GW SPH Office of PhD/MS Programs

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GW SPH Office of PhD/MS Programs

PhD student activities, news, accomplishments from GWU's Milken Institute School of Public Health

The George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health has 7 PhD programs—Environmental & Occupational Health, Epidemiology, Exercise Physiology & Applied Nutrition, Global Public Health Sciences, Health Data Science, Health Policy, and Social & Behavioral Sciences.

07/25/2024

Earlier this week we hosted a PhD Information Session in which we discussed what it's like having a career in public health, PhD roadmap, and how to apply to our PhD programs at Milken Institute School of Public Health (GWSPH) at GWU.

We are pleased to share the slides from the event! You can access them here:

05/20/2024

PhD Social & Behavioral Sciences graduate: Christina Wysota.

Christy's research interests are to***co/ni****ne use and mental health.

Her dissertation title is: Noticing E-Cigarette Warning Labels in relation to Harm Perceptions and E-cigarette Use Intentions among a National Sample of US Adults.

Christy’s research examines to***co and ni****ne use behaviors and outcomes. In her dissertation, she used nationally representative longitudinal data to examine the extent to which FDA-mandated e-cigarette warning labels influence harm perceptions and use intentions among a sample of US adults. She seeks to continue to understand the relative harm of e-ci******es compared with ci******es, specifically among disadvantaged populations as well as the co-occurrence of to***co use and mental health. She has published her work in the American Journal of Health Promotion and presented at the Society for Research on Ni****ne and To***co and the Society of Behavioral Medicine. She received an MPH degree from New York University and her undergraduate degree at the University of Delaware. After GW, she will be joining the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health as a postdoctoral research fellow.

05/13/2024

PhD Social & Behavioral Sciences graduate: Caitlin Bailey.

Caitlin's research interests are digital health technologies, nutrition & physical activity, circadian science, and chronic disease prevention.

Her dissertation title is: Examining Associations between the Timing of Physical Activity and Health Outcomes in Young Adults.

Dr. Bailey’s research focuses on obesity and chronic disease prevention in young adults. Her work explores health behaviors (physical activity, nutrition, sleep), psychosocial determinants, and cardiometabolic outcomes. She is particularly interested in the use of digital health technologies, such as wearable devices, to measure the circadian timing of health behaviors and related health outcomes. Her dissertation work, which was supported by an F31 fellowship grant from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, examined associations between the timing of physical activity and health outcomes in young adults. Her research has received two Research Excellence Awards from the Society of Behavioral Medicine, including the Karen Calfas Award for physical activity research. Dr. Bailey received her MS in Nutrition Interventions, Communication, and Behavior Change from Tufts University in 2019. After GW, she will be joining the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a Cancer Prevention Postdoctoral Research Fellow. At NCI, she intends to continue her research on digital interventions for obesity and chronic disease prevention. She plans to integrate her behavioral science expertise with innovative data science topics, such machine learning algorithms and digital biomarkers.

05/06/2024

PhD Epidemiology graduate: Daniela Poss Schoelen.

Daniela's research interests are infectious disease epidemiology, Maternal and Child Health, and Foodborne outbreak and response.

Her Dissertation Title is: The Impact of Perceived Stress during Pregnancy on Placental Disease-related Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes; the Mechanism by which Stress is Associated with these Outcomes; and Modifying Constructs of that Mechanism

Daniela’s research examines the impact of perceived stress during pregnancy on placental disease-related adverse pregnancy outcomes; the mechanism by which stress is associated with these outcomes; and modifying constructs of that mechanism. In her dissertation, she used multivariable logistic regression and modelling using PROCESS macro to test the role of depression and anxiety as mediators; resilience, psychosocial support, and race/ethnicity as moderators; as well as moderated-mediation of these variables on the relationship between perceived maternal stress during pregnancy and the outcomes of interest. She received an MPH degree in Epidemiology from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Stevenson University. Daniela has worked an epidemiologist for multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and, currently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). After graduation, she plans to continue her work at FDA’s Office of Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation (CORE) Network as an epidemiologist, evaluating and responding to foodborne outbreaks at the national level.

05/01/2024

Congratulations to Brendan Fries for winning the first prize in the doctoral category! Brenda is a second year PhD student in Global Health. His abstract was titled “A Cross-Sectional Study of the Association Between Insecticide Treated Bed Net Use and Malaria Prevalence in Sierra Leone”

04/11/2024

Thanks to all of our PhD students for participating in GWSPH Research Day! Research Day is a forum for all students to showcase their exceptional work through poster presentations. We enjoyed learning about everyone's research!

03/12/2024

Thinking about getting a PhD in Public Health? At GW's Milken Institute School of Public Health (GWSPH), there are 7 PhD programs to choose from. Here's a look at GWSPH's research environment:

03/06/2024

Here are the rest of our PhD students who participated in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition! They did an amazing job and we are very proud of them all!

02/23/2024

Congratulations to Caitlin (PhD Social and Behavioral Sciences) for placing third in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition!!

Developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition celebrates the research being conducted by students. The competition cultivates students' academic, presentation, and research communication skills. Since 2011, the popularity of the competition has increased and 3MT competitions are now held in over 600 universities across more than 65 countries worldwide.

01/16/2024

PhD Epidemiology Graduate Fall 2023: Rowena Yip

Rowena's research interests are: Lung cancer screening, treatments for early stage lung cancer, to***co-related diseases

Rowena's dissertation title is "Factors associated with lung cancer treatment choices: current practice and a step towards precision medicine"

Rowena's research focuses on developing and applying quantitative methods on research related to early detection of lung cancer through low dose CT screening, leveraging extensive databases to evaluate and advance the diagnosis and treatment of early-stage lung cancer. In her dissertation, Rowena analyzed two large longitudinal lung cancer screening and treatment databases, 1) she utilized exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to examine the underlying latent constructs of tumor aggressiveness and surgical invasiveness, and a multiple-indicator, multiple-cause model to elucidate the relationship between tumor aggressiveness and surgical invasiveness, and how this relationship is modified by other patient and surgeon characteristics and nodule features, and 2) estimated heterogeneous treatment effects of early-stage lung cancer treatments using machine learning based approaches under the counterfactual framework. She seeks to underscore the value of personalized medicine, focusing on tailoring treatments to patient subgroups for enhanced efficacy. She has presented her research at numerous international conferences, most recently the American Thoracic Society 2023 International Conference in Washington, DC, and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s World Conference on Lung Cancer 2023 in Singapore. She has published her work in peer-reviewed journals, including Radiology and Journal of Thoracic Oncology. She received an MPH degree in Biostatistics from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and her BS degree in Biology from the University of Oregon.

12/19/2023

PhD Epidemiology Graduate Fall 2023: Adam Ward

Adam's research interests are: HIV persistence, HIV cure, adaptive immunity, LGBTQ health

Adam's dissertation title is "Study on HIV Reservoir Size, HIV-Specific Immune Response Trends, and Inflammation, and their Relationships, in People Living with HIV on Long-Term Antiretroviral Therapy"

Adam Ward’s research broadly focuses on better understanding mechanisms of HIV persistence despite antiretroviral therapy, as well as associated comorbidities, and immune-based HIV cure strategies. Adam successfully defended his dissertation titled “Study on HIV Reservoir Size, HIV-Specific Immune Response Trends, and Inflammation, and their Relationships, in People Living with HIV on Long-Term Antiretroviral Therapy” on August 11th, 2023. His dissertation work was comprised of 3 separate but related manuscripts: i) a cross-sectional study on host and viral factors impacting measures of HIV persistence in two cohorts of PLWH on long-term therapy; ii) a longitudinal analysis on the dynamics of HIV-specific T cell responses and associations with HIV persistence measures in a cohort of PLWH on long-term therapy; and iii) a cross-sectional analysis on levels of clinically relevant inflammatory and immune activation biomarkers in this cohort, and the three-way relationship between these biomarkers with HIV-specific adaptive immune responses and measures of HIV persistence. Adam has published his dissertation work in the journals JCI Insight and AIDS, and has presented this work at CROI 2020, CROI 2022, and AIDS 2022 conferences. He has also contributed to 15 related publications during his PhD, including leading a review on “Immunological Approaches to HIV Cure.” Adam completed a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences (2011) and an M.Sc. in Biomedical Sciences (2015) from North Carolina State University, and also completed George Washington University's Graduate Certificate program in LGBT Health Policy & Practice (2015) before joining the Ph.D. program in Epidemiology in the Milken Institute School of Public Health in 2016. He currently works as the Program Manager and Biostatistician for the Research Enterprise to Advance a Cure for HIV based at Weill Cornell Medicine.

12/11/2023

PhD Health Policy 2023 Graduate: Kun Li

Kun's research interests are: health economics, health care financing

Kun's dissertation title is "Empirical Studies in the Economics of Community Health Centers"

Kun Li's research largely focuses on the organization of health providers, health care markets, and health care financing, with an emphasis on safety-net providers and socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. In her dissertation, she used econometric models and quasi-experimental designs to examine how costs, utilization, and quality of care at community health centers are affected by delivery models, Medicaid payment policies, and provider competition. Her other research work investigates the impact of different market incentives and policies on disparities in access to care and health outcomes. She has published her work in JAMA Network Open, Vaccine, and presented at AcademyHealth, ASHEcon, APPAM. She received Rising Star in Health Economics Award from AcademyHealth Health Economics Interest Group. Kun received an MA degree from Johns Hopkins University and a BEcon degree from University of International Business and Economics. She is a Postdoctoral Associate at Duke University Margolis Center for Health Policy and an Adjunct Policy Researcher at RAND Corporation.

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