Resources
Research Team
Hope Seib McMaster, PhD
Hope serves as a civilian research psychologist at the Naval Health Research Center where she is the Principal Investigator of the Millennium Cohort Family Study and Principal Investigator of the newly funded Millennium Cohort Study of Adolescent Resilience (SOAR). Dr. McMaster helped launch the Family Study in 2010 and is now the lead investigator for all foundational papers and the mental health research portfolio director. Prior to joining NHRC, Dr. McMaster taught at the University of Hawaii while her family was stationed at Kaneohe Marine Corp Base, worked as a research psychologist for the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine, and examined racial disparities in health for the Nashville Metropolitan Health Department. Over the past two decades, she has published on the topics of racial bias, racial disparities in health, military couple relationships, survey methodology, and factors influencing military spouse well-being. She also has two active-duty military-connected adolescent daughters.
Valerie Stander, PhD
Valerie is the Deputy Principal Investigator for the Millennium Cohort Family Study and has studied the well-being of military personnel and their families at the Naval Health Research Center for 25 years. During that time, she has conducted research on diverse issues such as interpersonal aggression, substance abuse prevention, and self-help for returning combat veterans. Currently, Dr. Stander continues to be interested in multiple traumatic exposure and its long-term consequences among service members and their families in the military community.
Isabel Altarejos, MPH
Isabel is a research scientist and study coordinator at the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC). She has contributed to a wide range of behavioral health research projects for the past 11 years. Isabel joined the Family Study team in 2020. Prior to her work at NHRC, she held positions at various institutions, including the Center on Gender Equity and Health, the Fulbright Program, the UIC Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health, and Rady Children’s Hospital. Her research interests center on identifying and addressing health disparities and inequities. Isabel earned a Master of Public Health degree in community health from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from San Diego State University.
Lauren Bauer, MPH
Lauren has served as a Study Coordinator for the Millennium Cohort Family Study at the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) in San Diego, CA for the past ten years. Prior to her role with the Family Study, she worked on two other research studies investigating the well-being of service members; the Millennium Cohort Study and the Recruit Assessment Program. She received her Master of Public Health from San Diego State University in 2012.
Alex Esquivel, MPH
Alex is a Data Analyst for the Millennium Cohort Family Study (MCFS) at the Naval Health Research Center. His time at NHRC has been primarily with the Family Study where he’s helped publish manuscripts regarding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, military separation, and other various topics. He has also worked as an intern and Research Assistant with the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) prior to his time with the Family Study. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from California State University San Marcos in 2015 and Master of Public Health from San Diego State University in 2017.
Travis N. Ray, Ph.D.
Travis is a Research Psychologist supporting the Millennium Cohort Family Study at the Naval Health Research Center. He manages the study’s Relationship Health portfolio, which encompasses research on marital quality/satisfaction, family resilience, and intimate partner violence. His primary research interests consist of examining risk and protective factors of aggression perpetration and victimization, including sexual assault and family violence. He is interdisciplinary in his research perspective and approach, often integrating theory and methodology common to psychology (social, health, clinical, cognitive), public health, sociology, criminal justice, economics, and environmental studies.
Sabrina Richardson, PhD
Sabrina is a developmental psychologist interested in child adaptation to military and non-military risk, with a particular attention to relationship processes of resilience. She has worked at the Naval Health Research Center for the past seven years. Among her topics of study, Sabrina has focused on foster youth sibling relationships and narrative meaning making, social worker-youth communication processes, military spouse adjustment to and readiness for future deployments, marital stability among military spouses, and child maltreatment in the first two years of life among military parents. Most recently, Sabrina has been studying child behavioral adjustment to family separation from service.
Kelly Woodall, MPH
Kelly is an epidemiologist at the Naval Health Research Center serving with the Millennium Cohort Program for over 10 years. She is an author and coauthor on publications addressing physical, mental, and behavioral health among service members and their families, military family readiness and retention, as well as spouse economic well-being. Her expertise is in the management and analysis of complex datasets including longitudinal cohort research designs, mixed survey and archival data, and dyadic data modeling. She is a military spouse with three young children.