Current Students

Camilla Marie Benedicto

Admitted Fall 2011
Camilla earned an AB from Brown University in Community Health and an MPH in Sociomedical Sciences – Aging and Public Health from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She most recently worked at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a public health advisor in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS). There, she served as the evaluation officer for the Epidemiology and Genetics Research Program; facilitated the sharing of genomic data through the NIH database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP); and curated the Cancer Genome-wide Association and Meta Analyses database (GAMAdb), a CDC- and NCI- supported resource that describes genetic associations relevant to cancer risk.
As an NCI-designated Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) from 2008 to 2010, Camilla completed rotations with the DCCPS Office of the Director; the NCI’s Office of Advocacy Relations; the NCI’s Division of Cancer Prevention; and the 65+ Clinical Geriatrics Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Prior to her tenure as a PMF, Camilla was a public policy intern at the Long Term Care Community Coalition in New York City and a research assistant for the Columbia University Department of Epidemiology, where she conducted research on injury-related health disparities and injury prevention.
Upon completion of the CPHR PhD program, Camilla would like to work as a clinical researcher at an NCI-designated cancer center and ultimately return to federal government to help advance initiatives and funding opportunities around the specialized health care needs of older adults.

Yendelela Cuffee

Admitted Fall 2008
Yendelela earned her BS in Biology from Hampton University and her MPH from New York Medical College. She has worked as a Clinical Research Intern for Accorda Therapeutics in Hawthorne, NY, as Associate Research Scientist for Bayer Diagnostics in Tarrytown, NY and most recently, as Lead Clinical Research Associate for Stryker Orthopedics in Mahawah, NY. She is interested in working with either the Department of Health and Human Services or the Center for Disease Control conducting international public health research.

Exploring the Association between Discrimination and Hypertension among African Americans and the Role of Medication Adherence and Coping: A Systematic Review

Sociocultural and Behavioral Determinants of Medication Adherence among African Americans

Medication Adherence Predicted by Physical and Mental Health Status among African Americans with Hypertension in an Inner-city Setting. Cuffee Y., Allison J., Hullett S. New England Science Symposium, Boston, MA, February 2010.

Award

2011-2012 Hope Scholarship Award, Biomedical Science Careers Program

Carol Curtin

Admitted Fall 2010
Carol Curtin earned her BA in Sociology and Psychology at Trinity College in Hartford, CT and her MSW in Casework and Groupwork at the Boston University School of Social Work. She is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at UMass Medical School and is the Associate Director of the LEND and UCEDD programs at the UMMS-E.K. Shriver Center in Waltham. Carol’s research focuses on health promotion for persons with developmental disabilities; she is interested in the biopsychosocial determinants of health and mental health, and in clinical interventions and public health efforts to address health disparities, health care access, health literacy, and improved health outcomes in this population.

Natasha Dolgin

Admitted Fall 2011
Natasha earned her BA in International Studies from Case Western Reserve University with a minor in Medical Anthropology in 2008. She graduated cum laude with departmental honors based on her honors thesis work on HIV and Public Health in Russia. Since graduating, she worked as a coordinator and assistant on various projects in clinical translational research in the Department of Bioethics at the Cleveland Clinic. She is joining CPHR as an MD/PhD student with an interest in health informatics, translational research and emerging technologies, and quality improvement and outcomes measurement.

Hassan Fouayzi

Admitted Fall 2009
Hassan received his Engineering degree in Agricultural Economics from the ENAM Agricultural School, Morocco. He completed his M.S. in Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has been working since 2004 as a data analyst and technical liaison for multi-site collaborations of the HMO Cancer Research Network at Meyers Primary Care Institute at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester. He has co-authored multiple papers and is interested in cancer research, social disparities in health outcomes, access and utilization of heath care, and health economics.

Barbara Gandek

Admitted Fall 2010
Barbara earned a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College and an MS in Health Policy and Management from Harvard School of Public Health. Since earning her MS, she spent two decades at The Health Institute at NEMC, Health Assessment Lab, and QualityMetric Incorporated. She is currently an Instructor at Tufts University School of Medicine. Barbara’s research focuses on patient-reported outcomes measurement, and she has co-authored eight manuals and 40 articles about the SF-36 Health Survey and other PRO instruments. She has participated in the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) initiative and other projects that use computerized adaptive tests to measure health outcomes. Barbara is interested in the development of new techniques to interpret PRO measures and international PRO research.

Gillian Griffith

Admitted Fall 2011
Gillian, an MD/PhD student at UMMS, received her B.S. In Animal Sciences from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2010. An an undergraduate, her research focused on a mouse model which contained a conditional knock-out of the gene Yin Yang 1 (YY1) in the developing oocyte. She helped to describe the phenotype and propose a molecular mechanism in this mouse, the results of which were recently published in Biology of Reproduction. However, Gillian has always had a strong interest in health systems and policy, and since coming to medical school, has redefined her research plans to focus on these areas. She looks forward to learning more about the techniques and skills necessary for this work.

Alexandra Hajduk

Admitted Fall 2010
Alexandra earned a BS in Health Sciences from Northeastern University and a MPH in Applied Health Practice from the University of Connecticut. Her professional experience includes working as a prevention program manager for the Brain Injury Association of Massachusetts and as a laboratory technologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. While obtaining her master's at UConn, Alexandra gained valuable quantitative and qualitative research experience through her work with research teams studying varied topics such as HIV prevention in India and biomarker identification for cancer survival. She has one manuscript in progress resulting from her thesis research on the relationships between inflammatory biomarkers, obesity measures, and colorectal cancer mortality. Alexandra's interests include epidemological methods and clinical trials; she hopes to use her skills as a researcher to advance the field of public health genomics in regard to obesity and neurodegenerative disorders.

Wei "Tiffany"Huang

Admitted Fall 2009
Tiffany graduated from Shanghai University College of Engineering with a degree in Computer Science, and holds an MS in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She has been working at the UMMS Center for Outcomes Research (COR) in the Department of Surgery since 1995 and currently serves as the Assistant Director of COR. She has been involved in every aspect of research project design and management, and has numerous publications and presentations. She is interested in narrowing the gap between clinical trial evidence and real-world medical practice to improve health outcomes for a wide variety of diseases. In addition, she is interested in applying information technology to improve patient care.

Lisa Lines

Admitted Fall 2010
Lisa holds a BS in Technical Communications (Biomedical Sciences Concentration) from Northeastern University and an MPH from UMass Amherst. She has over 12 years of healthcare and consulting experience, most recently at RTI International, where she works on Medicare payment reform research in the post-acute care setting. Prior to RTI, she was at Boston Health Economics, where she managed health economic and outcomes research studies, including designing decision-analytic models, conducting large-scale database analyses, developing utility instruments, and performing systematic literature reviews. She has co-authored six peer-reviewed journal articles with another in review and has presented abstracts at many national and international conferences. Her main research interests lie in health services and outcomes research, particularly predictive modeling.

Charmaine Lo

Admitted Fall 2009
Charmaine has a BS in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Michigan State University and an MPH from the University of Alabama Birmingham. At UAB She worked as a Research Assistant on several studies, including the Rapid Cycle Education Improvement Study, the Impact of Patient Education in HIV Screening Study, the VA Nicotine Dependence Program and a project reviewing the policy of complementary and alternative medicine into Comprehensive Cancer Control Plans. She is interested in health care disparities.

Qualifying Paper

A Systematic Review of Methods to Assess Health Behaviors Associated with Risk of Chronic Disease in Adolescents with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Patrick McCabe

Admitted Fall 2008
Patrick earned a BA in Physics from Boston College, his MPH from UMass, Amherst (Worcester Campus). He has experience working as a research associate developing reverse osmosis membranes and is currently examining the relationship between adolescent cannabis use, tobacco use and early onset major depression. Patrick would like to specialize in examining large data sets and epidemiological surveys to look at rare outcomes, particularly in psychiatric epidemiology. His spare time, especially in warm weather, is mostly spent using or repairing one of his three electric garden tractors.

Cannabis Use and Bipolar Disorder

Cannabis Use and Bipolar Disorder: Bipolar Disorder Case Identification and Cannabis Use Risk Assessment

Richard H. McManus

Admitted Fall 2008
Rick McManus received his BA in Social Work from Bradley University and his Master of Social Work and Master of Public Policy degrees from the University of Michigan. He currently works at UMass Medical School's Department of Quantitative Health Sciences and was previously employed at its Center for Health Policy and Research where he investigated issues related to the provision of publicly-supported long-term care issues in Massachusetts and Maine. Through his work he has developed knowledge in evaluation methods, policy analysis, and issues related to aging and health. His research interests include the effect of health promotion and prevention interventions on the course of disease for elders, as well as studying the compression of morbidity hypothesis.

Qualifying Paper

Recent Trends in Mortality and Re-Hospitalization in Patients Hospitalized for Heart Failure: A Systematic Review

Hilary Placzek

Admitted Fall 2008
Hilary has earned a BA in French and Pre-Med from Colgate University and her MPH (International Health) from Boston University's School of Public Health. There, she spent a semester in the Philippines conducting a qualitative study on healthcare worker outmigration and its effects on medical facilities and workers there (currently in press). Hilary has experience working on research teams for the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention at Harvard Medical School as well as the Department of International Health at Boston University's School of Public Health. Additionally, she held a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship at the Academie de Nice in France and was a Colgate University Manzi Fellow at the Franciscan Children's Hospital in Boston. Professionally, Hilary wants to be part of the fight to improve healthcare and apply her public health background to advanced research settings, and ultimately impact society from individuals to a large-scale population.

Qualifying Paper

A Systematic Review Assessing Accuracy of Immunization Surveillance Systems in Vaccine Effectiveness Studies

Socio-Demographic Characteristics and Predictors of Mortality and Severity Among Hospitalized H1N1 Cases in the Massachusetts Population and According to Race/Ethnicity and Age

Publications

View publications in eScholarship

Alan Rathbun

Admitted Fall 2010
Alan graduated from Rider University with a BS (Magna Cum Laude) in Biology, and earned a MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) School of Public Health. At Rider he was awarded acceptance into the Rider University Freshmen Fellowship program, and worked as a Research Intern within the Biology Department. In the subsequent years while completing his undergraduate degree Alan worked as a Field and Laboratory Technician at Certified Testing Laboratories, Interned at Capital Health Systems Hospitals in Trenton, NJ, and volunteered at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital of Hamilton and St. Francis Medical Center during his spare time. While attending graduate school he began working part time for the Violence Institute of New Jersey at the New Jersey Department of Health & Senior Services Center for Health Statistics (NJDHSS CHS) with their New Jersey Violent Death Reporting System (NJVDRS) research group. He completed his graduate thesis, “Potential Predictive Factors of Suicide: An Analysis of the Determinants Between Varying Mechanisms of Suicide Incidence in NJ,” in partnership with the NJDHSS CHS using NJVDRS data. Additionally, he participated in several other UMDNJ sponsored fieldwork and research endeavors including the Health Systems & Policy Department’s Dominican Republic Outreach Project. After completing his MPH, Alan worked in other part time research positions, including being a Lead Intern for a consultant to CRI Worldwide Clinical Trials Research, and most recently an Evaluation Intern to the Program Developer & Evaluator of the Cardiovascular Disease Control & Prevention Initiative at the Bureau of Chronic Disease Control within the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. Alan’s research interests include non-infectious diseases, injury prevention, pharmacoepidemiology, and statistical methods in population health research.

Christine Ulbricht

Admitted Fall 2011
Christine earned a BA in Psychology and an MPH with a concentration in Epidemiology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to joining the CPHR program, she spent more than four years in the Division of Services and Intervention Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). While at NIMH, she served as a liaison to federal agencies involved in psychiatric epidemiology activities, acted as the institute’s ClinicalTrials.gov administrator, and supported the activities of multi-site clinical trials managed by the NIMH Clinical Trials Operations and Biostatistics Unit. Her research interests include psychiatric epidemiology, developing personalized interventions for mental illnesses, comparative effectiveness, and clinical trials methodology.

W.W. Sanouri Ursprung

Admitted Fall 2010
Sanouri earned her BS in International Studies with a concentration in Biochemistry from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2008. Her professional experience includes working as a Research Coordinator (2002-Pr.) for Dr. Joseph DiFranza at UMMS. She is conducting public health research analyzing the progression of addiction in adolescents and adults, through developing predictive tools, evaluation of the scientific validity of current addiction standards, and creating psychometric diagnostic scales. In addition, since 2008, she has been working with Dr. Chyke Doubeni on research regarding the impact of socio-economic status on access to cancer prevention services and the potential uses of geocoded census data to identify high risk patients and tailor their cure. Sanouri has eight publications (three first author) with several articles in review. Her research interests include addiction research, studying health disparities in general, and more specifically in low socioeconomic strata with a focus on cancer screening services, and public health problems facing disadvantaged populations abroad. 

Mollie Wood

Admitted Fall 2011
Mollie earned her BA from Miami University in Ohio, where she majored in Zoology and Psychology, and her MPH from Boston University where she concentrated in Epidemiology. Her research and clinical experience includes her current work as a biostatistician at Inflexxion, Inc (specializes in behavioral research) performing statistical analysis of clinical trial, survey, and surveillance data. Her work involves her in every aspect of a research study from inception to eventual publication including analyzing clinical trial data, consulting with investigators on issues of study design, preparing grants or manuscripts and weighing in on ethical issues. She also worked at Beth Israel Deaconess part time performing statistical analysis of epidemiologic and clinical trial data and assisted clinical investigators with data analysis and manuscript preparation. She worked for three years as in the McLean Hospital and Cambridge Health Alliance as a research coordinator, and managed neuroimaging studies of children with mood and psychotic disorders. Mollie also volunteered as a counselor at the North Shore ARC supervising groups of adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. She has several publications and posters. Mollie’s research interests include early-onset mental illness, perinatal and early childhood epidemiology, epidemiologic methods, and applied Bayesian analytics.