Current Students
Our MPH students have a diverse set of academic interests and professional backgrounds. This diversity, combined with world-renowned faculty and a rigorous course of study, provides an unmatched educational experience in public health. Listed below is a brief introduction to our current students.
Eva Naa Darkua Aklamati-Darko is a second-year student from Sekondi, Ghana. She has spent the last eleven years in the United States Air Force as a public health specialist. She is interested in reproductive health issues such as Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and management among Most-At-Risk-Populations (MARPS) during crisis and emergencies. She did her practicum this summer in Ghana working with a local NGO dedicated to human rights advocacy on behalf of Ghanaians who experience discrimination and abuse on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation and expression. She conducted community outreaches and developed counseling modules for educating lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender individuals (LGBT) on STI and HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and management.
Stephanie Alfaro is a first-year student who worked with former child soldiers in Pader, Northern Uganda and currently investigates child abuse cases at the Brooklyn Child Advocacy Center. Previously, she conducted research on former child soldiers and gangs of El Salvador. She is interested in working with children and youth affected by violence and displacement.
Carolyn Bancroft is a first year student from Portland, Maine. She has previously worked with and researched refugee populations in Cairo, Egypt at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies and AMERA-UK. More recently, she worked with Social Science Research Council on a Gender, Crisis Prevention and Recovery research initiative. Carolyn is interested in gender and psychosocial issues in forced migration and displaced communities.
Catherine Baroang is a second-year MSW/MPH student. She lived in Thailand working on a public radio documentary about Karen refugees living on the Thai/Burma border and the effect of resettlement on the community. This past summer, Cathy worked with UNHCR in Kuala Lumpur studying family planning practices among refugees from Myanmar. She has also worked with the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children on Reproductive Health issues. Cathy is interested in health delivery to refugees in urban settings.
Courtney Blake is a second-year student from Bethlehem, PA. Previously, she worked as acting human rights and rule of law manager and as grants manager for IRC Liberia. She is interested in the role of coordination practices and systems in ensuring access to basic services, especially health care in emergency settings. Courtney has also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia working in food security projects.
Mary Choi is an International Emergency Medicine Fellow and first year MPH student from Chicago, IL. She spent the last four years in the United States Army as an emergency medicine physician. She has deployed on military missions to Angola, Bulgaria and Pakistan.
Erin Chu is a second-year student from San Diego, CA and a dual degree student with Public Administration (at SIPA) and Public Health. Prior to beginning graduate school, Erin worked as program associate at an NGO liaison office to the UN and in Southern Sudan where she held many roles but ended as acting country director for World Relief. While in grad school Erin has done projects in Liberia, Kenya, Indonesia, and Southern Sudan. Erin is interested in post conflict systems strengthening and public private partnerships.
Taylor Conger, originally form Salt Lake City, UT, is a dual degree student with public health and the School of Social Work. Prior to graduate school, Taylor worked for the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business working with socially driven MBAs and leading service learning trips to Thailand and Cambodia. Taylor also has experience resettling refugees in northern California with the International Rescue Committee. Prior to moving to New York, she coached high school varsity lacrosse for four years.
Jessica Demulder is a second-year student interested in reproductive health in emergencies, gender-based violence, and rights-based programming. She has previously worked in human rights advocacy in Rwanda and in obstetric fistula research in Inganga, Uganda. Jessica has an MA in Human Rights from Columbia University. She spent her summer working with UZ-UCSF in Harare, Zimbabwe on a study looking at the non-pneumatic anti-shock garment in the management of obstetric hemorrhage.
Shweta Dewan is a second-year MPH/MIA student from Lusaka, Zambia. Shweta interned with the Advocacy Project in Bosnia helping women survivors generate income, and with UNHCR in Zambia helping in areas of community service, resettlement and program development. She’s interested in working with children in areas of development and health.
Nora Dunlap is a first-year student from Davis, CA. Recently, she worked with rural home-based care organizations in South Africa to begin addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis affecting the community. She is particularly interested in sexual and reproductive health in complex emergencies.
Tanya Hart is a second-year student from Atlanta, GA. She recently managed an alternative to welfare employment program for refugees and asylees for a resettlement agency in Atlanta. Prior to this, she worked in West Africa interviewing Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees for inclusion in the United States Refugee Program (USRP). She was also a Small Enterprise Development Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana concentrating on women and youth micro-enterprise and empowerment programs. Tanya is interested in literacy as a component of public health, the integration of traditional and conventional medicine in developing countries and the role of the private sector in public health initiatives, and countries moving from emergencies to development.
Ashley Hunt is a first-year student from Winnetka, IL. As an undergraduate she focused on issues of sexual violence and political violence. Prior to coming to New York, she did Teach for America on a Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and taught Pre-K. She is interested in child protection and gender-based violence.
Nafessa Kassim is a dual degree student at the School of Social Work and Public Health. Prior to beginning graduate school, Nafessa worked with sexual assault victims and worked with arrested juveniles in San Francisco. She then went on the William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India. There, she worked at an NGO that focused on HIV/AIDS in the slums doing outreach, hospital outreach, livelihood program creation and curriculum creation. Separately, Nafessa produced, assistant-directed and acted in a play about domestic violence focused on South Asian women.
Jamie Kezis is a first-year student originally from Veazie, Maine. She worked as an RN with oncology patients and stem cell transplants for two years before volunteering as a nurse in Uganda for a year where she was involved with a variety of projects. She returned to Southern California and worked as a public health nurse focusing on maternal and child health for two years. Jamie has a variety of interests such as nutrition/malnutrition, communicable disease, and the psychosocial impact of being a child soldier.
Nathan Manley is a second-year student from Cody, WY. Before coming to Mailman, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana working in HIV/AIDS biomedical program implementation and community mobilization; he also worked as the infrastructure coordinator for the TB/HIV integration team at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia. Nathan is interested in designing and implementing TB/HIV biomedical programs in displaced populations and trying to quantify hard to measure variables that have policy significance. He spent his summer working with the International Organization for Migration and the CDC estimating the TB burden in recently deported Zimbabweans on the Botswana/Zimbabwe border at Plumtree.
Janna L. Metzler is a second-year MSW/MPH student. As a Peace Corps volunteer, she worked in the education sector and HIV prevention in rural Ghana. This past summer, she worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of Liberia on the International Colloquium on Women’s Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace and Security and the Angie Brooks International Center.
Laura Miller is a first-year student from New Haven, CT. She has worked at the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) for the last two and a half years. Previously, she worked as an HIV/AIDS prevention educator with Liberian refugees in Ghana. She is interested in gender-based violence, reproductive health, and nutrition.
Maureen Murphy is a second-year student from Cincinnati, OH. She was a program associate for the headquarters of the American Refugee Committee (ARC) and most recently was the head of office for ARC’s sub-office in South Sudan. Maureen is interested in the reproductive health of displaced communities and the improvement of monitoring and evaluation practices.
Kathleen Myer is a second-year student from Washington, D.C. Kathleen was previously a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal and has worked in international HIV/AIDS programming with the Academy for Educational Development in D.C.
Dita Niyogi is a second-year student from Austin, TX. Previously, she worked in refugee settlements the United States and with tribal communities in India and migrant domestic workers in the United Kingdom. Her professional interest is in the impact of water scarcity on health.
Anjana Pathmarajah is a first-year student from Los Angeles, CA. She most recently worked with a local non-profit, VSSN, in Nepal where she travelled with the nurses throughout rural communities giving health education and awareness presentations. She is also the Program Officer for the Visions Global Health Education Program (www.visionsforthefuture.org) developing a health education curriculum for impoverished children in Sri Lanka, India and Kenya.
Eba Pasha is a second-year student from Birmingham, UK. She has previously worked in emergency and disaster relief for the post cyclone Nargis in Bangladesh, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, and the 1999 Kosovo conflict. Eba is interested in the improvement and standardization of care delivery during emergencies, and ensuring accountability of actors to host governments as well as beneficiaries.
Leah Petit is a first-year student from Eugene, OR. Leah is a returning Peace Corps volunteer from northern Cameroon where she worked in maternal and child health at a rural medical outpost. She also helped to set-up small insurance programs for women as well as education promotion for girls. She is interested in emergency preparedness specifically related to women and children.
Alina Potts is a second-year student from Walkersville, MD. She has previously worked for the IRC as a gender-based program manager in Darfur, and as grants manager in Khartoum and Darfur. She has also worked with Liberian refugees in Oakland, CA as a youth program and volunteer coordinator for the IRC. Alina is interested in gender-based violence, the intersection between environmental pressures and complex emergencies, accountability in the humanitarian field and the use of local resources.
Alissa Pries is a first-year student from Minneapolis, MN. After graduating from McGill University with a degree in Medical Anthropology, she worked for a maternal and child health NGO and publishing company focused on women's health. She then worked with a social enterprise in Northern India, developing and implementing a rural healthcare model that trained local women as community health workers. After this project, she worked with a maternal health hospital in Hyderabad, India, developing training videos for hospital staff and training curriculum for community outreach workers. Her interests are reproductive health during emergencies, communicable disease, and capacity building within local health systems.
Sarah Robinson is a first-year student from Idaho. She recently became a nurse and is in the joint degree program in nursing, where she will specialize in psychiatric nursing. She spent two years working as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan where she worked as a secondary school teacher and community development worker. She has also worked in a psychiatric hospital in Kenya and conducted research on PTSD in abused women in the Caribbean. Sarah is interested in gender-based violence and psychosocial rehabilitation in displaced populations.
Rita Rodriguez is a second-year MPH/Law dual degree student from Providence, RI, and the Dominican Republic. Previously, she was a coordinator for an HIV/AIDS orphanage in Kalangala, Uganda. Rita is interested in International law, HIV/AIDS, Humanitarian Law and Nutrition.
Layal Sarrouh is a first-year student from Ottawa, Canada. Before starting graduate school, she worked as a Child Protection Specialist with UNICEF Canada, focused on advocacy surrounding children in armed conflict. Layal has also worked with the UNHCR in Ghana, and with Right To Play in Liberia where she held a dual-role as a monitoring and evaluation officer and project coordinator, implementing health and education programs for children. She is interested in gender-based violence, human rights, and protection and health issues in refugee/IDP settings.
Jennifer Schwieger is an International Emergency Medicine Fellow and second-year MPH student from Chicago, IL. She has worked in clinics and hospitals in Haiti, Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador and Sri Lanka, and is interested in the delivery of healthcare in complex emergencies and developing countries.
Kathleen Bernadette Simmons is a second-year student from Collingwood, NJ. She is a Returned Peace Corps volunteer from the People’s Republic of China where she taught English at Guiyang Medical College and also did community outreach with orphans who had physical and mental disabilities. Kathleen has also worked in the behavioral health and developmental disabilities sectors here in the USA, and has worked at UNICEF New York headquarters while at Mailman on a project that is assessing the intersection of relief work and stress, as well as coping and resiliency of international and national staff. She spent her summer practicum in Indonesia working with UNICEF assessing the child protection system. She is interested in child protection and disabled communities within refugee and IDP populations.
Thalia Sparling is a first-year student from New Haven, CT. She previously fund-raised for a medical center serving northern New Mexico, worked in the Slifka Program for Intercommunal Coexistence at Brandeis University and for the Center for Bioethics at U. Penn. Thalia is interested in youth agency in marginalized communities, protection of women and food culture in at-risk populations.
Meghan Swor is a second-year student from St. Paul, MN. She worked in HIV/AIDS with women and children in South Africa and Kenya. Meghan is interested in working with community development among urban poor communities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Sanjay Upadhyay is a family medicine physician and first year MPH student. Originally from New York, his interest in providing healthcare in underserved communities overseas sparked when he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger. Since then, he has worked on various healthcare projects in the Caribbean, Ecuador, Laos and Kenya.
Danielle White is a duel degree student in Public Health and Social Work. This is her second year at the university, but her first in the Population and Family Health track at Mailman. Prior to returning to school she worked in Cairo Egypt at a local NGO teaching English to Sudanese, Somali, Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees. Intrigued and amazed with the Sudanese ambition, Danielle sought out a job in Sudan. She worked as an academic manager and English teacher for a learning institution called Cambridge Learning Centers. Danielle left Sudan with a passion to learn more about and assist with gender inequalities and the psychosocial ramifications of gender-based violence in Africa.
Ayman Yassa is an International Emergency Medicine Fellow and emergency medicine physician at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Prior to starting in the MPH program he worked clinically in emergency departments in Ghana, Vietnam, and South Africa. He is interested in the delivery of health care in complex emergencies, particularly infectious diseases, and women's and child health.
