PAST SCHOLARS

RWJF HSS Cohort 6 Scholars - 2008-2010

Cleopatra Abdou- Cleopatra Abdou received her PhD in social health psychology, with a minor in quantitative psychology, from UCLA. She integrates principles and methodologies from the areas of social psychology, stress physiology, and health disparities from a cross-cultural perspective to investigate mechanisms whereby culture and social identities impact healthcare decision-making and health outcomes among minority women and their children across the socioeconomic strata. Her specialized interests are in maternal-child health and in the impact of social identity threat on health-related decisions. She examines four core questions in these two related areas of research: 1) what are the intrapersonal and interpersonal processes whereby social identities, like ethnicity and social class, translate into health? 2) what are the cultural bases of behavior that impact healthcare decisions? 3) how do social identities and cultural beliefs interact to shape stress exposure and the availability of coping resources? and 4) what features of culture promote being healthy and living well? Abdou’s research, largely community-based participatory research, has identified sociocultural mechanisms that bridge ethnic and socioeconomic differences in health and well-being via direct, moderated, and mediated pathways. Her research also examines broader theoretical and measurement issues surrounding the study of culture, socioeconomic status, and health in different ethnic groups.

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Gerontology, Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California

Whitney Robinson- Whitney Robinson received her PhD in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008. Her dissertation explored reasons why obesity prevalence is much greater in young U.S. Black women than in young U.S. Black men. Specifically, her research investigated to what extent adolescent behaviors and family demographics were associated with this gender disparity. As a Health & Society Scholar, Whitney will continue investigating determinants of obesity risk.  She is particularly interested in physiological milestones, such as pubertal timing and pregnancy, and effects of chronic stress on the regulation of energy balance.  She is also interested in innovative methods for improving causal inference in health disparities research.  Whitney also holds a master’s degree in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she researched the association between early-life body size and rate of prostate cancer later in life.

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina

 

Christopher Wildeman- Christopher Wildeman received his PhD in Sociology and Demography from Princeton University. Christopher's dissertation, which was funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, considered the consequences of mass imprisonment for inequality among American children. The first empirical chapter of his dissertation, which estimates the risk of parental imprisonment for the 1978 and 1990 birth cohorts of American children, won the Dorothy S. Thomas Award from the Population Association of America in 2008 and multiple awards from sections of the American Sociological Association in 2007. This chapter of his dissertation was published in Demography. Subsequent chapters considered the influence of paternal incarceration on children's aggressive behaviors using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and the influence of imprisonment rates on infant mortality rates in the United States between 1990 and 2004. In addition, Christopher is interested in the connections between religion and family life in contemporary American society and has published a paper on employment trajectories of new fathers using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. He is also a Postdoctoral Affiliate in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan.

As a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar, Christopher plans to continue researching the consequences of mass imprisonment for the health and well-being of American children and adults. He also plans to consider racial and ethnic differences in the benefits of marriage in collaboration with Kristen Harknett and Wendy Cadge.

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Sociology, Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course, Yale University

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RWJF HSS Cohort 5 Scholar - 2007-2010

Richard Pilsner- Rick Pilsner received his PhD in Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. His dissertation investigates the interplay of inorganic arsenic exposure and folate nutritional status on genomic DNA methylation in adults residing in Bangladesh. Epigenetic events represent important mechanisms by which reversible heritable changes in gene function occur without change in DNA sequence, mainly through alterations in DNA methylation and histone modifications. Many cancers and other adverse health outcomes have been linked to underlying epigenetic mechanisms. As a Health & Society Scholar, Richard plans on investigating how aberrations in epigenetic markers are influenced by the interaction between environmental exposures and nutrition/social/other demographic indicators. He aims to bridge the gaps between these indicators by combining epigenetic research and molecular epidemiology to further the field of population health epigenomics. Rick holds a Masters degree in Public Health from Columbia University, where in 2001, he was awarded a two year EPA STAR fellowship to study the effects of manganese exposure on mitochondrial respiration and iron homeostasis.

Current Position: Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences Division, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

RWJF HSS Cohort 5 Scholars 2007-2009

Amar A. Hamoudi- Amar Hamoudi completed his PhD in the Department of Economics at UCLA. His dissertation research focused on the ways that families organize their living arrangements. The central chapter of the dissertation explored the relationship between living arrangements and economic preferences. It reports empirical patterns which would be predicted by an economic model in which one of the factors affecting the family’s living arrangements is its motivation to diversify spatially-defined economic risk, but in which the family’s ability to share risk is constrained by each member’s incentives to play his or her appointed role in any risk sharing scheme. In the process of completing his dissertation, Amar was involved in the design and implementation of a pilot study aimed at measuring several domains of economic preferences in a population-representative sample of two Mexican states. As a Health & Society Scholar, Amar intends to explore the relationship between these types of preferences and health related behaviors—for example, does financial risk aversion, or economic forward-lookingness, relate to individuals’ investments in their own or their children’s health? In addition, he hopes to explore some of the biological correlates of these preferences, in order to shed light on both the process of preference formation and on some of the relationships between economic and health outcomes. Prior to his doctoral studies, Amar completed a Masters’ Degree in International Development at Harvard’s Kennedy School, where he was involved in data collection and analysis in a cost-effectiveness study of Botswana’s national HIV treatment program.

Current Position: Assistant Professor, Public Policy Studies, Stanford School of Public Policy, Duke University

Briana Mezuk- Briana Mezuk completed her doctoral degree in Mental Health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. In 2004/5 she was the Project Coordinator for the fourth wave of the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study, a 23-year prospective cohort study of health and mental health, which helped inspire her interest in lifespan health research. Her dissertation examined the relationships between depressive disorders and metabolic conditions associated with aging, specifically type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis, using this cohort.

The overall goals of Briana’s research are (a) to study the epidemiologic determinants of health and functioning over the life course and (b) to inform interventions, in both clinical and community settings, that use this insight to reduce the incidence and mitigate the consequences of mental disorders. Her long-term research interests are three-fold: (1) To understand the interface between behavior and physiology in order to integrate social, psychological and biological approaches to understanding health and illness over the life course, (2) To explore the multiple pathways linking psychiatric and physiological disorders, particularly chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and (3) To inform interventions which reflect an integrative approach to health to effectively reduce the burden of mental disorders.

Current Position: Assistant Professor, Epidemiology and Community Health, Virginia Commonwealth University

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RWJF HSS Cohort 4 Scholars 2006-2008

Magdalena Cerdá - Magdalena Cerdá is a social epidemiologist who received a DrPH from Harvard School of Public Health in 2006. She is currently investigating the ways in which neighborhood social environments help to control youth violence in Colombia and the United States. She is also examining how residential context explains the spatial distribution of age-related disparities in health, specifically testing the influence of neighborhoods on the divergent association between maternal age and birth weight found across Chicago. Related prior research includes a study of the influences of family and neighborhood on delinquency and substance use across Hispanic immigrant generations, and an investigation of ways that neighborhood social and economic features modify the effects of individual developmental assets on youth violence trajectories. Before attending Harvard, Magdalena worked at the World Health Organization, where she advised countries such as Mozambique on the development of national policies on violence prevention, developed global guidelines for collecting forensic evidence in sexual violence cases, and co-authored the youth violence chapter of the World Report on Violence and Health. As a Health & Society Scholar, she plans to bring together the fields of social and developmental epidemiology in order to understand how family, school and neighborhood characteristics can modify the likelihood that youth will transition over time into increasingly severe delinquent behaviors.

Current Position: Co-Investigator of the National Center for Disaster Mental Health Research

Jennifer Beam Dowd - Jennifer Beam Dowd received her PhD from Princeton University in August 2004, where she specialized in Economics and Demography, with a focus on socioeconomic inequalities in health. Her dissertation tested several mechanisms linking economic status and health outcomes, including the role of maternal health behaviors during pregnancy in explaining childhood health inequalities, as well as the role of biological markers of stress in explaining educational and income gradients in older adults. She recently worked as a Health Researcher at Mathematica Policy Research in Washington, DC on issues regarding children’s health insurance and Medicaid availability for persons with mental illness. As a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar, Jenn hopes to integrate biological and social science data to pinpoint how income and education get under the skin.   Her current work examines the relationship between education, income, and antibody response to latent infection as a marker of stress and immune function, and how immunity may mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status and chronic disease outcomes.  Prior to her graduate work, Jenn received a BA in Politics and Spanish from Washington and Lee University and served as a Luce Scholar at the Rural Development Foundation in East Java, Indonesia. http://sitemaker.umich.edu/jenndowd

Current Position: Associate Professor of Public Health and Demography at Hunter College, School of Health Sciences, City University of new York (CUNY), and the CUNY institute for Demographic Research (CIDR)

Malo Andre Hutson - Malo Hutson earned his PhD in 2006 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning where he was a member of the Housing, Community, and Economic Development Research Group. He earned his BA in Sociology and a Masters in City and Regional Planning both from the University of California at Berkeley. Malo’s research interests include regional planning, economic and workforce development, urban policy and politics, and community health. His current research examines the economic link between medical clusters in metropolitan areas and economically disadvantaged and minority communities. His dissertation investigated the employment opportunities that exist for urban residents within Boston’s health care industry. Malo has extensive research experience in regional, community, and economic development and he has managed several research projects throughout the U.S. and Canada. As a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar, Malo plans to examine how race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, neighborhood characteristics, and geography influence the health outcomes of urban populations. He also has an interest in understanding the role of new and emerging technologies and how they affect the work of health care professionals and the health outcomes of patients. Upon completing his fellowship as a Health & Society Scholar, Dr. Hutson has accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley.

Current Position: Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley

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RWJF HSS Cohort 3 Scholars 2005-2007

John A. Cowan, Jr. - John is completing a Neurosurgery residency at the University of Michigan. He received undergraduate training at Davidson College in physics and earned a MD from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He co-founded the Surgical Outcomes Research Team (SORT) at the University of Michigan which has published extensively on disparities in outcome after complex surgical procedures. His current research focuses on changes in utilization in surgical technology throughout the United States. As a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar, he will investigate the interplay between socioeconomic status, access to surgical technology, and functional outcomes after complex surgery. John is Chief Resident of Neurosurgery at the University of Michigan.

Current Position: Practicing Neurosurgeon at the Harbin Clinic in Rome, Georgia

Craig A. Hadley - Craig's research interests include biological and nutritional anthropology; specifically, the causes and consequences of household food insecurity, the causes and consequences of current variation in young child feeding practices, and biosocial approaches to understanding the causes of health inequalities, with an emphasis on young children and adolescents. He is currently working on a community based study investigating the long term consequences of seasonal food insecurity in rural Tanzania, a population-based survey examining health and well-being of adolescents in western Ethiopia, and a community-based, mixed methods study of health and well-being among African refugees resettled in the USA. He received his PhD from the University of California at Davis where he was in the Anthropology and International Nutrition programs. From 2003 to 2005, he was a Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Anthropological Demography at Brown University's Population Studies and Training Center. Craig is an Assistant Professor at Emory University.

Current Position: Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Emory University

Theresa L. Osypuk - Theresa is a social epidemiologist researching racial health disparities and their geographic patterns across the United States. She is particularly interested in the effect of neighborhood and metropolitan level opportunity structures for socioeconomic advancement and wealth accumulation, which place different racial groups on different health trajectories across the life course. Her work also examines how social policies may mitigate racial inequality, particularly related to home mortgage financing and housing mobility. Theresa has coauthored publications for the American Journal of Public Health, Housing Policy Debate, and Social Science and Medicine, exploring how racial residential segregation and housing mobility policy influence health. To stimulate translation of research into policy, she and her colleagues have developed a data-driven indicator website that highlights racial inequality in social, economic, political, and health domains across the 331 US metropolitan areas. Theresa additionally conducts research in tobacco control, by examining racial/ethnic and socioeconomic patterns of smoking across the US, and the effect of clean indoor air policies. Theresa received her doctorate from Harvard University in 2005. She received her Masters of Science at Harvard in 2002. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked with The Advertising Council, developing national social marketing campaigns to raise public awareness via mass media for such issues as housing discrimination, violence prevention, and youth fitness. Theresa is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University.

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Health Sciences at Northeastern University

Sacoby M. Wilson - Sacoby Wilson is an environmental health scientist whose research foci include the intersection of environmental and social determinants of health and health disparities, the spatiotemporal distribution of environmental phenomena and potential environmental public health consequences, GIS-based exposure assessment, the impact of the built environment on vulnerable populations, and community-driven environmental justice science and research. Wilson earned a MS (2000) and PhD (2005) in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill-School of Public Health. He has published his work on industrial hog operations and environmental justice in Environmental Health Perspectives and presented several papers at the annual American Public Health Association Conference. Wilson is a member of the Environment Section of the American Public Health Association, Society for Risk Analysis, Association of American Geographers, Air & Waste Management Association and SSSP. He is a former EPA STAR and GRO (MAI) Fellow and is currently a fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program (ELP). Sacoby received a BS degree in Biology/Ecotoxicology from Alabama A&M University in 1998. Sacoby is an Assistant Research Professor at the University of South Carolina.

Current Position: Assistant Research Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina

RWJF HSS Cohort 2 Scholars 2004-2006

Jennie Brand - Jennie completed an MS and a PhD in Sociology at the University of University of Wisconsin. Her research is broadly focused on socioeconomic inequality and its implications for various outcomes that indicate life chances. She is particularly interested in the impact of significant life events, such as job loss, on subsequent socioeconomic and health trajectories; this substantive focus has accompanied a methodological focus in the potential outcome approach to causal inference. Her doctoral dissertation examined the long-term effects of job displacement on career outcomes using several estimators of causal effects, including conditional difference-in-differences matching estimation. She has also assessed how physical and cognitive job characteristics, and job control, mediate relationships between socioeconomic status and a variety of physical and mental health outcomes. Jennie is currently investigating the relationship between job security and health, examining selection and causation effects, and the mechanisms that mediate the relationship between job loss and health. She is also working on a methodological paper involving a potential outcome approach for longitudinal situations in which both exposure to treatment and the effects of treatment are time-varying. Jennie is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles

Marie S. O'Neill - Marie earned a BA at Brown University, an MS in Environmental Health Sciences from Harvard University, and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Pan American Health Organization, in Mexico at the National Institute of Public Health and the National Center for Environmental Health as a Fulbright Scholar, and as a Research Fellow in Environmental Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research interests include health effects of air pollution and temperature extremes (mortality, asthma, hospital admissions, and cardiovascular endpoints); environmental exposure assessment; and socio-economic influences on health. Marie is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan.

Current Position: Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan

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RWJF HSS Cohort 1 Scholars 2003-2005

Hear what our Past Scholars have to say about the Program here at Michigan!

Allison's UM Experience Video

Sarah's UM Experience Video

Nick's UM Experience Video

Allison E. Aiello - Allison received her PhD in Epidemiology from Columbia University-Mailman School of Public Health where she held a training fellowship from the Center for Infectious Disease and Epidemiological Research. Her dissertation research focused on the community setting, where she examined whether there is a risk of increasing antibiotic resistance associated with the use of antibacterial hygiene products within the home environment. Before entering her PhD, Allison was an Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She received her MS in Environmental Health Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill-School of Public Health. Allison's research seeks to characterize infectious agents and corresponding immune markers as a potential link between population-level social determinants and individual-level disease determinants. One of her research objectives is to determine how factors such as household and neighborhood socioeconomic position (SEP) correlate with cell-mediated immune response (as measured by herpesvirus antibody levels) among elderly Hispanics. A second research objective is to assess whether latent infections influence cognitive impairment and dementia. She is also involved in a project that aims to examine: 1) the relationship between lifecourse SEP trajectories and infectious diseases as an adult, and 2) whether latent infections are on the pathway to cardiovascular disease. Last, Allison is interested in multidisciplinary approaches for preventing antibiotic-resistance and infectious diseases within the clinical and community setting among minority populations. Allison is now an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan.

Current Position: Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan

Sarah A. Burgard - Sarah's work focuses on the way systems of stratification and inequality impact peoples' lives. In her graduate work in sociology at UCLA, she began with studies of educational and occupational attainment during periods of change in race-related legislation in the US and South Africa, before turning to work on health disparities. Her dissertation looks at maternal and child health in South Africa and Brazil, two multiracial societies with among the highest levels of inequality in the world. She has also studied maternal and child health in Brazil at the Rand Corporation for the past several years, where she was a contract research staff member. Concurrently with the sociology work, she has pursued an MS degree in epidemiology at UCLA, and has collaborated on projects that examine race and sexual orientation-related disparities in mental health outcomes in the US. Her current research focuses on working lives and cardiovascular risk in the US, in collaboration with members of the Mac Arthur Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health. Sarah's specific research involves: socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in health; child morbidity; body composition and mortality in developing societies; women's use of maternal and child health care and family planning in developing societies; and the effects of occupational careers on the health of men and women in the US. Sarah is now an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan.

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan

Nick B. King - Nick holds a master's degree in medical anthropology and a doctorate in the history of science from Harvard University, and was most recently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. His research involves: commodification and American consumer culture; exchange relations in modern medical science; and the intersection between national security and public health. Nick is now an Assistant Professor of Bioethics at Case Western Reserve University.

Current Position: Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Ethics Unit and the Department of the Social Studies of Medicine at McGill University

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