and long-term strategic planning of the ACTRI. With 25 years of leadership experience across healthcare, social services, and research administration, Liz brings a wealth of expertise in organizational development, strategic visioning, and operational excellence. Her expertise includes management, compliance, strategic planning, grant writing, and fundraising. Liz’s track record of success is demonstrated by her ability to drive organizational growth and impact.

Since joining UC San Diego Health Sciences in 2016, Liz has played a pivotal role in advancing key institutional programs. She served as the Administrative Director for the UC San Diego HIV Institute, the San Diego Center for AIDS Research, and the PREPARE Center. In each of these roles, she was instrumental in shaping strategic goals, initiatives, and innovative programming.

Before joining UC San Diego, Liz served as the Executive Director of Christie’s Place for 14 years, where she transformed the organization into a nationally recognized human services agency for individuals and their families impacted by HIV.

Colin Depp, PhD

Co-Director of ACTRI Workforce Development
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

cdepp@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4251

Colin Depp, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, a faculty member at the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at UC San Diego and a staff psychologist in the VA San Diego. He became director of ACTRI's Education, Training and Career Development Unit in 2014, after serving as associate director of the unit from 2011 to 2014. He has spearheaded multiple ACTRI initiatives, including the Mentoring Core, research published on training methods, the Clinical Research Enhancement through Supplemental Training-Master of Advanced Studies (CREST-MAS) behavioral science curricula and the Day of Translational Science symposium. Dr. Depp has extensive experience in collaborative interventional research in the area of mental health and wireless technology, receiving continuous funding from NIH, VA, foundation and other sources for 10 years. He leads a multidisciplinary research group comprised of clinicians, clinical trialists, behavioral scientists, community health workers, biostatisticians, software engineers and patient stakeholders. An accomplished translational researcher, teacher and clinician, Dr. Depp has mentored more than 40 trainees through epidemiologic, translational, randomized, interventional and implementation science studies. Dr. Depp has served on multiple editorial boards, NIH and international review panels and collaborative networks, and has published more than 130 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and commentaries.

Dr. Depp received a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Louisville. He then completed a pre-doctoral internship at the Palo Alto Veteran's Administration and a National Research Service Award post-doctoral fellowship in the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at UC San Diego.

Christina Chambers, PhD, MPH

Professor of Pediatrics at UC San Diego and Director of Clinical Research, Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego and Rady Children's Hospital
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

chchambers@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 246-1704

Christina Chambers, PhD, MPH, joined the ACTRI Executive Committee in 2012. Dr. Chambers is a professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego and director of Clinical Research for the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego and Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego (RCHSD). She has been instrumental in smoothing the interactions between researchers at UC San Diego and Rady Children's researchers, working closely with ACTRI's Mark Wallace, and in establishing a research-only breast milk biorepository at UCSD/Rady Children's, along with ACTRI's David Boyle.

Dr. Chambers is a perinatal epidemiologist whose research is focused on environmental exposures and pregnancy and child health outcomes. She co-directs the UC San Diego Center for the Promotion of Maternal Health and Infant Development, and leads a number of national and international clinical research projects addressing medication and vaccine safety in pregnancy. She has conducted extensive research on improved diagnosis, prevention and treatment for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. Dr. Chambers received a PhD in public health/epidemiology in 2002 from the joint doctoral program at UC San Diego and San Diego State University. She is the author of more than 100 research publications and has served as president of the US Teratology Society, as well as president of the North American Organization of Teratology Information Services.

Kathryn A. Gold, MD

Co-Director of ACTRI Human Centered Research
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

kagold@ucsd.edu

Dr. Gold co-leads the CRS with Mark S. Wallace, MD, who has served as director of the division since 2010. Dr. Gold joined ACTRI as associate director of CRS in July 2017. Dr. Gold co-directs the day-to-day functions of the unit, which manages a dedicated research clinic, voucher applications and the Scientific Review Committee. The research clinic includes 18,000 square feet of state-of-the-art facilities to support all phases of clinical research and presently supports nearly 300 clinical research projects each year.

Dr. Gold is an associate professor at UC San Diego Department of Medicine and board-certified in internal medicine and medical oncology. Her clinical and translational research interests include lung and head and neck cancer, with a focus on target therapies and immunotherapies. Prior to joining UC San Diego Health, Dr. Gold was an assistant professor in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Dr. Gold completed a fellowship in medical oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she was selected for her clinical and leadership abilities to serve as chief fellow. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Dr. Gold received her medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Dr. Gold has presented her work at both national and international medical conferences. She has coauthored many articles, and her research has appeared in The Lancet Oncology, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and The New England Journal of Medicine, among others. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association of Cancer Research and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

Mark Wallace, MD

Co-Director of ACTRI Human Centered Research
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

mswallace@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-0776

Mark Wallace, MD, joined the leadership team at ACTRI in 2010 and has overseen the establishment of the ACTRI Center for Clinical Research (CCR), including the opening of a Phase I clinical trials unit with an investigational pharmacy. Dr. Wallace has been responsible for extensive growth in the CCR, which provides assistance with study design and biostatistics analysis, nursing and clinical coordinator services, and regulatory and pharmacy services. With the help of Christina Chambers, he also has been instrumental in establishing a larger ACTRI presence at Rady Children's Hospital and is currently on a steering committee to streamline the clinical trials application process.

Dr. Wallace is the Chair, Division of Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology of University of California at San Diego, which is actively involved in clinical care, teaching, and research. A nationally recognized lecturer on pain medicine, he has extensive experience in all aspects of pain management and is involved in numerous ongoing clinical trials for the management of pain, including acute, chronic, and cancer related pain. Under his direction the UCSD Center for Pain Medicine has received the American Pain Society Center of Excellence Award in 2010 and 2014. His research interests include human experimental pain, spinal drug delivery, and the use of the cannabinoids in pain management. Dr. Wallace earned his medical degree at Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska. He then completed an internship in general surgery at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC, a residency in anesthesiology at the University of Maryland, and a Fellowship in Pain Medicine at UCSD Medical Center. He has authored and coauthored more than 180 articles, abstracts, books, and book chapters concerning pain research and management. Dr. Wallace is an associate editor of The Clinical Journal of Pain and sits on numerous other editorial boards.

Samuel R. Ward, PT, PhD

Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery & Radiology
Affiliate Professor of Bioengineering
Vice Dean of Research, School of Medicine
Vice Chair of Research and Innovation- Orthopaedic Surgery
Director, Device Acceleration Center, ACTRI

s1ward@health.ucsd.edu

Phone: (858)534-4918

View Dr. Ward's Bio Page

Samuel R. Ward, P.T., Ph.D. is a Professor in the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery, Radiology, and Bioengineering at UC San Diego. He is the Director of Translational Research in the School of Medicine, the Vice-Chair of Research and Innovation in Orthopaedic Surgery, Director of the Device Acceleration Center, and Director of the Muscle Physiology Laboratory.

Dr. Ward received his PhD from USC (1999-2003) and moved to UC San Diego for a post-doctoral fellowship (2003-2006). He is a clinician-scientist and his research program focuses on musculoskeletal design and plasticity. He has published 175 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has been continuously funded by the NIH, DoD, and other agencies since he started his faculty appointment in 2006. His scientific accomplishments include defining the structural features of human skeletal muscle that predict function in the extremities and spine. This work has been extended to understand normal and pathological muscle biology and physiology in the presence of joint disease. His current focus is on understanding chronic muscle atrophy and cell death in mature adults, with an emphasis on the use of stem cells and regenerative medicine approaches to treat these disease processes. His work has led to career achievement awards including the Kappa Delta Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, and Marion Williams Award from the American Physical Therapy Association. He is also a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Orthopaedic Research Society, American Physical Therapy Association, and a Distinguished Alumn at the University of Southern California and California State University Long Beach.

Dr. Ward is also an avid craftsman, photographer, and outdoorsman. His artistic work has been featured and won awards at several local and state competitions.

John Ayers, PhD, MA

Associate Adjunct Professor, Medicine
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

jwayers@ucsd.edu

Dr. Ayers is committed to getting the public back in public health, by harnessing big media data (including Internet search queries, news media, social media, and online networks) to listen to the public voicing their health needs in near real time. Beginning in 2011 he showed electronic cigarettes were the most popular smoking alternative on the market, being the first to predict their rise. This study has been followed by several examples of unique discoveries making public health science more responsive to the public and more effective in the process. For instance, his recent JAMA Internal Medicine report describing how Charlie Sheen’s HIV-positive disclosure prompted record-levels of public engagement with condoms, HIV symptoms, and HIV testing was covered in more than 6,000 news outlets and trended on both Facebook and Twitter. The publication of this report was later linked to a significant increase in HIV testing and made more impactful by partnering with several medical device makers to implement follow-up campaigns encouraging at-home HIV testing and condom use. His work has also been trans-disciplinary (e.g., he has published with more than 60 different collaborators, from more than 50 different research institutes representing many fields, such as applied mathematics, climatology, communications, computer science, economics, engineering, political science, sociology, and more). Dr. Ayers has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and several commentaries/op-eds, many of which rank in the very top of Altmetric’s research rankings (including one study that ranked among the top 1,000 most circulated articles of all time). He has an h-index of 26 (26 publications with 26 or more citations). Dr. Ayers is a frequently featured expert in the international media, including coverage in traditional news (e.g., ABC, BBC, CBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, NPR, etc.), tech or business focused news (e.g., Bloomberg, Forbes, Popular Science, Scientific American, Wired, etc.), and entertainment news (e.g., Dr. Drew, Dr. Oz, Perez Hilton, Rolling Stone, Saturday Night Live, etc.). Dr. Ayers is committed to promoting rapid improvements in public health science and leveraging public health science to save lives.

Adriana Tremoulet, MD, MAS

Professor of Clinical, Pediatrics
ACTRI Executive Committee Member
atremoulet@ucsd.edu

Dr. Adriana (Adri) Tremoulet is Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Host-Microbe Systems and Therapeutics in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego, specializing in pediatric infectious diseases and clinical pharmacology. She serves as the Associate Director of the Kawasaki Disease (KD) Research Center at UC San Diego, caring for nearly 2000 children with KD in San Diego County and an additional 100 children annually hospitalized at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego with KD. The primary focus of her research is repurposing therapeutics in Phase I through III clinical trials for inflammatory and infectious disorders. She has a passion for pediatric pharmacology and serves as the co-principal investigator of the NIH-funded UC San Diego MPRINT Center of Excellence as well as co-Director of the UC San Diego Department of Pediatric T32 Clinical Pharmacology Training Program and Altman Clinical Trials Research Institute KL2 program. She is the former Chair of the American Heart Association’s Rheumatic Fever, Endocarditis and Kawasaki Disease Committee, responsible for co-authoring the 2024 AHA Scientific Statement for Kawasaki disease. In 2022, Dr. Tremoulet was appointed as the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences Faculty Affairs. In this role, she has made great strides in developing effective strategies, programs and initiatives to enhance success of all faculty as well as improving strategies for effective recruitment, retention and development of faculty.

Paul L. Watson, Jr., MSHS

President/CEO, The Global Action Research Center (Global ARC)
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

The Global ARC Website

Formerly Executive Director of the Training and Research Institute for Residential Youth Centers in New Haven, CT; San Diego Youth and Community Services; and Watson and Associates International. Paul began his career as a youth organizer at the age of 17. He has a Master's degree from Springfield College. He began a consultant organization in 1998 and specialized in Community Development, Youth Development, Child Welfare, and Organizational Development. He successfully completed International projects in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan), The Netherlands, Brazil, Jamaica, and Egypt. He is a national trainer in Youth Development and a member of the Community Youth Development Design Team. He was trained as an ICA Participatory Facilitator. Paul has also served as faculty at Springfield College, New School of Architecture and Design, San Diego City College, and UC San Diego. Paul has won numerous awards and has published both books and articles.

Stephanie Warner Farrell , MBA, RN, CCRC, CPHQ

Director of Research Administration, Eisenhower Health
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

Stephanie Warner Farrell has a diverse work experience spanning multiple industries. Stephanie started their career in 1993 at Eisenhower Medical Center, where they worked as a Human Resources Generalist and later as a Systems Analyst, responsible for managing various systems. In 1998, they joined Accelerated Technology Solutions, Inc. as a Senior Project Manager, leading a PeopleSoft implementation. In 2000, Stephanie joined Commerce One as a Services Manager. Since 2003, Stephanie has been working at Eisenhower Medical Center in various roles, including Director of Quality/Risk Management/Infection Control, Coordinator of Clinical Cancer Research, and Director of Research Administration. Their work at Eisenhower Medical Center involved managing lung screening programs, coordinating clinical trials, ensuring regulatory compliance, and overseeing quality and risk management.

Stephanie Farrell earned a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing from California State University-San Bernardino from 2011 to 2014. Stephanie also obtained an MBA in Information Systems from the same university from 1996 to 1998. Before that, Stephanie achieved a BA in Business Administration and Management, General from California State University-San Bernardino from 1989 to 1993. In addition to their degrees, they hold various certifications including Registered Nurse (RN) from the Board of Registered Nurses - California (obtained in 2014), Certified Clinical Research Coordinator (CCRC) from the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (obtained in 2007), and Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) from the National Association of Healthcare Quality (obtained in 2006).

Jamison Langguth, MPH, MSED

Director of Clinical Research, Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center CIRM Alpha Clinic
ACTRI Executive Committee Member
858-951-8349
j1langguth@health.ucsd.edu

Jamison has spent his career working with scientific innovations to find their first practical application. He started out in clinical research analyzing EEG waveforms and has since worked his way up through clinical operations into management. He is currently Director of Clinical Research at Stanford University’s Center for Clinical Research. In his role at Stanford, he works toward creating funds, programs, and supporting team science on the ground to ensure that health innovations become new standards of care. His clinical trials experience spans working with child and adult populations across a variety of disciplines including space and sleep medicine, digital health, cardiology, neurology, addiction, oncology, regenerative medicine, and infectious disease. His commercialization experience mainly involves creating and launching therapeutic, medical device, and digital health companies.

Jamison serves on two boards and volunteers separately as an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) for two programs. He is a board member and co-founder of Aero Therapeutics, which helps physicians treat respiratory issues in low-resource settings with the company’s sustainable, rugged, and affordable medical devices. He recently joined the board of Terra Firma International, which strives to break intergenerational poverty. He volunteers as an EIR and Silliman College Fellow for Yale University and as an EIR Mentor with OneRise’s WEF Global Shapers Initiative. OneRise is a non-profit initiative that aims to level the playing field by connecting immigrant founders to the knowledge, skills, and networks needed to succeed.

Jamison earned his undergraduate degree in psychology at Drexel University. He earned his first master’s degree in education policy from the University of Pennsylvania where he focused his coursework on within-school and between-school segregation. He earned his second master’s degree in health management from Harvard University where he focused his coursework on management of large healthcare institutions and their endowments. He then completed his fellowship in life science entrepreneurship at Yale University.

Kathleen Fisch, Ph.D

Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences (OB/GYN)
Faculty Director, Center for Computational Biology & Bioinformatics (CCBB)
Co-Director, Center for Perinatal Discovery (CPD)
ACTRI Executive Committee Member
kfisch@health.ucsd.edu

Kathleen Fisch, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, in the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine. She joined the ACTRI Executive Committee in 2025. Institutionally, Dr. Fisch serves as the Faculty Director of the ACTRI Center for Computational Biology & Bioinformatics (CCBB) and as the Co-Director of the UC San Diego Center for Perinatal Discovery. In these roles, she spearheads the development of a vibrant, leading edge vision for computational genomics, bioinformatics support and infrastructure to support translational research across UCSD Health Sciences.

Dr. Fisch received a B.A. in Integrative Biology from University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Ecology with an emphasis in population genetics from University of California, Davis. She completed her postdoctoral training in population genomics and modeling in the Genetics Division at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, followed by postdoctoral training in computational genomics and bioinformatics at Scripps Research in the Department of Molecular & Experimental Medicine.

Dr. Fisch’s research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying pregnancy disorders and exposures to improve maternal and child health throughout the lifespan. Active areas of research in Dr. Fisch’s lab include exploring the role of somatic mutations in placental dysfunction, identifying non-invasive biomarkers of placental disorders and investigating the relationship between pregnancy outcomes and prenatal exposures. Dr. Fisch is involved in multiple team science projects. Most notably, she is the Project Lead for the Data Analysis Core of the NIH Common Fund HuBMAP Female Reproductive Tissue Mapping Center (U54HD104393) and is a consortium multi-PI for the Omics Data Generation Center (ODGC) for the NIH Common Fund Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures Program (U54DA049115). Through these translational genomics projects, she has published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles to date.

Maryam Gholami, PhD, MSc

Senior Manager of Evaluation
Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute (ACTRI)
ACTRI Executive Committee Member
UC San Diego Health
mgholami@health.ucsd.edu

Dr. Maryam Gholami is Senior Manager of Evaluation at the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute (ACTRI), UC San Diego Health. In this role, she provides strategic leadership for evaluation, performance monitoring, and continuous improvement across all ACTRI units, ensuring alignment with NCATS goals and UC San Diego’s translational science priorities.

At the national level, Dr. Gholami leads multi-CTSA initiatives focused on evaluation and impact assessment, helping shape best practices for hub evaluation across the consortium. She is an active member of CTSA national working groups and collaborates on efforts to advance the Translational Science, Learning Health Systems, and Implementation Science.

Dr. Gholami also provides consultation to research centers offering expertise in evaluation design, logic model development, continuous quality improvement, and data-driven strategy. Her work has supported multiple institutions in strengthening their evaluation capacity and demonstrating translational impact to funders, investigators, and community stakeholders.

Her career bridges health psychology, implementation science, and evaluation. She has led initiatives in community health promotion, digital health intervention evaluation, and institutional performance improvement. Her scholarship includes publications on translational science evaluation, digital health, and behavior change, with a strong record of citation and recognition in the field.

At ACTRI, Dr. Gholami’s leadership has been pivotal in modernizing hub evaluation, supporting strategic planning, and aligning deliverables across units. As a member of the Executive Committee, she brings both local and national perspective, contributing to ACTRI’s mission to accelerate the translation of discoveries into better health outcomes for San Diego communities and beyond.

Shane Crotty, PhD

Shane Crotty, PhD
Professor & Chief Scientific Officer, La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI)
Director, LJI Center for Vaccine Innovation
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

Dr. Crotty graduated from MIT with dual degrees in Biology and Writing and obtained his Ph.D. at UCSF. He carried out postdoctoral studies at Emory University before starting his laboratory at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, now the La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), in 2003, where he is now a full professor and the Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Crotty’s lab studies the fundamental immunology underlying vaccine functions (Immunity 2013, 2018. Cell 2019. Nature 2022. Science 2024). Crotty’s laboratory is best known for understanding T follicular helper (Tfh) CD4 T cells and their critical role in antibody responses and germinal centers (Science 2009, Immunity 2019, Nature Immunology 2020). The Crotty lab made important contributions to COVID-19 research (Cell 2020, Science 2021, Cell 2022, Nature 2024). Dr. Crotty was a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, and has been a Highly Cited Researcher in immunology for 9 years running. He was elected to the AAAS, holds an NIH Merit Award, and was awarded the 2023 American Association of Immunologists (AAI) Herzenberg Award for outstanding career contributions to B cell biology.

Gretchen Bandoli, PhD MPH MBA

Associate Professor; Pediatrics
University of California San Diego
Co-Director I SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health (Epidemiology)
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

Dr. Bandoli is an Associate Professor in Pediatrics and the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. She is the UCSD track director of the joint doctoral program in Epidemiology. As a perinatal epidemiologist, her research focuses on a variety of maternal and fetal exposures, and outcomes for the pregnancy and offspring. She is particularly interested in applying casual inference methodology in perinatal epidemiology, and applying new methods around exposure assessment and refinement, which is often highly dynamic and complex over the course of gestation. She has over 100 peer-reviewed publications and a book chapter, and has mentored over 40 students, postdoctoral fellows and early career faculty. Dr. Bandoli’s first research award came through an ACTRI TL1 fellowship in 2016. Since then, she has maintained full NIH funding as PI of several awards. She formally joined ACTRI as an Associate Director in the Center for Population Methods (formally Population Research and Scientific Methods) in 2020, and joined the executive board in 2025 as the Director of the Pilot Program.

Dr. Bandoli earned her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2015, and also has an MPH from San Diego State University and an MBA from Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

Raul A. Lizarraga Jr

Clinical Research RN – Lead/Manager, Research Center
ACTRI Executive Committee Member
El Centro Regional Medical Center

Raul A. Lizarraga Jr. is a dedicated healthcare professional and educator with a Master of Science in Nursing & Healthcare Leadership from San Diego State University–Imperial Valley. He currently serves as the Clinical Research RN Lead and Nurse Supervisor at El Centro Regional Medical Center, where he oversees clinical trials and nursing operations. Raul also teaches part-time as an Assistant Instructor in Nursing and Allied Health at Imperial Valley College, fostering student growth and engagement.

With a strong background in patient care, research, and leadership, Raul has held multiple roles ranging from Social Service work to Patient care Tech, Cath Lab RN to Outpatient RN, Acute Care RN, and Clinical Research RN. He is bilingual (English/Spanish), a skilled communicator, and an advocate for foster youth and community development through his work with local organizations and nonprofits.

Raul has been an active member of multiple professional organizations since attending school, including the local chapter of NSNA, which he helped establish while completing his MSN, and he is active in his local AACN chapter. He has served on various research councils and committees, including chairing the ECRMC Research Operations Council and the Multidisciplinary Research Committee, and participating on several other local boards. Raul is recognized for his compassionate leadership, meticulous attention to detail, and unwavering commitment to continuous improvement. He is dedicated to mentoring, community engagement, and advancing healthcare through collaborative research and education.

Suzanne Page, JD

Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
ACTRI Executive Committee Member

Suzanne Page, JD, is the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. She oversees the Institute’s operational functions, including information technology, facilities, environmental health and safety and campus events. As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, Suzanne partners with senior leadership to advance Salk’s mission and strengthen its role as a global leader in scientific discovery.

Before joining Salk, Suzanne served as Vice President of Operations at the Steadman Philippon Research Institute in Vail, Colorado, where she directed operations and supported laboratory programs across the nonprofit research institute. She was instrumental in launching Steadman’s federally funded clinical trials program and securing the prestigious Regenerative Medicine Innovation Project Award from the National Institutes of Health.

As the first employee and COO at Longeveron, Inc. (NASDAQ: LGVN), she helped launch the cellular therapy company that spun off from the University of Miami, building its manufacturing and R&D infrastructure and overseeing its clinical trials. While at the University of Miami, Suzanne created a new clinical research department to accelerate research, while serving as the Executive Director for Research Operations and Revenue Cycle.
Suzanne earned her Bachelor of Science in Finance and Juris Doctor from Indiana University and is a member of the bar in California, Illinois, and Washington.

With extensive experience in both nonprofit and for-profit research organizations, Suzanne brings a collaborative, service-oriented approach to leadership that supports operational excellence and scientific innovation.