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Alumni news - Fall 2024
AWARDS
Julia Barclay, BA '22, has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to teach English in Thailand next year. Julia graduated in 2022 with degrees in public health and Spanish and has since worked in ESL classrooms in Spain. Read more.
Tyson Jackson, MSHA '24, was awarded the 2024 Kentucky Hospital Association Graduate Student Scholarship for his excellence in graduate healthcare management education and community support. In reflecting on the significance of the award, Jackson said, "This award contributes to my drive of serving my community and improving the health and lives of Kentuckians, extending into every community I may be fortunate to serve as a healthcare leader." He also thanked faculty in the MS in Health Administration program, Drs. Lee Bewley and Andrew McCart, "for their unwavering guidance."
PRESENTATIONS & PUBLICATIONS
Kehinde Olayemi, MPH '23, and Dr. Martha Jean Schecter, adjunct associate professor, presented, "Don't Agonize, Organize: The Older Women's League (OWL) and Advocacy for Older Women's Health," at the University of Louisville Trager Institute 2024 Optimal Aging Conference.
Daniel Riggs, PhD '22, MS '10, published, “Association of Ecoregion Distribution of Greenness with Cardiovascular Mortality: A Longitudinal Ecological Study in the United States,” in Circulation Research. The team assessed how ecoregions modify the relationship between greenness and mortality as evidence indicates that living in areas of high greenness is associated with lower rates of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Co-authors included Drs. Natalie DuPre (SPHIS), Peter James (Harvard), Shesh Rai (U. of Cincinnati), Ray Yaegar (SPHIS alumnus & UofL Envirome Institute), Clara Sears (SPHIS alumna & UofL Envirome Institute), Francine Laden (Harvard), and Aruni Bhatnagar (UofL Envirome Insitute). Read more.
Madeline Tomlinson, PhD '22, MPH '19, was first author on an article published in Cancer Causes & Control titled, “Heavy-Metal Associated Breast Cancer and Colorectal Cancer Hot Spots and their Demographic and Socioeconomic Characteristics.” The research team examined area-based metal exposures and odds of residing in breast and colorectal cancer hotspots utilizing state tumor registry data and described the characteristics of those living in heavy metal-associated cancer hotspots. They found higher ambient metal exposures were associated with higher odds of residing in breast and colorectal cancer hotspots. Additionally, populations in breast and colorectal cancer hotspots were disproportionately Black and had markers of lower socioeconomic status. Dept. of Epidemiology and Population Health co-authors included Felicia Pugh, Johnnie Newton, Stephie Abraham, Brian Guinn, and Natalie DuPre. Additional authors were Alexandra Nail (UofL), Karen Udoh (UofL), Sandy Kavalukas (UofL), Rulla Tamimi (Cornell), Francine Laden (Harvard), Hari Iyer (Rutgers), J Christopher States (UofL), C Matthew Ruther (UofL), and Tyler Ellis (UofL). Read more.
Scott Skinner, PhD '23, MBA, FACHE, CHTM, contributed to an article published in the Journal of Clinical Engineering titled, “Medical Equipment Aging, Part I—Impact on Maintenance.” Researchers, led by Binseng Wang, examined the varying deterioration of medical equipment to determine the best maintenance strategy for different types and brands of equipment as well as to optimize replacement planning. This article, which presents the aging impact on medical equipment maintenance, is the first of a three-part series. The second article analyzes the impact on the lifespan of medical equipment. The final article reviews the root causes of aging and presents an aging model that can be used for both maintenance and replacement plannings without having to analyze individual equipment types or individual brands and models in a comprehensive manner. Co-authors were Torgeir siv.ing Rui, Morgan Ayers-Comegys, Jason Gibson, and Steve Williams. Read more.
Two graduates from the Department of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics (DBB) presented their research during the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) held in August 2024. Chathura Siriwardhana, PhD, ’16, presented Personalized Treatment Selection for Multivariate Ordinal Scale Outcomes and Multiple Treatments,” as part of a session on advances in statistical methods for learning individualized treatments. Dr. Siriwardhana’s coauthors were DBB faculty, Drs. Bakeerathan Gunaratnam and K.B. Kulasekera. Debamita Kundu, PhD, ’19, presented Bayesian Inference of Chemical Mixtures Exposures in Risk Assessment of Health Outcome during the Bayesian Innovations in Public Health and Epidemiology session. Dr. Kundu’s coauthors were Sung Duk Kim and Paul Albert of the National Cancer Institute. JSM is the largest gathering of statisticians and data scientists in North America.
