CURRENT FELLOWS
Meet the 2022 cohort and scroll down to learn about fellows from prior cohorts.
2022 Fellows
Alexa White, MS
Alexa White is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. Alexa is working to increase the number of scientists and engineers of color involved in community-led environmental justice research through her role as co-founder and executive director of her think tank, the AYA Research Institute.
Candis M. Hunter, PhD, MSPH, REHS
Dr. Candis M. Hunter is an Environmental Health Scientist with research interests in environmental justice, food accessibility, community engagement, implementation science, and children’s health to advance health equity and multisector partnerships. She received her BS in Chemistry from Spelman College and her MSPH with a dual concentration in Environmental & Occupational Health and Epidemiology from Emory University Rollins School of Public Health.
Carolyn E. Ramírez, PhD
Carolyn E. Ramírez completed their Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Northwestern University in June of 2022. They studied physical organic chemistry in graduate school, focusing on nonlinear spectroscopy of artificial photosynthetic compounds for use in solar cells.
Denise Moreno Ramírez, PhD, MS
Denise is a Mexican Indigenous Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center for Toxicology and Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at The University of Arizona (UA). Her research focuses on understanding how volatile organic compounds interact in workplace air and impact low-wage, minority workers in small business beauty salons and auto shops in Tucson, Arizona.
Gabriel I. Gadsden, MS
Gabriel is a native of North Carolina and a Ph.D. student of Environmental Sciences at Yale University’s School of the Environment, interested in the interface of energy justice, urban ecology, and health. For his dissertation, he focuses on how disparities in energy-efficient housing are affecting urban rodent disease and allergen exposure in Philadelphia.
Jan-Michael Archer, MS
Jan-Michael Archer is a PhD Candidate and National Science Foundation Research Trainee at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Jan’s research pursues better practices for using community science to increase environmental health literacy and reduce poor health outcomes in neighborhoods suffering from air pollution overburden.
JoRee LaFrance
JoRee LaFrance – also known as Iichiinmáatchileesh/Fortunate with Horses – comes from the Apsáalooke/Crow Nation located in southeastern Montana. She holds a B.A. in Earth Sciences and Native American Studies from Dartmouth College and is now a doctoral student in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Arizona.
Kevin P. Patterson, MPH
Kevin is an incoming Diné PhD student in Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. His research investigates the distribution of metal exposures (uranium, arsenic, etc.) in groundwater and diet across US indigenous communities and their relationship with related health outcomes.
Lisbeth Iglesias-Rios, PhD, MPH, MA
Dr. Iglesias-Ríos’s research interests are the intersection of environmental and occupational health with precarious employment and labor exploitation in vulnerable populations. Her previous research assessed the impact of labor trafficking by studying how patterns of violence and coercion affect the mental health of female and male trafficking survivors including children, adolescents and adults.
Marissa Chan, MS
Marissa Chan is an Afro-Caribbean and Chinese PhD student in Population Health Sciences within the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research interests and work experience surround environmental justice and beauty justice, specifically focusing on the intersection of place-based environmental hazards and product-based exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in personal care products.
Nsilo Berry, MS
Nsilo Berry is Health Impact Researcher for Healthy Building Network, where he works to research the health associated outcomes of building products in historically marginalized communities, as well as the environment. Previously, Nsilo worked with nonprofit organizations such as Global Health Brigades and Power-Up Gambia, where he was responsible for sustainable health projects in Central America and Africa.
Robbie M. Parks, PhD
As an environmental epidemiologist with a background in physics, Dr. Robbie M. Parks has diverse experience in large-scale multi-disciplinary quantitative research focused on climate-related exposures and public health. He is currently a NIH NIEHS K99/R00 Fellow at Columbia University, and will be an Assistant Professor at Columbia University in Environmental Health Sciences from Spring 2023.
Sabah Usmani, MCP
Sabah Usmani is an PhD student in the Climate and Health Program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She is an urban planner and interdisciplinary researcher from India with experience across geographic scales in air pollution and health disparities, transportation, energy and water, and climate mitigation and adaptation planning in India, USA, Ecuador, and Malaysia.
Valerisa Joe-Gaddy, PhD
Dr. Valerisa Joe-Gaddy is originally from Gallup, NM and is of the Diné (Navajo) people. Dr. Joe-Gaddy is an Alumna of the University of Arizona receiving both her PhD ad MS in Environmental Science with an emphasis in microbiology. Prior to UArizona, she received her BS in Microbiology from New Mexico State University.
2021 Fellows
Abrania Marrero
Abrania Marrero is a PhD candidate in Population Health Sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Annie Hoang, MPH
Annie Hoang is an an MD candidate at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she is enrolled in the Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved (PRIME-US).
April Ballard, MPH
April Ballard, MPH is an Environmental Health Science PhD Candidate at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health.
Azmal Hossan, MA, MSS
Azmal is a PhD student in Sociology and National Research Trainee in Interdisciplinary Training, Education and Research in Food-Energy-Water Systems at Colorado State University.
Carlos Gould, PhD
Carlos Gould is an incoming Stanford Earth Postdoctoral Fellow. He recently defended his PhD in Environmental Health Sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Cielo Sharkus
Cielo Sharkus is a Ph.D. candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Dana Williamson, PhD
Dana Williamson is currently an Environmental Health Fellow hosted at the U.S. EPA’s Office of the Science Advisor, Policy & Engagement.
Daniel Carrión, PhD
Dr. Daniel Carrión is an environmental health scientist focused on the intersection of energy, health, and inequalities globally and domestically. He is an incoming faculty member at Yale School of Pubic Health and Yale Center on Climate Change & Health.
Enjoli Hall
Enjoli Hall is a PhD student and Ford Predoctoral Fellow in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Gavin Rienne, MPH
Gavin Rienne, MPH is an Epidemiology & Biostatistics PhD candidate at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health.
Jamaji Nwanaji-Enwerem, MD, PhD, MPP
Jamaji C. Nwanaji-Enwerem is a Emergency Medicine Resident Physician at Emory University School of Medicine and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.
Kartik Amarnath, MS
Kartik Amarnath is the Policy Specialist for PUSH Buffalo and a MD and MPH candidate – currently on a leave – at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, NY.
Krystal Vasquez
Krystal Vasquez is a PhD Candidate and NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.
Lariah Edwards, PhD
Dr. Lariah Edwards is currently an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Lorraine N. Vélez-Torres, MPH
Lorraine N. Vélez-Torres, MPH is a Microbiology PhD Candidate at the University of Puerto Rico – Medical Sciences Campus.
Michelle Gin, MPH
Michelle Gin, MPH is an Environmental Health Supervisor for Community Outreach and Engagement in the Environmental Health Division of Ramsey County Public Health Department in Minnesota.
Misbath Daouda, MPH
Misbath is a PhD candidate in Environmental Health Sciences at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.
OreOluwa Badaki, MsEd
OreOluwa Badaki is a PhD Candidate in in the Literacy, Culture, and International Education Division at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.
Regan Patterson, PhD
Regan F. Patterson is the Transportation Equity Research Fellow at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF).
Rodrigo Alatriste-Diaz
Rodrigo Alatriste-Diaz is a PhD candidate in Development Sociology at Cornell University and researcher at UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center.
Tatiana (Tots) Height, Ed.D.
Tatiana (Tots) Height, Ed.D. received a doctorate in the Agricultural and Extension Education from NC State University.
Theresa Guillette, PhD
Theresa received a Ph.D. in Marine Biomedicine and Environmental Health Sciences from the Medical University of South Carolina. Her dissertation work focused on environmental contaminants and associated health effects in Nile crocodiles. Theresa is currently an Environmental Scientist II at Arcadis.
Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne, PhD
Dr. Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
2020 Fellows
Ans Irfan, MD, EdD, DrPH, MPH
Ans Irfan, MD, DrPH, MPH is an adjunct professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University.
Ashley Gripper, MPH
Ashley Gripper is a PhD Candidate in the Environmental Health Department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Brenda Trejo Rosas, MPH
Brenda M. Trejo Rosas, MPH is a PhD Candidate in the Environmental and Occupational Health Department at The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, where
Brianna VanNoy, MPH
Brianna VanNoy, MPH, is a research associate at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.
Deniss Martinez, MSc
Deniss Martinez is a PhD Student at UC Davis in the Graduate Group in Ecology. She is also a Health Policy Research Scholar with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
El’gin Avila, MPH, CPH
El’gin Avila, MPH, CPH, is a PhD student studying Industrial Hygiene at the University of Minnesota and the founder of Equitable Health Solutions.
Max Aung, PhD, MPH
Dr. Max Aung is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Environmental Health at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.
Mỹ Dzung Chu, PhD, MSPH
MyDzung T. Chu, PhD, MSPH, is the Faculty Investigator at the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine in the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies and the Director of the ADAPT (Addressing Disparities in Asian Populations through Translational Research) Coalition at Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
