Current Students of the Population Health Sciences Program

Esther Boama-Nyarko, BS, MPH

Esther Boama-Nyarko earned her BS in Biology & Public Health from UMass Amherst and her MPH in Social and Behavioral Sciences from Boston University. Esther previously worked at Worcester Connections Family Resource Center of YOU Inc. where she assisted families in navigating resources including food access, housing assistance, childcare and mental health resources in the Worcester Area.  She serves on the board of St. Anne’s Free Medical Program, which seeks to provide high-quality healthcare services to the uninsured and underinsured members of the greater Worcester community. In her several years as a Clinical Research Coordinator in the Department of Emergency Medicine, her research experience focused on suicide prevention within healthcare settings, including training, clinician engagement and continuous quality improvement. Her employment at UMass Chan introduced her to implementation science and piqued her interest in establishing an independent career in research. Esther’s primary research interests are under the umbrellas of health equity, mental health, and community-based research. In her first year, she was selected to participate in and  receive funding as a pre-doctoral scholar in the UMass Chan Center for Clinical and Translation Science (CCTS) TL1 training program. She hopes to use the opportunity to investigate differential participation in perinatal mental health services for women of color. She is mentored by Dr. Stephenie Lemon and Dr. Christine Ulbricht.

Qiaoxi Chen, BS, MPH

Qiaoxi (Tracy) Chen earned her BS in biomedical sciences in Central Nervous System stream from University College London. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the role of phosphorylation of NMDA receptors that locate in neurons during the spreading of pain signals. She then earned her MPH with a concentration in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from Boston University. After graduation from BU, she worked for Brigham and Women’s Hospital as a clinical data analyst participated in providing statistical analysis and data visualization support to the Medicaid pilot projects including Community Partners project and Serious Mental Illness project as well as Faculty Wellness projects held by Brigham and Women’s Physician Organization.

Melissa Goulding, BS, MS

Melissa earned a BS in Biology from Emmanuel College, Boston MA and a MS in Medical Sciences from Boston University School of Medicine. Through her master’s program she was introduced to clinical research at UMass Chan Medical School. After completing her masters, Melissa remained at UMass Chan as a clinical research coordinator in the Emergency Medicine Department until joining the PHS program. Melissa’s research interests include chronic disease prevention and health promotion in children with an emphasis on health equity. Currently, her work focuses on pediatric hypertension screening and management. Melissa is a member of the Health Equity Research Group (HERG), the IMSD program, and is a pre-doctoral scholar in the UMass Center for Clinical and Translation Science (UMCCTS) TL1 Training Program. Melissa is mentored by Dr. Stephenie Lemon.

Carly Herbert, BA

Carly is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a BA in Anthropology: Global Health and the Environment. During her time at Washington University, Carly conducted research with the Death to Onchocerciasis and Lymphatic filariasis (DOLF) Project, looking at adverse effects associated with mass drug administration for the global elimination of Lymphatic filariasis. She also conducted anthropological research on the gendering of HIV in Uganda. After college, Carly worked at the CDC as a Public Health Research Fellow in the Division of Chronic Viral Diseases studying HPV infection among men who have sex with men.

Carly is in the Population Health Sciences Program, and her current interests include social and infectious epidemiology and biostatistics. Carly will be working with Dr. Bo Wang as her thesis advisor, studying HIV education implementation in the Bahamas and machine learning as an HIV risk predictor

Clevanne Julce, BS, MPH

Clevanne Julce (she/her/hers) is a 1st-year PhD student in the Population Health Sciences program at UMass Chan Medical School. Clevanne received her BS in Public Health from UMass Amherst and holds an MPH in Program Management from Boston University. In 2013, she joined ClimbCorps as a Team Associate at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where she delivered wellness presentations and physical activity challenges to corporate offices, schools, and community organizations throughout the Boston area. For seven years, Clevanne worked as a Project Manager for the Preconception Care Research Team at Boston University Medical Center (BUMC) where she oversaw both domestic and international grant portfolios. Within this role, she coordinated a national randomized-controlled trial of over 500 Black and African American women, assisted in the content development of an innovative Health Information Technology system, “Gabby”, designed to mitigate poor maternal and infant health outcomes in the Black community, and carried out the adaptation and cultural tailoring of “Gabby” for use in the country of Lesotho to promote HIV testing among the Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) community. Additionally, Clevanne has worked as an Event Coordinator for the Volunteer Health Advisor program at Cambridge Health Alliance and a Community Health Worker for the Center for Disease Control’s High Impact Prevention program. Clevanne’s primary research focus seeks to use a mixed-methods approach to investigate the intersection between the use of technology, preconception care delivery, and the growing field of implementation science. She is passionate about health disparities and racial justice particularly surrounding Black maternal and infant mortality. She will be mentored by Dr. Nancy Byatt.

Heeyoon "Melissa" Jung, BSN, MS

Heeyoon (Melissa) Jung graduated from College of Nursing in Chung-Ang University. While working at the Clinical Trial Center at Samsung Medical Center, she participated in coordinating breast cancer trials and collecting patient data, which sparked her interest in analyzing medical data. This led her to pursue a Master's degree in Pharmacy at Chungnam National University. Throughout her Master's studies, she worked on modeling pharmacokinetic data from clinical studies for drug optimization and analyzing electronic medical records for assessing medication effect. Her current research interest has deepened to analyzing large population datasets to assess the safety and effectiveness of medical interventions.

Pryce Michener, BS, BA

Pryce is originally from Lawton, Oklahoma and graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee with a BS in Biology and a BA in German. During undergrad, he studied the evolutionary biology of the Australian plant family Goodeniaceae with a focus on phylogenetics and bioinformatics. Since college, he has done research on the evolution of transposable elements in gibbons and another project on the evolution of stickleback fish immune systems. He began doing population health research after coming to UMass and is interested in health disparities and social epidemiology research particularly in people who use drugs or are experiencing homelessness. He has been involved in local harm reduction work since moving to Worcester for medical school two years ago. He will be mentored by Dr. Peter Friedmann.

Syed Naqvi, BS

Syed Naqvi (He/Him/His) graduated from the University of Connecticut with a BS in Biological Sciences and a BS in Environment, Culture, and Health. His McNair Scholar research and honors thesis focused on studying the health burdens of contaminated water and creating hydrogel beads that could be used to treat contaminated water as a solution.

He conducted postbaccalaureate research at UMass Chan with Dr. Anthony Nunes studying non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. His experience motivated him to pursue a PhD in PHS. Currently, Syed is a first year PhD student working on diabetes epidemiology related research mentored by Dr. Anthony Nunes.

Laël Nethania Ngangmeni, BA, MBS

Laël received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Pre-Medical studies and Psychology from Bard College at Simon’s Rock. While there, she completed a year-long senior thesis project on "(Over)Medicalization of Pregnancy and Childbirth in the United States: Consequences, Repercussions, and a 'New Age' revolt." She then graduated from Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine with a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences. Laël then joined UMass Chan as an MD/PhD student in the  Population Health Sciences program.

Shaped by her experience as a Cameroonian immigrant to the United States, Laël’s research interests include infant and maternal health, health disparities—especially with regards to race and religion, immigrant and refugee health, and mental health. She has completed a lab rotation with Dr. Nancy Byatt on screening for mental illnesses during the perinatal period. She also completed a lab rotation with Dr. Wenjun Li on teen pregnancy and another one with Dr. Kristin Mattocks on Veterans' health. Laël will be working with Dr. Kristin Mattocks as her thesis advisor, studying health disparities and women Veterans' health.

Natalia Nielsen, MPH

Natalia graduated with her MPH from the University of Utah in 2019. Her master’s practicum project focused on menstrual hygiene management among women living in rural villages in Punjab, India. She has worked on research projects focused on environmental health, women’s health, and gerontology. Her most recent work as a clinical research coordinator for Dr. Kate Lapane, PhD included working on a systematic review of the effect of social connectedness on health outcomes in long term care settings and a qualitative analysis of nursing home administrators’ efforts to mitigate social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is interested in studying older women’s health through a Life Course Framework and working with minority populations.   Natalia is mentored by Kate Lapane, PhD and has research interests in women’s health, aging, mixed methods research and working with minority populations.

Seun Osundolire, MD

Seun Osundolire graduated from Windsor University School of Medicine, St. Kitts (West Indies) with a MD degree. After graduation, he proceeded to complete a medical practice internship year in his home country, Nigeria. He came to the U.S in 2015 and subsequently joined the U.S Army as a Behavioral Health Specialist. Seun is studying for his MPH degree at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS), and hopes to complete it by Summer 2020. His master's culminating experience project was focused on finding the relationship between overweight and congestive heart failure or coronary heart disease using the NHANES dataset. He has research interests in the field of pharmacoepidemiology and working with vulnerable populations.

Atinuke Oyinbo, BSc, MPH

Atinuke is a first year PhD student in the Population Health Sciences Program at UMass Chan Medical School. She earned her BSc in Biochemistry from Covenant University and her MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her undergraduate thesis was an exploration of potential cancer biomarkers through the quantitative measurement of biochemical parameters in Nigerian breast cancer patients. At UMass Lowell, she served as a research assistant to provide support on the qualitative analysis of focus group data from the Healthy Active and in Control (HA1C) project, a study that examined the feasibility and acceptability of yoga as a complementary therapy for adults with Type-2 Diabetes. She also explored the effects of social media usage on perceived stress among college students using data from the USDA-funded Get Fruved project. She completed her MPH practicum with the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards where she evaluated state workers’ injury compensation claims to identify and prioritize high-risk occupational settings. Atinuke is mentored by Dr. Mara Epstein and Dr. Kate Lapane and her research interests lie broadly in the field of cancer epidemiology, particularly in biomarkers, survivorship, comorbidities, polypharmacy and cancer disparities.

Meagan Sabatino, BA, MSL

Meagan Sabatino (she/her/hers) earned her BA in Psychology and Philosophy from Boston University. Following graduation, she spent 12 years working in clinical research at institutions in Boston, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Dallas. Her research focused on advancing treatment in clinical specialties such as Sports Medicine, Orthopaedics, Oncology, and Emergency Medicine. Over the last two years, Meagan managed an Institutional Review Board program, facilitating the review of human subjects research protocols and ensuring research was conducted both legally and ethically. In the spring of 2021, she completed a Masters of Legal Studies in Health Law and Healthcare Policy at Wake Forest University. Meagan’s research interests include studying the creation, validation, and use of patient-reported outcomes, identifying the impact of treatment on health-related quality of life, predicting long-term treatment outcomes, and health policy research.

Peng "Billy" Zhou, MS

Peng “Billy” Zhou graduated from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute with an MS in Data Science prior to becoming a medical student at UMass Chan. Billy’s master thesis focused on Generative Adversarial Networks Learning with Sparse Image Data. During his Master study, he worked as a research assistant in Deep Transfer Learning Radiology Reports Semantic Analysis, and he worked with the pharmaceutical company for Deep learning Image classification. These experiences ignited his great passion for applicating machine learning and deep learning technology into biomedical research. Mentored by Dr. Chan Zhou, Billy is currently interested in computational methods development of integrating multiple big data (high-throughput sequencing genomics, transcriptomics and clinical health record) to explore noncoding RNAs and epigenomics for personalized medicine.