Doctoral Student Profiles
Mackenzie Adams, MPH, is a doctoral student in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education
at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and a Rackham Merit Fellow.
Her research interests include understanding and mitigating the factors that influence
substance use and adverse mental health outcomes in adolescents.
Ja
nae Best, MPH (she/her/hers) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Health Behavior
and Health Education. She is interested, broadly, in the impact of racism on Black
communities. Specifically, she aims to highlight the impact of race-based stress on
the sexual health and mental health of Black Americans while noting factors that have
contributed to resiliency. This includes considering religiosity, social support,
and racial identity as coping mechanisms. Her methodological interests lie with program
design and community-based participatory research. Ultimately, she aims to implement
interventions to address structural racism and move Black communities toward health
equity.
Laura Brotzman, MPH is a doctoral student in the Department of Health Behavior & Health Education
at the School of Public Health and a Rackham Merit Fellow. Broadly, she is interested
in medical decision making, risk communication, information visualization, and implementation
of clinical practice guidelines.
Gregory Bushman, MPH, MSW, is a doctoral student in the Department of Health Behavior & Health Education
at the School of Public Health. His work explores the relationship between the urban
built environment and health, and examines the efficacy of community-engaged environmental
design as a public health intervention for the reduction and prevention of crime,
violence, and injury. Methodologically, he is interested in the visualization and
analysis of spatiotemporal data, and in the application of data science and machine
learning techniques to public health research.
Chelsea G. Cox, MPH, MSW, is a doctoral candidate and Rackham Merit Fellow in the Department of
Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public.
She previously directed community outreach and education initiatives for the NIH/NIA
Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of California, Irvine. Her research
is focused on improving early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and risk communication
among healthcare providers, patients, and family members.
Victoria H. Davis (she/her/hers), MSc, is a doctoral student in the Department of Health Behavior and
Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Her research
focuses on opportunities to intervene on unmet social needs (e.g., social isolation,
housing, and food security) in healthcare and social settings. She is passionate about
working alongside patients and communities toward health and social equity, and policy
and program evaluation.
Sara J. Feldman, MPH, is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education
(HBHE) at the School of Public Health and a Rackham Merit Fellow. Sara has domestic
and global experience in the development, implementation and promotion of disability
and health education curriculum, programs and policies. Her current research is focused
on the ethical, social, behavioral and psychological implications of disclosing genetic
and biomarker risk information for the early detection of neurodegenerative diseases
(i.e., Alzheimer’s disease) among patients and their family members and/or care partners.
Koya Ferrell, Koya Ferrell is a Doctoral student in the School of Public Health in the Department
of Health Behavior and Health Education. Her research interest includes the impact
of racial stress and trauma on healthcare engagement and ways to improve patient-provider
relationships and quality of care delivery through physician training centered around
anti-racism and dismantling structural and institutional inequity. She holds a masters
degree in Physiology and Biophysics and previously served as a research trainee at
the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes
of Health. During her doctoral studies, she hopes to bring together her past clinical
care experience with her current studies in community health and community-based participatory
research to better understand and improve preventive medicine services, specifically
for Black communities.
Noelle E. Kellogg, MPH is a doctoral student in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education
and a Rackham Merit Fellow. Her research interests include using community-engaged
approaches to better understand and address the health effects of intersectional stigma,
particularly among youth and LGBTQ+ people.
Akilah Patterson, MPH is a doctoral student in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education. Her research focuses on the effects of racial discrimination on mental health among adolescents and emerging adults. Previously, she was a project manager for the Healthy Minds Study, the largest and most comprehensive national research study on college student mental health.
Clara Lucia Reyes, MPH, is a doctoral student and Rackham Merit Fellow in the Department of
Health Behavior and Health Education (HBHE) at the University of Michigan School of
Public
Health. Clara is also a Population Studies Center trainee at the Institute for Social
Research.
Her research focuses on understanding structural influences on the health of (im)migrant
communities and subsequent generations in the U.S. and Latin America, and in developing
and
implementing community-driven policy approaches to advance health equity and social
justice.
Clara earned her MPH in Community Health Education from New Mexico State University.
While there, she contributed to the cultural adaptation of an evidence-based parenting
program
for Latina mothers diagnosed with cancer and was Program Manager of the randomized
control
trial assessing its efficacy. Prior to her MPH studies, Clara worked at Peace Corps
headquarters
in Washington, DC and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in El Salvador.
Amy Rusch, MPH, is a doctoral student and Rackham Merit Fellow in the Department of Health
Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Her research interests revolve around mental health in school- and community-based
settings. Utilizing Implementation Science frameworks, theories, and strategies, she
aims to focus her work on improving the availability and accessibility of evidence-based
mental health resources and programming. She plans to deploy rigorous qualitative
and quantitative methods to identify effective ways to bridge gaps and improve mental
health access for underserved populations through an equity lens.
Sundas Saboor, MBBS, MPH, is a doctoral student in the Deparment of Health Behavior and Health
Education at the School of Public Health. Broadly, she is interested in women's health,
public health practices among Muslim women, artificial intelligence, and digital health.
Maren Spolum, MPH, MPP (she/her/hers) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Health Behavior
and Health Education and a Population Studies Center demography trainee within the
Institute for Social Research. Broadly her research interests include the political
economy of health, structural racism, public policy, and health inequities. Maren
is specifically interested in tracing the historical and political conditions giving
rise to neoliberal policy decisions, and the role and impact those policies have had
in the social patterning of racial health inequities in the U.S.
Dominique Sylvers, MPH, is a doctoral candidate in the department of Health Behavior & Health Education
who is committed to working for more equitable aging. Dominique is a trainee with
the Population Studies Center (PSC) and Social Environment and Health (SEH) Department,
both at the Institute for Social Research (ISR). Her research largely focuses on the
older African American adults, specifically around explicating the influence of segregation
and the neighborhood context on disparities in cognitive aging.
Gabrielle Young, MPH, CHES, is a doctoral student in the Department of Health Behavior and Health
Education at the School of Public Health and a Rackham Merit Fellow. Broadly, she
is interested in policy and built environment interventions to address hunger and
diet quality. She has a special interest in the structural drivers of inequalities
and their impact on households meeting food needs.