The Jacobs Institute of Women's Health is pleased to announce selection of five MPH students and one DrPH student as recipients of the Clara Schiffer Fellowship for Women’s Health. The fellowship will enable these Milken Institute School of Public Health students to work on projects addressing several different aspects of women's health: factors affecting breastfeeding among women who receive supplemental nutrition benefits; impacts of state laws that restrict abortion access; pre- and post-natal care for LGBTQ parents; pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV transmission among Black women in Washington, DC; the role of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in uterine fibroids; and tobacco cessation for pregnant women. The 2017 recipients of the Clara Schiffer Fellowship for Women’s Health are:
Doctoral Fellow
Jennifer Schindler-Ruwisch, DrPH (c), MPH, Health Behavior; Faculty Mentor: Amira Roess, PhD, MPH
Masters Fellows
Alyssa Llamas, MPH Student, Health Policy; Faculty Mentor: Susan Wood, PhD
Katy Luxion, MPH Student, Epidemiology and Health Communications; Faculty Mentor: Kathleen Carrick, PhD, MSW
Atlang Mompe, MPH Student, Epidemiology; Faculty Mentor: Shawnika Hull, PhD, MA
Brenda Trejo, MPH Student, Global Environmental Health; Faculty Mentor: Ami Zota, ScD, MS
Snigdha Velugu, MPH Student, Maternal and Child Health; Faculty Mentor: Lorien Abroms, ScD
The Schiffer Fellowship honors the legacy of social justice advocate and GW supporter Clara Schiffer by supporting graduate students who participate in either student- and faculty-directed research designed to improve women’s health and facilitate communication around women’s health issues.
The 2017 fellows will participate in the following research projects:
- Dissertation Research: Factors Affecting Breastfeeding Duration Among DC WIC Recipients (Schindler-Ruwisch)
- Research Project: Bridging the Divide: State-level Abortion Restrictions (Llamas)
- Research Project: Culturally Appropriate Reproductive Education (CARE) for Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and/or LGBA+ Parents (Luxion)
- Research Project: An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Black Women's Health Imperative #LetsTalkAboutPrep campaign among Black Women living in Washington, D.C. (Mompe)
- Research Project: Fibroid Observational Research on Genes and the Environment (FORGE) (Trejo)
- Research Project: Evaluating the Effects of a Smoking Cessation Text Messaging Tool on Birth Outcomes among Pregnant Women (Velugu)
The Jacobs Institute congratulates the 2017 Schiffer Fellows and looks forward to their contributions to women's health at GW and beyond.