The IAPHS Student Committee is focused on bringing together the next generation of population health scientists as friends, colleagues, and future collaborators. Recognizing the wide array of students in population health, this committee seeks to bridge gaps in the field by bringing these students, often from varied departments across the nation, together for professional and academic development as well as networking.
The student committee organizes and hosts events year-round. During the annual meeting, held every fall, we host a professional development activity/event, promote student talks and posters, and organize an informal social activity. These events provide an opportunity for students to connect with academically like-minded peers while developing skills to prepare us for our next career steps.
Throughout the rest of the year, the student committee focuses on other training opportunities including webinars, workshops, and panels. Some recent highlights been:
- Academic Careers: Exploring Institutional Differences and Charting Your Path with Advice from Leading Scholars
- Abstract Writing Workshop for Students
The student committee consists of chairs and co-chairs covering: the student committee as a whole, webinar activities, conference activities, secretary and social media, and diversity and membership outreach. In addition to these core members, the student committee consists of a number of general members interested in building IAPHS. Brief biographies of the current chairs/co-chairs can be found below. We’re always looking for new members and chairs, and if you’re interested in joining us please contact Brianne Cook at bcook@iaphs.org. If you’re not a member of IAPHS, but a student who is passionate about population health, we encourage you to join to stay in the loop on upcoming events!
Michael Green, Chair
Michael D. Green (he/him) is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Population Health Sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine. Michael’s broad research interests are in social determinants of health, cardiology, and racial disparities. He currently has a National Institute of Aging Diversity Supplement award on one of his mentor’s (Dr. Matthew E. Dupre) R01 grants, which examines the impact of social determinants of health on risk trajectories for cardiovascular disease, and is assembling a fellowship application with an intended submission in Fall 2023. Michael plans to pursue dissertation research that investigates discrimination in a healthcare setting’s impact on cardiovascular disease risk and outcomes. He plans to establish a research agenda that surrounds unequal treatment in preventative practices for heart disease. He hopes to work at the intersection of academic research, media, and industry, focusing on health communication and interactions within the healthcare system. Read more
Elijah Watson, Webinar
Elijah Watson is pursuing a PhD in Anthropology and an MPH in Epidemiology at Northwestern University. Through his research, Watson aims to combine theory from medical anthropology and sociology with methods from epidemiology to describe and explain how social exposures become embodied to produce population health disparities. For his dissertation, Watson is examining the contributions of multiple dimensions of socioeconomic position over the life course to accelerated epigenetic aging in the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey in the Philippines. For his MPH thesis, he is using Bayesian multilevel regression and poststratification to examine social and spatial variation in SARs-COV-2 seroprevalence across Chicago neighborhoods in 2020.
Tianna Williams, Webinar
Tianna Williams is a 2nd year Master of Public Health Student with a concentration in Health Behavior and Health Promotion at the Medical University of South Carolina. Tianna has a passion for understanding and optimizing the connection between healthcare delivery and clinical outcomes as it leads to health-related quality of life. She has a background in oncology clinical research and is currently working as a research coordinator for a population genomics study. Her ultimate career goal is to conduct interdisciplinary research that optimizes cancer care delivery. To reach this career goal, she plans to pursue a doctoral degree that would provide her with the necessary foundation to contribute to evidence-based cancer control and survivorship research. She is very excited to be joining the student committee as webinar co-chair and hopes to foster connections with other members of the association. Read more
Ekaterina Baldina, Conference
Ekaterina Baldina is pursuing a PhD in Sociology at Indiana University Bloomington. Her interests span social demography, intergenerational mobility, population health, and social networks. She is interested in how inequalities shape the health of different population groups and how social inequality accumulates across generations. She mainly uses quantitative methods in her work but also has experience and training in qualitative research. Katya is also pursuing a Master’s degree in Applied Statistics and is interested in teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate and graduate students.
Samantha Doonan, Conference
Samantha Doonan is a PhD Student in the Department of Population Health at New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine and is a T32 predoctoral fellow in the Behavioral Sciences Training (BST) in Drug Abuse Research program at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Her research examines how structural determinants of health impact the outcomes of substance use policies. In her dissertation, she aims to examine how manifestations of structural racism may produce differential impacts of state harm reduction laws across subgroups in order to inform the adoption and implementation of equitable substance use laws. Previously, she evaluated the health, social, and economic impacts of cannabis legalization in Massachusetts as a Research Analyst at the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. Samantha received a B.A. in Health: Science, Society, and Policy from Brandeis University.
Anna Shetler, Secretary & Social Media
Anna Shetler (she/her) is a PhD candidate in Sociology & Demography at Penn State. Her research interests include contextual effects and health, and the role of support in mediating disparities. For her dissertation, she plans to study contextual changes across the life course among racialized groups.
Fatima Fairfax, Diversity & Membership
Fatima G. Fairfax is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Duke University. Her research focuses on racial health(care) disparities and the role of health technology in equitable health outcomes. She is interested in how racialized ideas of health and medicine are encoded in technologically assisted health processes in ways that may exacerbate racialized health outcomes. She will also explore where health technology may be especially suited to mitigate longstanding racial disparities in health outcomes. Her dissertation work investigates how different healthcare technologies impact healthcare outcomes, and how those impacts differ based on the sociodemographic characteristics of the patients. Fatima is supported by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Ford Foundation Fellowship.
Olumayowa Idowu, Diversity & Membership
Mayowa is pursuing a PhD in Policy Studies with a concentration in health policy, at Clemson University. He is interested in the intersections of local zoning, and the social determinants of health. His current projects include equity in public health, inclusionary zoning, affordable housing and health outcomes, and collaborative economic development and transportation infrastructure plans and equity considerations for local communities in these plans. He plans to have his dissertation focus on the intersections of inclusionary zoning, affordable housing and health status at individual, family, and population levels.
Deena Aboul-Hassan, General Member
Deena Aboul-Hassan is a senior at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, majoring in Movement Science and minoring in Writing on the Pre-Medical track. Deena’s research centers on health equity, particularly the intersection of chronic illness and healthcare accessibility in marginalized populations. With extensive experience in qualitative and community-engaged research, she aims to explore diverse chronic conditions and social determinants of health. These efforts are aligned with her aspirations to become a physician, where she hopes to directly contribute to health equity and improve the lives of underserved communities. Read more
Emily Dore, General Member
Emily C. Dore, PhD, MPH, MSW, is a postdoctoral research fellow at the SPHERE Center at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She received her PhD in Sociology from Emory University and a dual MPH/MSW degree from Boston University. Her research examines macro-level determinants of health with a goal of informing policies that decrease health inequities. Her work has so far evaluated the health effects of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the long-term health impacts of economic policy exposure in childhood, as well as the role of state-level structural sexism on health care use.
Austin Le, General Member
Austin Le (he/they) is a medical student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria. He is interested in how social and environmental stressors become biologically embedded among youth and Asian American communities. His master’s thesis examined the association between chronic air pollution exposure and telomere length (a biomarker of aging) among children and whether this relationship was modified by Adverse Childhood Experiences or neighborhood opportunity. Through collaborations anchored at the Stanford Center for Asian Health Research and Education, he leverages large database studies to explore relationships between social determinants of health and allergic and cardiovascular diseases among Asian Americans. He is interested in practicing translational, precision medicine and currently serves as a councilmember in the Illinois State Medical Society. Austin is supported by the National Medical Fellowships American Association of Medical Colleges Darrell G. Kirch, MD Scholarship. Read more
Nigel James, General Member
Nigel James is an Assistant Professor at the University of Richmond. He earned a dual-title Ph.D. in Health Policy and Demography from Penn State University. His research focuses on sustainable health financing policies to improve maternal and child health, address global pandemics, and mitigate climate-related health impacts. Using econometric and spatial analytic models, he evaluates health interventions and examines the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health. Prior to academia, Nigel’s professional experience spanned sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States, where he held roles in government, international NGOs, and global agencies like the UNAIDS, UNICEF, and ICRC. His scholarly work has been published in leading global health journals such as Global Health Research and Policy, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, African Health Sciences, and INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, and the International Journal for Quality in Health Care, among others.
Arinala Randrianasolo, General Member
Nala is a fourth year PhD student in the sociology and demography programs at Pennsylvania State University. His research interests intersect between health disparities, race and ethnicity, and the life course. His current projects include topics such as the weathering hypothesis, skin tone stratification for health outcomes, and multiracial and multiethnic mortality rates. He is planning to have his dissertation focus on the effects of the life course on the health outcomes of multiracial individuals. Prior to going to graduate school, Nala was an attorney in Chicago working to help non-profits secure financial resources to strengthen their programs and the communities they were embedded in.