Class Notes: Winter 2018

After completing her MPH in 2006, Meredith worked as an epidemiologist at the Rhode Island Department of Health and as a biostatistician at the University of Pennsylvania. Bergey later pursued a joint doctorate in sociology and social policy (focusing on health) from Brandeis University and the Heller School for Social Management and Policy, where she was an Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Fellow. Bergey went on to teach at the University of Virginia where she partnered with undergraduate students and clinicians to create a Health Leads-inspired program to address social determinants of health for vulnerable populations. Students Joey Michel, Harrison Boyce, Lauren Greenwood, and Matthew Salit (nephew of the MPH program’s own Joann Barao!) did an incredible job of getting the program, Health Bridge, up and running to serve patients in and around the Charlottesville area. After completing two years at UVA, Bergey is excited to have returned home to Pennsylvania to join the faculty at Villanova University’s Department of Sociology and Criminology as an assistant professor. Her current research focuses on social determinants and experiences of health. She continues to write about these and other health-related topics in articles and chapters. Bergey and her colleagues recently published a book entitled Global Perspectives on ADHD: Social Dimensions of Diagnosis and Treatment in 16 Countries (Johns Hopkins University Press).

Nathaniel is now chief resident in family medicine at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, California.  He is a leader in one of the original full-spectrum family medicine residencies in rural California. He delivers babies and practices inpatient medicine in addition to serving as primary care physician for a panel of underserved patients.  He lives in Monterey, CA with his wife, Stephanie, and baby daughter, Anik.

Jeffrey began his job as the Clarence E. Ehrlich Professor and Chair of the Department of OB/GYN at Indiana University School of Medicine 18 months ago. His areas of interest include contraception and family planning. Recently, he delivered the Guyer Lectureship at the University of Rochester. At the Guyer lectureship, he discussed the Contraceptive CHOICE Project that has been publicized in the news and during the recent national debate.

Bunna works for the National Center for HIV/AIDS Dermatology and STD (NCHADS) as Head of Planning, Monitoring and Reporting. In this role he develops activity plans and monitors HIV program implementation at all levels. He collaborates with surveillance units to conduct HIV surveys and research, and with NGOs to provide HIV prevention programs for key populations. He also develops an annual comprehensive report of HIV program implementation.

As a Research Assistant Professor in the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences at the University of South Florida, Monique continues to conduct research examining social-behavioral influences affecting health outcomes among people living with HIV. Her most recent article entitled “Perceived intentional transmission, sustained viral suppression and psychosocial outcomes among men who have sex with men living with HIV” is currently in press in Sexually Transmitted Infections. One of her previous publications entitled “Association between adverse childhood experiences and diagnosis of cancer” was in the top 25% of most cited articles in PLoS One. More recently, Monique served as a panelist for the National HIV Testing Day panel at Synergy Health Centers and the 5508 Coworking Collaboration Exchange in Tampa, Florida, and was interviewed for a radio talk show “Is HIV/AIDS a Civil Rights Issue?” on Cole and the Cure, WTMP 1150 AM. Monique also completed the 2-year Cyber Mentors program, organized by the American Psychological Association and funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, which provides training and mentorship in HIV/AIDS and health disparities research and grant writing to junior researchers. She was also recently awarded a travel scholarship to attend the HIV and Aging Conference and Mentorship Program in November 2017 at Emory University.

A year after he graduated from the Public Health program, Adrian decided to return to his home country, Ecuador. There, he served as a physician, applying what he learned at Brown in the public health arena. As a part of the Ecuadorian government medical team, Adrian became actively involved in controlling outbreaks in remote areas and developing medical protocols for the first EMS-911 (emergency medical system). Currently, he is in the process of establishing a private Internal medicine/Sleep medicine/Telemedicine practice in Florida. In the near future, he plans to explore low-cost or non-profit applications of telemedicine outside the US.

Kelsey is currently in her last year of medical school at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and is in the process of applying for residency in psychiatry. Throughout medical school, she has been involved in reproductive health advocacy and harm reduction work, and has consequently developed clinical, research, and advocacy interests in women’s mental health and community psychiatry. Her primary research interests are reproductive health behaviors and reproductive rights of women with mental illness. She looks forward to a career in which she can utilize her BSSI training to maximize reproductive choice and improve reproductive health outcomes among this underserved, stigmatized population.

Sarah is pursuing a dual Master’s in International Affairs and Public Health at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Mailman School of Public Health. Her academic focus is on health and sustainable international development, particularly in urban contexts. After graduating from Brown, Sarah served with AmeriCorps in Springfield, MA on a community health and development project focused on public safety and noncommunicable diseases through the national BUILD Health initiative. During the summer 2017 she interned at the United Nations Development Programme in the HIV, Health and Development group in New York City. She is currently providing research support to faculty in Sociomedical Sciences on menstrual hygiene management and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and she is part of a capstone providing recommendations to a foundation in Bogota, Colombia on measuring progress toward the SDGs at the city level.

Madeline is currently in her second year of the Clinical Psychology PhD program at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Clinically, her cohort has been completing cognitive and personality assessments with children, as well as individual psychotherapy with adults. In the research domain, she is collecting data for a project examining the compound impact of substance use and gender/sexual minority stigma on help-seeking behaviors and intentions. Additionally, this past year she published a paper in Substance Use and Misuse entitled, “Off-campus residence as a risk factor for alcohol misuse among college students.” This publication was a collaborative effort with her mentors and colleagues at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown.

Elizabeth is currently a Project Coordinator in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, under the mentorship of Drs. Morgan Philbin and Lisa Metsch. She works on three primary projects: a NIDA-funded K01 examining the relationship between state-level policies and HIV-related risk behaviors among sexual minority youth; a Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) on bio-behavioral HIV prevention and treatment modalities; and an Adolescent Trials Network (ATN) study on transition from adolescent to adult HIV care. Elizabeth is currently applying for PhD programs in Epidemiology and hopes to begin her doctoral studies in the fall of 2018. Her research interests include substance use and addiction, drug policy, infectious diseases, stigma, and criminalization.

Mya is currently a second year Epidemiology doctoral student in the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Health. This past fall, she presented in Atlanta at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Science for Cancer Health Disparities Conference. At this conference, she presented an abstract entitled “Premenopausal Gynecologic Surgery and Breast Cancer Mortality in the Carolina Breast Cancer Study” and won an AACR Scholar-in-Training Travel Award for her abstract. Recently it has been announced that she has been selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar.