Research Team

Dr. Huan Jiang is currently a project scientist on the NIAAA grant 'Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states'. She graduated from McMaster University with a PhD in health research methodology. Her general research focuses on models and evidence-based methodologies for public health. She has worked in several areas of epidemiology and clinical medicine. Her current interests include design and analysis of observational research studies; risk assessment and communication; and evaluation of policies and interventions with respect to reducing inequalities and increasing efficiencies.  

Dr. Alexander Tran is currently a Project Scientist collaborating with Dr. Shannon Lange and Dr. Jürgen Rehm on the NIAAA grant 'Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states'. He graduated from the University of Waterloo with a PhD in social psychology. His research interests include understanding the effects of alcohol policy on alcohol consumption and mortality, employing interrupted time series analyses, and investigating the social and cognitive factors that lead to the motivation to consume alcohol.

Victoria Kim is a Master of Public Health, Epidemiology student at the University of Toronto and is passionate about research that can be translated to affect real-world change. Her main research interests include chronic health conditions, addictions, and public health policy. Her prior experiences include leading a systematic review on yoga to inform Osteoporosis Canada’s updated clinical practice guidelines, managing a smoking cessation knowledge translation project at CAMH’s Nicotine Dependence Services, and performing time-series analyses to evaluate the impact of alcohol control policies on stroke mortality. Victoria is currently working on a mixed methods study aimed at gaining a better understanding of the sociodemographic factors, determinants, and surrounding circumstances of suicide pacts in the United States.

Anush Zafar is research practicum student at Dalla Lana School of Public Health pursuing a Master of Public Health with over 6 years of experience in data collection methodologies and direct patient care. Her research interest lies in evidence-informed practice and sociobehavioural health.

PhD Mindaugas Štelemėkas is the Head of Health Research Institute (WHO Collaborating Centre for the Prevention & Control of NCDs), and an Assoc. Prof. at the Department of Preventive Medicine of the Faculty of Public Health, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. His background education is Public Health and Health Economics, and his main area of academic interest is behavioral health risk factors such as alcohol and tobacco. He is currently a Co-PI on the NIAAA grant project 'Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states' (grant no. 1R01AA028224).

Prof. Janina Petkevičienė (MD, PhD) has been working in the area of epidemiology and prevention of chronic noncommunicable diseases for 40 years and have published more than 70 articles in the journals indexed in the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science. She has been involved in many international projects aimed at monitoring changes in health behaviors of Lithuanian population, including alcohol consumption habits, and health risk assessment (Country-wide Integrated Noncommunicable Disease Intervention (CINDI) programme, Finbalt Health Monitor project, Student Life Cohort Study in Europe (SLiCE), and some European Union research projects). She uses the experience gained in her research to teach students in epidemiology and disease prevention. She is currently is a Co-PI on the NIAAA grant project 'Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states' (grant no. 1R01AA028224).

 Prof. Ričardas Radišauskas (MD, PhD) has worked in the epidemiology of chronic non-communicable diseases for more than 30 years and has published more than 70 publications in journals indexed by the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science. He has participated in many international projects aimed at assessing the health risks of Lithuanian rural and urban population, including evaluation of alcohol consumption habits and risk for health (Country-wide Integrated Noncommunicable Disease Intervention programme (CINDI), Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease project (MONICA), Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors In Eastern Europe (HAPIEE) study and some other EU research projects. He uses his research experience to teach students the epidemiology of chronic non-communicable diseases, environmental and lifestyle risk factors. He is currently is a Co-PI on the NIAAA grant project 'Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states' (grant no. 1R01AA028224).

PhD Tadas Telksnys defended his Computer Science PhD thesis in 2020 m. at the Kaunas University of Technology. The thesis concerns a novel technique to construct analytical solitary solutions to various classes of differential equations (DEs). Currently a researcher at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences and Kaunas University of Technology, his interests include construction of solutions to FDEs via operator methods; nonlinear dynamics; solitary solutions and the application of these models in biomedical fields ranging from population dynamics to tumor phenomena; algebraic forecasting utilizing internal, external or mixed smoothing, with or without neural network application; development and analysis of synchronization measures between time series.

PhD Vaida Liutkute-Gumarov is Scientist in the Health Research Intitute of the Faculty of Public Health, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Her research spans across behavioral risk factors for NCDs development, socio-economic harm of risk factors, industry behavior impact on health policy development, effects of policy changes on population health.

PhD Justina Vaitkevičiūtė is a researcher at Health Research Institute of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. In her work Justina participates in various public health projects and health monitoring studies, like WHO European Childhood Obesity/Growth Surveillance Initiative – COSI (in Lithuania). Justina has PhD degree in public health from Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Currently her academic interests include children growth monitoring, tobacco and alcohol control.

PhD Daumantas Stumbrys is a Senior Researcher at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. He has defended his PhD thesis ‘Socio-Demographic Mortality Differentials Among Men in Lithuania’ in Sociology at Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences in 2016. Dr. Daumantas Stumbrys has completed a postdoctoral fellowship ‘Alcohol Abuse Problem in Lithuania: An Interdisciplinary Study of Social and Demographic Determinants’ at Vytautas Magnus University in 2017-2019. His research interests cover sociology of health, mortality differentials, and alcohol control policy.

Dr. Domantas Jasilionis (PhD) is a Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Rostock, Germany) and Professor at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania). His primary research interests include demography, population data & methods, human longevity & causes of death, and health inequalities. Domantas Jasilionis has been involved in numerous international projects and served in several international committees. He is a member of the executive committee of the Human Mortality Database Project - a major international repository of life table data for developed countries. D. Jasilionis has recently received a research grant (together with Dr. Dmitri Jdanov) from the Volkswagen Foundation to pursue a project on Strengthening a reliable evidence base for monitoring the COVID-19 and other disasters.

PhD Robertas Badaras is the Head of Toxicology Department of Republican Vilnius University Hospital, and an Assoc. Prof. at the Clinic of Anaesthesiology and Intensive care of the Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University. His background education is Clinical Toxicology and Intensive Care medicine, and his main area of academic interest is alcohol and drugs (including prescription drugs) with a specific focus on detoxification. He is currently is a consultant on the NIAAA grant project 'Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states' (grant no. 1R01AA028224).

Laura Miščikienė received master degree in Law from Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania, in 2014. Currently she is junior researcher and a PhD candidate at Health Research Institute of the Faculty of Public Health, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. In her work Laura participates in various public health and health system related projects and belongs to a network of WHO Health Systems and Policy Monitor (HSPM). Currently her academic interests include health law, tobacco and alcohol control, evaluation of public health interventions.

Olga Meščeriakova received a Master of Public Health degree at Lithuanian University of Health Sciences at the Faculty Public Health in 2010. Currently she is a PhD candidate and a lecturer at the Department of Public Health Management at the Faculty of Public Health, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Her current research field includes health inequalities, socioeconomic mortality inequalities, digital health, healthcare, and their inequalities.

Lukas Galkus is a junior researcher at the Health Research Institute of the Faculty of Public Health, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Lukas has acquired his medical degree in 2018. He is interested in research in the fields of health promotion, prevention (especially alcohol, tobacco, and drugs), alcohol and tobacco policies and health economics. Currently, he is a candidate for MSc Health Economics, Policy, Management at Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden).

Prof. Witold Zatoński, MD, of medical sciences, honorary doctor of the University of Aberdeen in United Kingdom. Between 1966 and 1979 he worked as an internist (post-doctoral degree) and as a biochemist at the Medical Academy in Wrocław, Poland. Then, until 2016 he was the director in the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention at the Maria Skłodowska Curie Memorial Cancer Centre and Institute of Oncology in Warsaw. Professor Zatoński is the founder and president of the Health Promotion Foundation.

Kinga Janik-Koncewicz (M.Sc., PhD student) is an academic researcher at the Institute – European Observatory of Health Inequalities, Calisia University, Kalisz, Poland. Her main interest is monitoring consumption of tobacco and alcohol and epidemiology of tobacco- and alcohol-related health burden in Poland. In years 2001-2016 she was a researcher at the Department of Epidemiology at the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology in Warsaw, Poland, where she was engaged in cancer primary prevention, national and international research projects and intervention programmes. She’s a Lead Assistant Editor at the Journal of Health Inequalities and member of the Polish Health Promotion Foundation.

PhD Mateusz Zatoński is an academic researcher and health advocate with 10 years of experience in health promotion, policy research, and capacity building. He is a board member of the Polish Health Promotion Foundation, a leading Polish public health NGO, and an editor of the Journal of Health Inequalities. Mateusz has studied at the University of Glasgow, Harvard University, and University College London. In 2019 he completed his PhD in Public Health under the supervision of Prof. Martin McKee at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with a thesis on tobacco control in Eastern Europe. He is now based at the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, UK, where he leads a research team looking at the problem of tobacco industry policy interference globally and developing resources for local advocates to address it.

PhD Inese Gobiņa is a researcher with the NIAAA project “Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states” representing Riga Stradiņš university from Latvia. Her research interest includes understanding the individual- and population-level factors related to alcohol use and trends of public health measures related to alcohol-related harm.

Relika Stoppel is a project scientist within the NIAAA project “Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states” and she is currently finalizing her PhD in Health Economics. Her main research interest lies in analyzing alcohol control policies and their effectiveness in reducing alcohol-related adverse outcomes, such as alcohol-attributable and alcohol-related mortality, and drunk driving.

Lauma Spriņģe is a researcher within the NIAAA project “Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states” from Latvia. She works as an assistant professor at Riga Stradiņš University. Previous professional work duties related to health data analysis in state agency. She is also experienced in national and international public health related research projects. Main research interests include alcohol-related harm in population level and alcohol control policies.

PhD Rainer Reile is a researcher at the Estonian National Institute for Health Development. His academic research focuses on the socioeconomic patterning of health and health behaviors. Within the NIAAA project, he is working as a post-doctoral fellow in the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences with a task to analyze the patterns of alcohol legislation, consumption and related health outcomes in Estonia.