2024 – Katie R. Billings
Katie R. Billings is a PhD Candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a mixed methods sociologist who studies the creation and perpetuation of inequalities in health and the law. Billings’s dissertation, “Surviving Suicide,” examines how social identities shape cultural narratives about firsthand suicide survival. Using 102 in-depth interviews with suicide attempt survivors, Billings explores how survivors’ accounts can inform suicide prevention and post-vention strategies. Her scholarship is published in Social Science & Medicine, Law & Society Review, Sociological Perspectives, and the Utah Law Review. Read more
2023 – Naomi Harada Thyden
Dr. Thyden is a social epidemiologist and interdisciplinary researcher who identifies novel ways to measure structural racism and its effects on health and health inequities. Dr. Thyden is a woman of color, fourth generation Japanese American, and dedicated to examining and dismantling systems of oppression through research, teaching, mentoring, and public health practice.
2022 – Tongtan Chantarat
Dr. Tongtan (Bert) Chantarat is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity at the University of Minnesota and an incoming Assistant Professor of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health (Fall 2022). His current research programs include 1) operationalizing and measuring structural racism, 2) using mathematical models such as microsimulations and agent-based models to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of antiracist interventions, and 3) examining how work and occupation drive racial health inequities.
2021 – Sandhya Kajeepeta
Sandhya Kajeepeta is a PhD candidate in epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Her research focuses on the public health consequences of criminalization and incarceration, and the impacts of criminal legal responses to violence. She also works as a research associate at the Vera Institute of Justice, focusing on jail decarceration efforts in local jurisdictions. Prior to joining the Vera Institute, Sandhya served as the Director of Research and Evaluation at the NYC Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence where she led the city’s research agenda for gender-based violence prevention. She holds an MS in epidemiology from Harvard University and a BS in mathematics from the University of Michigan.
2020 – Elizabeth Clausing
Elizabeth Clausing is a doctoral candidate in anthropology , having received in BS and BA in Honors Integrative Biology and Anthropology at the University of Illinois.
Elizabeth Clausing is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego working in Dr. Amy Non’s Genetic Anthropology Lab. She received a BS and BA in Honors Integrative Biology and Anthropology at the University of Illinois. Her dissertation examines how subjective measures of stress (psychosocial stress) associates with objective measures of stress (epigenetic aging, DNA methylation, and hair cortisol). She is particularly interested in how stress can impact the body through epigenetic inheritance via DNA methylation in mothers and children. She is also interested in how early childhood experiences (e.g., low socioeconomic status, childhood adversity) can affect health in adulthood. Read more
2019 – Iliya Gutin
Iliya Gutin is a doctoral candidate in sociology and predoctoral trainee at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, having received his BA in Sociology at the University of Chicago and then worked at the NORC research organization as a research analyst. His current work focuses on the conceptualization, definition, and measurement of health, illness, and disease in medical and social research, and how these decisions influence what it means to be “healthy” in a highly-dynamic and stratified society. Read more