Jack Barile, Ph.D. (he/him), is the Principal Investigator for this project. He is the Associate Dean for Research for the College of Social Sciences, Director of the Social Science Research Institute, Professor of Psychology and Senior Advisor for the Health Policy Initiative. His primary research interests include understanding the role of neighborhood stress in the formation and maintenance of health disparities, ecological assessment, quantitative methods, and program evaluation. Jack's research centers around ecological determinants of health-related quality of life and well-being. This line of research includes the study of individual-level factors, such as adverse childhood experiences and multiple chronic medical conditions, as well as neighborhood-level factors, such as housing, crime, and poverty.

Saiful brings a wealth of social science research experience with a focus on urban communities, environmental management, and urban policy. His research experience comes via both research supervision and consultancy work in Bangladesh and Hawai'i. He has been, among others, a consultant for the World Bank, the GIZ, and the Municipal Development Fund of Bangladesh. He also worked as an analyst in such projects as the disparate treatment of Native Hawaiians in the criminal justice system, and the development of a funding formula for the state Executive Office on Aging. He has taught and often uses quantitative and geographic methods in his policy and evaluation research.

Charles (Charlie) Iwata (he/him) is a research and evaluation specialist supporting several projects with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) Social Science Research Institute. Charlie combines a keen qualitative sensibility with quantitative rigor to foster a synthetic and eclectic analytical approach in order to bridge the sciences and humanities. Charlie’s early background in humanities, communication, and digital media (B.S. in Arts & Letters from Portland State University) is complemented by postgraduate studies in library and information science and data analytics (UHM). Charlie’s professional work uses skills in data preparation, analysis, and modeling, with applications ranging from evaluation of Hawaii housing services and Medicaid waiver programs to predictive modeling for administrative health data, delivering human-centered solutions to complex problems. 

Outside of his primary work, Charlie’s interests include experiments with generative AI, media editing and production, bread baking, and amateur archaeology. He can often be seen on the south shore of Oʻahu, climbing a tree and playing ukulele.