Kayla de la Haye

Kayla de la Haye is a Research Scientist at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Center for Economic and Social Research, where she directs the Institute for Food System Equity. She also serves as Director of Research Development at the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI). 

She works to promote health and prevent disease by applying social network analysis and systems science to key public health issues. Her research engages family and community social networks, and broader social determinants of health, to promote healthy eating, food and nutrition security, and prevent chronic disease. It also explores the role of social networks in group problem solving in families, teams, and coalitions. This work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the American Heart Association.

Dr. de la Haye currently serves as technical advisor to the County of Los Angeles Food Equity Roundtable, and she is Vice President of the International Network of Social Network Analysis (INSNA). In 2018, she received the INSNA Freeman Award for significant contributions to the study of social structure. She was previously an Associate Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences at USC, and worked as an Associate Behavioral/Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Adelaide, Australia.