Fellows

Ryan Assaf, MPH '19

Organization: Universidad Cayetano Heredia

Country: Peru 

Ryan Assaf is a MPH student in the department of Epidemiology. Ryan will be working on HIV prevention in Lima, Peru through biomedical, behavioral, social/community, and structural strategies. The studies will focus on the use of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV negative individuals, an increase in testing and HIV status awareness, and an increase in linkage and engagement in care for HIV positive individuals. His research interest is on prevention of infectious diseases locally and internationally with a hope of starting his PhD at UCLA next Spring. 

Marta Bornstein, PhD, 3rd Year

Organization: Umoyo wa Thanzi (UTHA), Health for Life Study 

Country: Malawi 

Marta Bornstein, a PhD student in the department of community health sciences will be managing data collection on a qualitative study examining pregnancy risk perception and decision making. Her research focuses on sexual health and reproductive health, including the spectrum of pregnancy intentions, risk perceptions, and contraceptive use in both global and local under-resourced settings/populations. 

Kendall Dunlop-Korsness, MPH '19

Organization: Kigezi Healthcare Foundation (KHEFO)

Country: Uganda 

Kendall Dunlop-Korsness, MPH student in the Department of Communtiy Health Sciences will be conducting her internship primarily in the KIHEFO maternal health clinic, focusing on continuous quality improvement and evaluation of provider/patient communication. She will be interviewing expecting mothers, new mothers, midwives and clinic staff, and observing clinic operations to identify potential barriers to access and effective communication. After getting her MPH, she hopes to continue working in global health with a focus on reproductive and maternal health, with an NGO committed to sustainable and ethical practices.

Jeffery Jacobs, MPH '19

Organization: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh

Country: Bangladesh

Jeffery Jacobs is an MPH student in the department of community health sciences. He will be conducting an research project assessing, developing and piloting mechanics to use GIS data to spatially link households to providers in the Urban Health Atlas using Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems. Additionally, he will be assessing extending maternal, neonatal, and child health programs form the city of Matlab to the Government Health System. 

Marufa Khandaker, MPH '19

Organization: The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICCDR,b)

Country: Bangladesh 

Marufa Khandaker, MPH student in the Department of Community Health Sciences, spent the summer in her parents’ home country, Bangladesh. Incredibly passionate about understanding health disparities and advocating for health-equity and equality across minority communities throughout the globe, she did her fieldwork at icddr,b, which is an international health research organization based in the country’s capital, Dhaka. Her main project included assessing, developing, and piloting mechanics to spatially link households to providers in the Urban Health Atlas using the Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System (UHDSS). Her other projects included editing and analyzing endline data and policy briefs to extend maternal, neonatal, and child health programs in Matlab into the Government Health System in Bangladesh & to establish an informant system for early detection and registration of pregnancies.

Carey Walovich, MPH '19

Organization: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICCDR,b) 

Country: Bangladesh 

Carey Walovich, MPH student in the Department of Community Health Sciences, spent the summer working in Bangladesh. Her general interests include: global maternal health, antenatal and postnatal care and increasing breastfeeding resources and education. She did her summer fieldwork at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), an international health research organization based in the country's capital of Dhaka. Her main project included assessing, developing and piloting mechanics to use GIS data to spatially link households to providers in the Urban Health Atlas using the Urban Health Demographic Surveillance System. Her second project focused on studying the prevalence of pre-term and stillbirths in the Matlab region of Bangladesh and their potential connection between the increased use of scheduled Caesarean births.

Cindy Beard, MPH '18

Organization: International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b)

Country: Bangladesh

Cindy Beard, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, will be working in the Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious disease division at the center. She will likely be working on avian influenza surveillance and research, but could also work on surveillance or interventions for other diseases such as chikungunya or Nipah virus as the need arises.

Arely Briseno, MPH '18

Organization: National Institute of Public Health

Country: Cuernavaca, Mexico

Arely Briseno, MPH student in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, will spend her summer internship strengthening the research and dissemination activities on climate change and health among a network of universities in Spanish-speaking countries

Molly Brown, MPH '18

Organization: Karen Department of Health and Welfare/Community Partners International

Country: Myanmar

Molly Brown, MPH student in the Department of Health Policy and Management, will work with KDHW to develop an annual plan to play a role in the future health system of Myanmar as it transitions from a fragmented, under-financed system under centralized control to a robust, inclusive network of coordinated providers. She will work with KDHW to produce an operational plan that synthesizes recommendations from community workshops with the broader national and organization priorities and objectives and translate them into pragmatic and measurable targets for the next year of work.

Joycelina Imafidon, MA/MPH '18

Organization: RAES - Réseau Africain pour l'Éducation, la Santé et la Citoyenneté

Country: Senegal

Joycelina Imafidon, MA/MPH student in African Studies and the Department of Community Health Sciences, will intern with RAES, a non-profit organization in Dakar, Senegal founded in 2005 that employs information and communications technology to strengthen education, health and good citizenship in Africa. RAES provides free access to quality information about resources and rights through websites, applications, media and radio programs. Her project responsibilities include evaluating the effectiveness of a local radio program and television series on attitudes, knowledge and behaviors related to women’s, reproductive and sexual health, rights and relationships.

Stephanie Ly, MPH, Ph.D Student

Organization: BRAC International

Country: Uganda

Stephanie Ly, Ph. D student in the Department of Community Health Sciences, will work on BRAC International's Community Health Promoter program, which has reached two million people in Uganda through improvement of maternal, neonatal, child, and reproductive health. She will specifically work on exploring incentives for volunteer community health promoters, which consists of women involved in their micro-finance programs with researchers in the Kampala office. 

Brittany Meyer, MPH '18

Organization: USAPI NCD Center for Disease Control/ LJB Hospital

Country: American Samoa

Brittany Meyer, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, will research gestational diabetes in American Samoa. She will be conducting chart reviews and gathering data from the LBJ Hospital and community clinics about gestational diabetes, risk factors and diagnosing rates in an attempt to establish a prevalence of gestational diabetes in American Samoa.

Graham Toth, MPH '18

Organization: KHANA Center for Population Health Research

Country: Cambodia

Graham Toth, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, will be focusing on HIV and AIDS with the goals of: improving integrated HIV programming; improving community health outcomes in relation to sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, and TB; supporting secure livelihoods; and to strengthen management capacity of community health and development. He will be working on HIV surveillance and research and/or on studies examining the social and economic needs, sexual and reproductive health, mental health, and risk behaviors of young people living with HIV. 

Lorena Ulloa, MPH '18

Organization: Centro de Nutrición Molecular y Enfermedades Crónicas (Center of Molecular Nutrition and Chronic Diseases)

Country: Chile

Lorena Ulloa, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, will spend her summer delving into nutritional epidemiology and its implications in chronic metabolic diseases among Latinos. Working with CNMEC, she will analyze the validity of the recently developed Mediterranean diet index (Chile-MDI), a self-administered questionnaire completed via an online portal Fitbook. She will also develop and assess the validity of a cardiovascular risk score that considers lifestyle factors in preventing cardiovascular disease.

Natalie Dickson, MA/MPH '17

Organization: Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS)

Country: Tanzania

Natalie Dickson, MA/MPH student in African Studies and the Department of Community Health Sciences, worked as a Qualitative Consultant on the formative portion of a NIMH-funded prospective observational research study of dyadic-based HIV diagnosis, care, and prevention among sero-discordant couples in Kisarawe, Tanzania. She organized and led four days of qualitative methods training for field ethnographers in Dar es Salaam, managed in-depth interviews (IDIs), and supervised associated paper work and procedures in the field. She is currently using the qualitative data collected to finish her thesis for the MA in African Studies. 

Ushma Dharod, MPH '17

Organization: KHANA: Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance

Country: Cambodia

Ushma Dharod, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, analyzed data to ascertain the association of HIV/STI information given by outreach workers on HIV/STI screening and testing among men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender as key population. She also had the opportunity to collect data in Battambang, a province in Cambodia, to estimate the prevalence of stunting and wasting among children 2 years and under throughout Cambodia.

Bryce Henderson, MPH '17

Organization: University of Cape Town

Country: South Africa

Bryce Henderson, MPH student in the Department of Health Policy & Management, assumed the role of a research coordinator/administrator for a NIH-funded and coordinated study evaluating the interaction between clinical depression and adherence to ART therapies in low-income HIV communities. Immediately after graduation, he will be working for a marketing, PR, and communications firm that works as an intermediary for public-private partnerships within the global health space. 

Rachael Jackson, MPH '17

Organization: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b)

Country: Bangladesh

Rachael Jackson, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, interned in the icddr,b department of Nutrition and Clinical Services. She compiled research on diarrheal disease in children under five, to support recommendations for housing policy change as a prevention technique. Having graduated early, Rachael is working part time while looking for a fellowship in public health policy.

Amanda Landrian, MPH '17

Organization: Population Council

Country: Kenya

Amanda Landrian, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, worked within the Poverty, Gender and Youth division of Population Council in Nairobi, Kenya on a girls empowerment program which aims to reduce early marriage and childbearing by increasing social, educational, and economic assets among adolescent girls. She was responsible for leading the qualitative analysis as part of the midline intervention process evaluation, the results of which informed implementation strategies to increase program uptake, participation, and satisfaction. After graduation, Amanda will be continuing at FSPH as a doctoral student in the department of Community Health Sciences.

Makaela Newsome, MA/MPH '18

Organization: Kigezi Healthcare Foundation (KIHEFO)

Country: Uganda

Makaela Newsome, MA/MPH student in African Studies and the Department of Community Health Sciences, interned at the Kigezi Healthcare Foundation's new maternity clinic and their rabbit breeding program.  At the maternal clinic she helped with the beginning stages of implementing the World Health Organization's Safe Childbirth Check list into use by the midwives.  She also helped create a family level monitoring calendar for the rabbit breeding program with an economic capacity building and childhood malnutrition intervention. It was an amazing experience that she recommends for anyone who would like to work with a small local health organization.

Ryan Raypon, MPH '17

Organization: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)

Country: Switzerland

Ryan Raypon, MPH student in the department of Epidemiology, interned with the Strategic Information and Monitoring team of UNAIDS. His work dealt largely with stigma and discrimination and its effects on access to HIV services and treatment, especially among key populations. Upon graduation, he plans to pursue a career in global health and HIV research.

D'Andre Spencer, MPH '17

Organization: UCLA-DRC

Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo

D'Andre Spencer, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, participated in conducting a Polio Serological Survey of immunization coverage in the Haut-Lomami Province of the southern part of the DRC. As a part of the UCLA-DRC team he collected both biological and questionnaire data to determine both immunization coverage in the area and key characteristics of the population. 

Jasmine Uysal, MPH '17

Organization: Jhpiego

Country: Lesotho

Jasmine Uysal, MPH student in the Department of Community Health Sciences, worked under the TESPO project – Technical Support to Enhance HIV/AIDS Prevention and Opportunities in Nursing Education funded by USAID and UNICEF. Focusing on the preparedness of the limited Basotho health workforce, Jasmine conducted research on nurse/midwives skills for newborn care and efficacy of a primary healthcare clinical training program (peer-review manuscripts pending). After graduation, Jasmine will be starting a new position as a Research Program Coordinator working on studies to prevent gender based violence at the Center on Gender Equity and Health, UCSD.

Melissa Wiles, MPH '17

Organization: Population Council

Country: Guatemala

Melissa Wiles, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, worked with Population Council in their Guatemala country office. She performed data analysis to support an impact evaluation of their girls' empowerment program Abriendo Oportunidades. She also prepared a comprehensive data quality report and accompanying field staff guides to improve data collection procedures and data quality in the future. After graduation, she will be working as a Research Project Coordinator at a private research consulting firm in Los Angeles, where she will be responsible for similar data quality assurance and field interviewer training for various research projects around the country and world.

Briana Yeh, MPH '17

Organization: National Taiwan University (NTU)

Country: Taiwan

Briana Yeh, MPH student in Environmental Health Sciences, worked on a project studying the air pollution impacts of the No. 6 Naphtha Petrochemical Complex in a rural township of Central Taiwan. The project's goal was to give insight of PM 2.5 and PM 10 using proximate techniques from R's Open Air Package to determine clusters of air pollution and how that would affect the surrounding residents, schools, and hospitals. 

Mindy Zhao, MSPH '16

Organization: Kigezi Healthcare Foundation (KIHEFO)

Country: Uganda

Mindy Zhao, MSPH student in the Department of Community Health Sciences, worked for the Kigezi Healthcare Foundation (KIHEFO) in Kabale, Uganda this past summer. She provided support for their nutrition program by analyzing data from a nutrition assessment that was conducted last summer, and assisting with designing research tools to evaluate the impact of their rabbit breeding program on the health and economic development in the local community.

Tony Yao, MPH '16

Organization: Department of Health in Taitung county, Taiwan

Country: Taiwan

Tony Yao, MPH student in the Department of Community Health Sciences, worked on the “Living City” project in Taitung County, Taiwan, where he was involved in implementing an alcohol education program to combat the excessive alcohol consumption among the Taiwanese population.

Elizabeth Van Dyne, MD, MPH '16

Country: Malawi

Elizabeth Van Dyne MD, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellow, conducted a cohort research study this summer to pilot early diagnosis of sickle cell disease (SCD), early infection prevention, and education in Blantyre, Malawi. Approximately 300,000 children are born each year with SCD in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a majority will die before reaching adulthood (up to 80%) due to lack of diagnosis and early interventions. This project focuses on decreasing SCD-specific morbidity and mortality through infection prevention and comprehensive care. Dr. Van Dyne's work concentrated on collaborative epidemiologic research with an emphasis in pediatric hematology and oncology in areas of health disparity, poverty, and resource limitation.

Emerald Snow, MSPH/MA '16

Organization: La Fundación Oriéntame

Country: Colombia

Emerald Snow, MSPH student in the Department of Community Health Sciences and MA student in the Latin American Studies Interdepartmental Program, interned at La Fundación Oriéntame. La Fundación Oriéntame is an NGO based in Bogotá, Colombia that aims to support the health and rights of women and men through the provision of comprehensive reproductive health care, conducing research, and advocacy. Emerald conducted research that will assist the organization in updating their clinical protocols.

Heidi Ransohoff, MPH '16

Organization: Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (FIOCRUZ)

Country: Brazil

Heidi Ransohoff, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, conducted her fieldwork this summer in the molecular epidemiology and biostatistics laboratory at FIOCRUZ in Salvador, Brazil. Her work focused on the data analysis of violent deaths among adolescents in Salvador and surrounding areas from 1998 to 2015 in order to determine age, gender and neighborhood distributions.

Ryan Loong, MPH '16

Organization: Institute for Philanthropy and Humanitarian Development

Country: India

Ryan Loong, MPH student in the Department of Community Health Sciences, worked this past summer with the Institute for Philanthropy and Humanitarian Development on a project aiming to improve the current and future health of community members in the Indian village of Bhikamkor. He provided support in creating a full Health Profile of the community of Bhikamkor and drafting a public health intervention that addressed the beliefs and attitudes regarding health care utilization and at least one health issue.

Roz Fanaieyan, MPH '16

Organization: Population Council

Country: Zambia

Roz Fanaieyan, MPH student in the Department of Community Health Sciences, interned this past summer for the Scaling Up Family Planning Initiative for Population Council in Zambia, a project that aims to generate evidence on scaling up family planning to inform policy and practice to ensure sustainable and replicable provision of family planning services. For this initiative, Roz coded and summarized transcripts from key informant interviews and in-depth interviews; analyzed qualitative data that will be used for policy recommendations of future family planning programs; and wrote a policy brief with recommendations for scaling up.

Natalie Dickson, MPH/MA '17

Organization: Population Council

Country: Kenya

Natalie Dickson, MPH student in the Department of Community Health Sciences and MA student in the African Studies Program, worked within the Poverty, Gender and Youth program of Population Council in Nairobi, Kenya on a project to understand how social and economic assets impact the health of adolescent girls in Kenya. Natalie was involved in monitoring data collection, performing data analysis, and assisting with writing the impact evaluation report that examined the changes attributable to the program.

Rica Dela Cruz, MPH '16

Organization: Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation

Country: Northern Mariana Islands

Rica Dela Cruz, MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology, worked on a project this past summer at the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands. Rica conducted a descriptive study to evaluate the health trends among women and their newborns within the Northern Mariana Islands. The goal of this study is to gain a better understanding of the health and healthcare needs of women and infants on these islands.

Alexis Cooke, PhD candidate

Organization: Muhimbili National Hospital

Country: Tanzania

Alexis Cooke, PhD candidate in the Department of Community Health Sciences, spent the summer in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, working at a methadone clinic at the Muhimbili National Hospital. Alexis’ work supported the implementation of an integrated methadone and antiretroviral treatment (IMAT) program to identify areas for improved efficiency and integration of services for clients. Findings from her project allowed for the identification of important steps and processes, which will make the fundamental components of the IMAT intervention successful.