(IPRAM)

Michael M. Orihuela, M.A. is a Field Coordinator in the Laboratory of Rumi Kato Price in the Department of Psychiatry. His responsibilities include monitoring and analizing project data as well as recruiting and interviewing research participants. Michael is also a second year MSW student at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to his entry into the field of behavioral research, Michael was a Senior Research Assistant in the Department of Rheumatology, overseeing the Rheumatic Disease Core facility, which aided investigators in genotyping and characterizing their various mutant mice models. His work has been published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (1995), Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (1996), and Immunity (2004). He has worked at the Mount Sinai Medical Center (NYC) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is a graduate of Rutgers University (B.S.) and Southern Illinois University (M.A.).

Michael is especially interested in the area acculturative stress in immigrant and minority populations and how genetic and environmental forces influence mental health status and comorbidity to substance abuse. Being the son of immigrant parents from Peru, Michael has developed a unique and empathic perspective about the concerns of individuals in a new country. Michael also has over four years experience teaching English in both South Korea and Japan. He spent two years working as a college instructor Human International University Japan teaching science, American culture, writing & public speaking courses to English proficient college students.