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Current PhD Students
Nawaf Albaqami
Nawaf Albaqami, a doctoral student in the Department of Health Policy and Management, is passionately dedicated to researching the influence of the environment and climate as social determinants of health. His forthcoming work will be primarily focused on mitigating health disparities in the aftermath of natural disasters, with a specific emphasis on vulnerable populations. He envisions becoming a fervent advocate for promoting equitable public health solutions.
Year Entered Program: 2023
Research Interests: Environment and climate as social determinants of health, mitigating health disparities after natural disasters.
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Sultan Alsaif
Sultan Alsaif is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Health Management and Systems Sciences. He is currently working on his dissertation titled "Organizational Change in Saudi Healthcare Settings: Evaluating Organizational and Individual Readiness, and Mediating Role of Readiness between Leadership and Commitment to Change". His expertise is in organizational change management and health insurance. In addition to his interest in change management and health insurance, Sultan Alsaif is interested in health policy evaluation and economic evaluation of public health programs.
Sultan Alsaif is a faculty member in the Center for Management & Public Policy Programs at the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Health Services Administration from University of Evansville. He has experience working for a private health organization in Saudi Arabia, and he had a consultancy role for Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia. Upon graduation, he plans to teach health management and policy courses and conduct research in the area of health policy, specifically in the area of evaluating the impact of new health policies on public health in Saudi Arabia.
Year Entered Program: 2018
Track: Organizational Theory
Research Interests: Health Policy Evaluation, Change Management, Evaluation of Readiness for Organizational Change
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Mary Curnutte
Mary Curnutte's research focuses on food and nutrition programs and policy. Mary is a practicing Registered Dietitian. Mary began working in nutrition for the preventative power of food in health. While nutrition counseling, Mary regularly encountered how nutrition still often is something to "fix" rather than a tool to support health. Mary's research intends to focus on food and nutrition as a tool to maintain, support, and restart thriving health.
Mary completed both her BS and MS at Saint Louis University in Nutrition & Dietetics with an emphasis in the Culinary Arts, where she also completed her Dietetic Internship. Clinically, Mary primarily worked in outpatient nutrition counseling. Mary has also been a Nutrition Course Lecturer at both the University of Louisville and Bellarmine University as well as a created and led group nutrition courses, provided nutrition seminars, and provided continuing education to the medical community.
Year Entered Program: 2021
Track: Health Policy
Research Interests: Food & Nutrition Programs and Policy
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Melissa Eggen
Melissa Eggen is a PhD student in the Department of Health Management and Systems Sciences. Her research focuses on understanding and improving childbirth experiences, specifically vaginal birth after cesarean, outcomes in pregnancy and postpartum, and reproductive health. She is a board member of The Milk Bank, an organization whose mission is to provide human donor milk to vulnerable infants, and a member of the Kentucky Perinatal Quality Collaborative and Kentucky Maternal Mortality Task Force. She is currently co-PI on a study to assess reproductive equity in Kentucky post-Dobbs. Melissa has a BA in Anthropology and Japanese language from the University of Kentucky and an MPH with a focus on Maternal and Child Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Year Entered Program: 2019
Research Interests: Maternal and infant health, access to care and quality, health policy
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Michael Egger
Michael Egger is currently a surgical oncologist at the University of Louisville and UofL Health. His clinical practice consists of a broad range of diseases, including melanoma, gastrointestinal, and hepatopancreatobiliary malignancies. His health service research interests focus on equitable and efficient care delivery of high quality cancer care. He is also interested in quality and safety issues in health care and serves as the Surgical Quality Officer for University of Louisville Hospital. Dr. Egger's clinical research interests include clinical trials and translational research related to melanoma treatment. Dr Egger's research and study at the University of Louisville SPHIS is funded by an American Cancer Society Clinician Scientist Development Grant. The focus of this research is to evaluate for disparities along the care continuum for cancer patients in rural areas. His future goals are to develop the health services research program in the Department of Surgery and the UofL Health Brown Cancer Center.
Year Entered Program: 2020
Track: Health Policy -- Health Data Analytics
Research Interests: Cancer care delivery, quality and safety, access to quality cancer care
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Connect with Michael via email.
T Benicio Gonzales
T Benicio Gonzales is a part-time PhD student with research interest in how organizations define, practice, and measure the effectiveness of their health and racial equity strategies. T currently serves the residents of Louisville, KY, as Director for the Center for Health Equity at the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health & Wellness. T is especially dedicated to supporting equity efforts in the public sector. T is most interested in investigating the impact of public and organizational policies and initiatives designed to advance equity by addressing the social determinants of health and systems of power, especially systemic racism and classism.
Anika Mehta
Anika Mehta is currently pursuing her doctorate in Public Health with a specialization in Health Management & Policy. Anika has an interest in designing a policy that can improve healthcare access and reduce the cost of healthcare. She considers genetics to be a strong element in providing healthcare in the future. So, her interest area for research includes policy analysis related to genetic testing, diagnostics, and treatments.
Anika has worked as a Manager in a Laboratory, in the healthcare sector. She has completed her double masters. Her former master's was in Biotechnology from Dr. D.Y.Patil University in India and her second Master's was in Biotechnology and Business from University College Dublin, Ireland. She has worked on business plan development for a healthcare product as a part of her internship. She also completed her master's thesis on probiotics.
Her interest areas are economics, finance and cost-benefit analysis in healthcare sector which can directly affect the policy making.
Year Entered Program: 2023
Track: Health Management & Policy
Research Interests: Policy design for treatment of cancer, cancer therapy, genetics
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Carmen Mitchell
Carmen Mitchell is a health policy PhD candidate in the Department of Health Management and Systems Sciences at the University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences, and a research coordinator with the Louisville Metro Crisis Call Diversion Program Evaluation Project. A multiple-methods researcher specializing in qualitative analysis and community-based participatory research, her research interests include incarceration and health, drug criminal policy and substance use, and racial health disparities within the criminal legal system and other systems of punishment, including incarceration, policing, and the child welfare system.
Mitchell’s recent projects include communications work for the UCLA Law Covid Behind Bars Data Project, and outreach work with The Afya Project promoting HIV education and PrEP usage among young Black-Americans in Louisville. Mitchell also worked with the Envirome Institute, the UofL Department of Infectious Diseases and the UofL Center for Health Organization Transformation. In addition to academic research, Mitchell spent years working in the nonprofit sector, including most recently as a criminal justice policy analyst the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. She completed her MPH the University of Louisville.
Mana Moghadami
Mana Moghadami is a medical doctor and a Ph.D. student specializing in Public Health management and policy at the University of Louisville. Mana's academic journey began with a medical degree; she had rotations in community healthcare centers. These rotations give her a unique experience to see the healthcare domain more broadly. She engaged with a rural population in a low socioeconomic community and observed various public health challenges and disparities; a sense of purpose inspired her at that time. Recognizing the broader societal factors that influence health outcomes, Mana embarked on a path in Public Health to explore the complex network of health determinants that shape the well-being of populations.
Currently pursuing her Ph.D., Mana's research focuses on infectious disease prevention. This work is driven by a desire to address pressing public health challenges, with the ultimate goal of contributing to evidence-based policies and interventions that reduce the spread of infectious diseases and improve the health and well-being of communities.
Outside academics, Mana regularly engages in community health initiatives. She is committed to making a positive difference that extends beyond the classroom, reflecting a true dedication to the principles of public health. She has experience working with international and national healthcare institutes. Upon graduation, she intends to choose an academic career to continue her research in the healthcare field.
Year Entered Program: 2023
Research Interests: Health policy analysis, medical educations, infectious diseases, cardiovascular diseases
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Connect with Mana via email
Yathreb Bayan Mohamed Najdy
Yathreb Bayan is a pharmacist, specializing in health economics, and currently a PhD student in public health management and policy at University of Louisville in the United States. She is an advocate and ambassador for sustainable development goals and graduated from Harvard Medical School's Clinical Research Program. She obtained her master's degree in the United States through a Fulbright scholarship from the University of Georgia. She holds an MBA in health economics from the Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport, and graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy at Ain Shams University. She graduated from the Presidential Program for Youth Leadership Development and the National Training Academy in Egypt. She has held several influential leadership positions, both locally and internationally, and worked as an assistant lecturer at a university in the United States and Egypt. She also served as the drug file manager in the Prime Minister's Office and was honored for her efforts during the pandemic. She has also worked as the Deputy Director of Clinical Research and a member of the Technical Office at the Health Insurance Presidency. She has participated in numerous international and local competitions and was honored as the Best Diplomatic Representative in the National Competition of the Arab States University in the United States, held in Washington, DC. She also won the Best Entrepreneurial Project to improve the healthcare system in the United States. She represented Egyptian youth in the First Arab Forum in the United Arab Emirates for the best youth initiatives and practices, represented Egyptian youth in the Egyptian Parliament, the Mediterranean Youth Academy, and conferences on youth and the world. youth forums. As for being an advocate and debater for sustainable development, women, and global health issues, she has presented various policy papers to the British Council on climate and sustainable development and their impact on women and mental health, where she won first place in the debate competition. She also participated in the "Be an Ambassador for Sustainable Development" initiative under the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development.
Haritha Pallam
Haritha Pallam is a PhD student in the Department of Health management and Systems Science. Her research focuses on understanding barriers to effective and equitable covid-19 response through the evaluation of essential needs program in Louisville Metro, KY, funded through the national initiative to address covid-19 health disparities among populations at high-risk and underserved. This groundbreaking funding represents CDC's largest investment to date focusing specifically on reducing health disparities related to COVID-19. The evaluation project helps develop a context-specific framework grounded in experiences of resident participants to help create equitable preparedness infrastructure. Haritha is an Epidemiologist at the Louisville Metro's Center for Health Equity, who helps in advancing equity work by engaging with communities and organizations, analyzes data, and utilizes equity lens in policy, practice, and decision-making. She has an MPH in Epidemiology from University of Louisville and MSc in Microbiology from Kakatiya University, Telangana, India. Her goal is to devise accountable strategies in-order to understand and implement structural reforms to address root causes of inequities by transforming decision making processes and power structures.
Naiya Patel
Naiya Patel is currently working on her dissertation titled "Clinical and Environmental Factors Affecting the Survival Outcomes among Stage IA T1-2N0M0 First Primary Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma Patients in the United States". Her expertise is in geocoding/cleaning/analyzing big real world data i.e. SEER cancer registry, Area Health Resource Files, Global Weather and Air Pollution Data to determine air pollution and weather effect on chronic disease outcomes. Beyond her thesis work, she is interested in Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) and causal relationships/Directed Acyclic Graph formation through evidence based research methodologies. Her short term goal is to investigate effect of environment on treated chronic condition patients while teaching courses for quantitative causal/correlational research methodologies, Public Health and Health Policy. Naiya's long term goal is to inform health policy decision making evolving around environment a person lives and its effect on their overall health outcomes including treatment disparities.
Year Entered Program: 2019
Track: Health Policy
Research Interests: Air Pollution & Weather exposure effect on chronic disease health outcomes, Geocoding census, cancer registry and environment data, Big data analytics, Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR), Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG), Healthcare disparities
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Shaminul Shakib
Shaminul Shakib is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Health Management and Systems Sciences. His research uses statistically driven models to generate evidence that helps address gaps in public health policies. His research interests include health policy evaluation, healthcare costs, infectious disease, diabetes, WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene), indigenous populations, and health equity. Shaminul Shakib has a B.S. in Economics and Finance and a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Central Michigan University. He has helped teach courses on data management, data mining, statistical analysis for population health, biomedical foundations for health analytics, data security and health records, and epidemiology. He has experience working with both international and national non-profits in Bangladesh. He intends to pursue a career in academia to continue his research and teaching upon graduation.
Year Entered Program: 2020
Track: Health Management and Policy
Research Interests: Health policy evaluation, healthcare costs, infectious disease, COVID-19, diabetes, WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene), indigenous populations, and health equity.
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Connect with Shaminul via email or LinkedIn
Philip Rohrer
Philip Rohrer is currently researching the factors associated with the delivery of low value health care services. He became interested in low value health care shortly after taking on a role at Humana in 2021, involved in quantifying various examples of low value care and developing techniques for mitigating low value care. Philip plans to use the skills he has developed as part of his education at the University of Louisville to continue to advance the efforts of Humana and influence business decisions to improve the health care of the millions of members Humana serves.
Year Entered Program: 2017
Track: Health Policy Research
Research Interests: Low Value Care
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Hamid Zarei
Hamid Zarei is a PhD student in Public Health Sciences specialization in Health Management and Policy. His research interests focus on the effects of Medicaid and Medicare policies on population health, spatial analysis of health outcomes and health disparities, projection of COVID-19 vaccination and outcomes, economic evaluation of healthcare policies or interventions, big data and simulation analysis, and mathematical modeling. He is currently a full-time teaching assistant in health data management and a part-time research assistant in evaluating disparities in COVID-19 vaccination in Jefferson County/Louisville. Hamid has a BA in Applied Mathematics from the Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz and an MS in economics from the Institute for Management and Planning Studies, Tehran, Iran. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer, cycling, and hiking with friends.
