Stanford ADRC Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Core
The Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Core assists in recruiting volunteers for the Stanford Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC). Our recruitment emphasizes patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Dementia with Lewy Bodies; patients with mild cognitive impairment; and healthy older controls without neurological disease or cognitive impairment.
The Core plays a crucial role in enrolling and retaining patients and controls who are Hispanic/Latino or American Indian. These groups are poorly represented in research programs on cognitive aging and neurodegenerative disorders. In many instances, Core efforts begin with educational programs and stress reduction programs for the caregiver, who is recruited along with the patient.
Other Core aims are to provide educational opportunities for medical students, medical residents and fellows, and health professionals who work with patients with Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease and their families.
Our academic and community partners include the Stanford Geriatric Education Center; the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute; the Northern California and Northern Nevada chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, the American Parkinson Disease Association; and the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley.
Lisa Goldman Rosas, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor (Research) of Epidemiology & Population Health and of Medicine (Primary Care & Population Health)
Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Core leader
An epidemiologist by training, Dr. Goldman Rosas’s research addresses disparities in chronic diseases in racial and ethnic minority groups. She received her MPH and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research features rigorous quantitative and qualitative methodologies and shared leadership with patient and community partners. She is passionate about integrating patients, caregivers, community organizations, and other key stakeholders in the research process to improve health and well-being. Dr. Goldman Rosas serves as the Faculty Director for the School of Medicine Office of Community Engagement and the Stanford Cancer Institute Community Outreach and Engagement Program. In addition to research, she teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels and has a special focus on increasing diversity in biomedical research.
Patricia Rodriguez Espinosa, PhD
Instructor, Department of Epidemiology & Population Health
Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Core associate leader
Dr. Rodriguez Espinosa serves as the Associate Director of Research for the Office of Community Engagement at the Stanford University School of Medicine and directs the ADRC program for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI). Her research aims to decrease health inequities among racial and ethnic minority populations, particularly Latinxs and immigrant communities, through transdisciplinary and community-engaged scholarship. She uses community-based participatory research and related approaches to understand factors that create and maintain health inequities, such as residential segregation. She uses these insights to develop novel multi-level interventions and health promotion programs that address the inequity gap. Dr. Rodriguez Espinosa is a native of Habana, Cuba, and a clinical psychologist by training.
Wei-ting Chen, PhD
Executive Director, Office of Community Engagement
Community Engagement & Partnerships Specialist
Dr. Wei-ting Chen is the Executive Director of the Office of Community Engagement at Stanford Medicine. As a sociologist, she focuses on how social inequality shapes socially disadvantaged individual’s family experiences, life chances, and health outcomes from a life course perspective. Prior to joining Stanford Medicine, Dr. Chen was field-based academic in the California Cooperative Extension system, working on applied research projects in close collaboration with community partners.
Juan Sebastian Perez
Bilingual Outreach Coordinator
Juan Perez received his Bachelor's Of Science in Biobehavioral Health from Pennsylvania State University in 2021, where he gained experience in emergency medicine research from Hershey Medical Center, along with lab and outreach work with Penn State's Biofuels Lab. Working shortly as a phlebotomist, he transitioned over to research and moved across the country from New Jersey to join us here at the ADRC as the new bilingual outreach and engagement research coordinator for the ORE core.