NIMHD Early Career Investigator Award

Jorge A. Rodriguez, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Physician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Jorge A. Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and a Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He received his M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine and completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a Clinical Informatics fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Dr. Rodriguez’s research focuses on the thoughtful assessment and application of health technology to achieve health equity, especially for patients with limited English proficiency. His work includes contributions to bridging disparities in patient-facing technologies, such as patient portals, mobile apps, artificial intelligence, and telemedicine. He has published on the multilevel factors affecting the opportunities and challenges of applying technology to improve the health of minority populations.

Dr. Rodriguez is currently working on an NIMHD K23 award entitled, "Toward Technology Equity: Extending Telemedicine to Latino Patients with Type II Diabetes," which focuses on interventions to ensure equity in access and use of digital tools for diabetes care. He secured a supplement to this grant focused on telemedicine use among women of reproductive age, where he applies health services research and machine learning methods. He has also been awarded grants from the National Academy of Medicine, the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, and the Research in Implementation Science for Equity program, funded by the NHLBI.

In addition to his research, Dr. Rodriguez is committed to guiding the next generation of healthcare professionals and researchers. He mentors trainees, fostering their development in the fields of health technology, health equity, and research.

Dana Mowls Carroll, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, School of Public Health
University of Minnesota

Dr. Dana Mowls Carroll is a tenure-track assistant professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. She received her Ph.D. in epidemiology from University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Carroll has published 44 peer-reviewed scientific articles on topics that advance understanding of and evaluate smoking cessation among American Indian (AI) persons, including geographic disparities among AI smokers, relationships between tobacco marketing exposure and commercial tobacco use, and differences in dependence to electronic cigarettes versus traditional cigarettes in this population.

Dr. Carroll has received grants from multiple NIH institutes. She has an active NIMHD K01 grant, “Laying the Foundation for Personalized Smoking Cessation Treatment in the American Indian Population,” focused on examining genetic susceptibility to smoking; developing genetically informed, personalized behavioral treatment interventions; and culturally adapting technology-based apps for smoking cessation among AI persons. Dr. Carroll also secured an R21 grant from NCI and an R36 grant from NIDA, and helped obtain funding from NIMHD via an R13 grant to support the 2022 National Tribal Tobacco Conference.