Welcome Madina Halim and Reed Asselbaye!

Please join us in welcoming new staff Madina Halim and Reed Asselbaye!!

Madina started this morning and will be supporting Drs. Krista Harrison and Theresa Allison in their research projects as a Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC).  Madina graduated from the University of San Francisco with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and was working as a Behavioral Assistant/Therapist at Discover Hope in Fremont before coming to UCSF.  In her last role, she used Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) to promote communication, social, and life skills in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.  There, she gained valuable skills including the use of ABA to improve or change specific behaviors, use of reinforcement schedules, skill acquisition, reduction of problem behavior, behavioral data collection, and recording ABA data.  She was also a Research Design Undergraduate Teaching Assistant at USF, where she mentored and assisted students in and outside of lectures, provided feedback and assisted students with behavioral change surveys, as well as graded papers and exams.  She is also a volunteer Research Assistant at UCSF’s BrainChange Lab, and have participated in two Multi-modal Intergenerational Social Contact Intervention studies, where she gained valuable experience working with older participants screened for loneliness and social isolation to build a relationship through creative engagement and movement projects.  Her other volunteer experience over the years include: Information Desk Volunteer at Kaiser Permanente, Emergency Room Volunteer at Washington Hospital, and Dietary Volunteer at the Masonic Home of California, just to name a few.  Last by not least, Madina is fluent in Dari and Arabic, received the President's Award for Educational Excellence, and is highly skillful in using social media platforms.  In her new role at UCSF as a CRC, Madina will be recruiting research participants, abstracting medical and health data, administering surveys, conducting interviews, overseeing participant payments, and analyzing data using quantitative and qualitative methods.  Madina will be integral to the success of studies led by Drs. Harrison and Allison.  Madina can be reached at [email protected] if you need to get a hold of her!

Reed started this morning and will be supporting the Amend at UCSF team as a Program Coordinator.  Reed graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) with a double major in Politics and Legal Studies – his Undergraduate Honors Thesis was titled: Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Justice, Criminality, and the Right to a Fair Trial.  Before coming to UCSF, Reed was a Pan-African Research Fellow and Education Taskforce Lead at UCSC, where he collaborated with stakeholders from nine University of California undergraduate campuses and UCOP to organize a system-wide grant for UC’s Black and identity-based resource centers and coordinated with Santa Cruz County Office of Education and United Way of Santa Cruz to implement a peer-to-peer mentorship program for African/Black/Caribbean students at Santa Cruz High School.  His program coordination experience also include working as a Student Program Coordinator and Research Assistant at UCSC, where he oversaw a team of twelve undergraduate students to strategically organize campus programs that empower, strengthen, and retain over 900 African/Black/Caribbean students, and conducted surveys and interviews to assess how diversity in school climate affects academic engagement, cultural competence, and psychological well-being in students.  Last but not least, Reed was a Lead Legal Intern, for Run With It, an animated documentary film, and a Community Coordination Member for the NAACP of UCSC.  As Amend Program Coordinator, Reed will provide support on various programmatic functions for Amend, a health-focused prison reform program that delivers immersive learning and professional training programming to correctional professionals and partners with a range of stakeholders, including incarcerated people and their advocates, to advance a humane, healthy, and dignity-driven transformation of correctional culture in the U.S.. Reed will be involved in project planning and implementation, material development and other administrative operational functions such as coordinating and organizing training implementation and research interviews.  He brings a wealth of experience with him and we are very excited to tap into some of his experience and skillset in his new role.  Reed can be reached at [email protected] if you need to get a hold of him!