Social and Behavioral Sciences - PhD

Shikha Chandarana

"My main research goals since the beginning of my academic career have been to understand and analyze the social norms around sexual health of women in domestic and global contexts. In addition to research, one of my primary interests is to ensure public health pedagogy and mentoring are empowering and culturally collaborative. As a doctoral student at GW, I hope to find ways to gain expertise in a number of topics in gender-based sexual health empowerment as well as on both qualitative and quantitative methods to apply to future research projects."

What was your background before becoming a PhD student? Are you working while getting your PhD? 

I finished my undergraduate education at Brandeis University with a BS in Public Health, and then went on to the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health to get a Masters in Global Health and Population. During my time at Harvard, I worked as a Research Associate and Teaching Fellow for two years. After my education, I worked at New York University’s Langone Medical Center in the Department of Environmental Health in Pediatrics as a Data Scientist.

Were there any significant experiences in your life that inspired you to choose the field you are pursuing? 

I knew I wanted to work in the public health field after I took a course on social determinants of health in my first year of my undergraduate career. After this, I got the opportunity to work on public health in global contexts of India, Australia, United States, The Netherlands, Nigeria and the Dominican Republic. Understanding the inter and intra-national disparities in women health acted as an inspiration for me to pursue a graduate degree in global health. I spent my final year of my undergraduate career working in the Dharavi slums of Mumbai on health education and compliance of health education for mothers. That experiences cemented my goal of getting doctorate level education in public health focusing on the life course of women.

What excites you in your field/public health? 

I am excited by the idea that the research that I do my mentors can in some way aid the future of women’s health globally. I think public health is a field of study that includes everything from housing crises, climate justice, racial justice to biological and genetic health determinants. This far reaching effect of public health is a large reason I am passionate about the field since the focus truly lies on improving the life quality of people through all aspects of their socio-cultural environment.

Megumi Ichimiya

What was your background before becoming a PhD student? Are you working while getting your PhD? 

Before coming to GW, I studied social behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to that, I worked at a global consulting firm as a healthcare strategy consultant. During my PhD program at GW, I have been working as a research associate for an NCI-funded research project on the dose-response effect of digital health communication targeted at adolescents and young adults.

Describe your public health area of interest in layman’s terms. What made you interested in this area (please describe)? 

My interest is centered on tailored digital health intervention for chronic diseases prevention for adolescent and young adults. I am interested in studying how advances in digital technologies can contribute to better tailor health interventions for communities and individuals.

Why did you pick the Milken Institute SPH? 

I was fascinated by the variety of faculty who studies chronic diseases prevention and digital health intervention.

Please describe any hobbies, community, or volunteer activities you are passionate about. 

I am managing a non-profit that promotes HPV vaccines with doctors and public health specialists at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and schools in Japan. I like cooking and playing with my two kittens for my pastime.

Simone Sawyer

What was your background before becoming a PhD student? Are you working while getting your PhD?

 Upon completion of my master’s program in Health Education and Health Communication at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, I joined two teams of youth development programs at the Bloomberg School of Public Health: HeartSmiles and Cloud-Based Data Science Plus (CBDS+), where I serve in concurrent roles as program coordinator and case manager, respectively. Both programs focus on providing youth from underserved communities with access—whether it be college preparatory, entrepreneurial opportunities, career training, or professional development among other things—with the ultimate goal of achieving their greatest potential. While my departure from these roles will certainly be bittersweet, I look forward to the exchange of knowledge and experience during my graduate assistantship with Dr. Olga Price and the Center for Health and Healthcare in Schools team. 

Were there any significant experiences in your life that inspired you to choose the field you are pursuing? 

I have always been the person who asks “Why?”: Why do people do the things that they do and how can I help them make choices that will benefit, not harm, them and their families? It was during my freshman year at Spelman College, when I learned that my inquisitiveness and passion for supporting and uplifting others could serve the greater community by way of public health research. 

I also have a keen sense of observation. Growing up in a military family that moved several times throughout my childhood, I became increasingly more adept at taking inventory of new environments. After attending Spelman for undergrad and Johns Hopkins for graduate school, I began noticing a pattern: the presence of prestigious schools that possess seemingly endless resources situated in some of the most under-resourced communities—communities composed of people who look like me. It hurt to see people who reminded me of my aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, so close and yet so far from access to these very resources and opportunities. It was at that time that I made the commitment to becoming a bridge-builder and to collaborate with other bridge-builders to create a safe and welcome space for those who have been formerly left out of decisions about their health and quality-of-life decisions. 

Lauren Cafferty

What was your background before becoming a PhD student? Are you working while getting your PhD? 

I graduated from George Mason University in 2012 with a BA in Communication. I received my MA in Communication Studies from Texas State University in 2016, after
which I worked as a Research Analyst for the University of Southern California’s Hollywood, Health, and Society. I am a Clinical Research Manager in the Department of Family Medicine at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. In my role, I manage grant-funded, multi-site research studies. I support program directors, project coordinators, and study staff in achieving the research program's goals. I also mentor and train students and faculty through qualitative analysis and interpretation.

Please describe any hobbies, community, or volunteer activities you are passionate about. 

Outside of academia, I utilize my interest in community and public health to deliver hot meals to unhoused people in my community. Every morning and evening, a group of volunteers pick up prepared meals from church partners or local restaurants and hand them out to those that need them. If I have free time, I like to take my dog, Molly, for hikes in the city's beautiful parks. I also enjoy cooking and trying new recipes.

Describe an accomplishment for which you are particularly proud. 

In 2021, I was named Outstanding Research Coordinator by the North American Primary Care Research Group, the world’s largest organization devoted to research in primary care.

Yuxian Cui

What was your background before becoming a PhD student? Are you working while getting your PhD? 

Before joining GW as a Ph.D. student, I earned an MSPH degree in Health Education and Health Communication from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. During my MSPH study, I worked as a research assistant at Institute for Global Tobacco Control.

Were there any significant experiences in your life that inspired you to choose the field you are pursuing? 

I was born in China, a country with high smoking morbidity, with millions of people suffering from smoking-related diseases, including cancers. I still remember the uncomfortableness due to the choking smoke when many people were smoking inside. As 20 years went by, despite policy improvements in China, tobacco consumption and smoking prevalence among people, especially youth, are highly ranked globally. I want to change this circumstance and help people live healthier.

Why did you pick the Milken Institute SPH? 

As far as I learned from the school website and alumni, Milken’s Ph.D. program can hone students through independent problem-solving research processes and extensive discussions that help students learn from various perspectives. The variety in the department means that I can obtain views and support from varied sources, conceptualize research in a multi-disciplinary way, and conduct the research with a more careful consideration that ensures research quality. In particular, I would benefit from studying with people who share my category of research interests in the program (Yes, it’s my current advisor Dr. Carla Berg!). In IGTC’s journal club and discussions around projects, I found the papers and works from the tobacco control people at the GW were helpful in advancing the research projects. The wide range of resources for research on tobacco control (e.g., publications, experts, etc.) in the program will help me step forward toward my career goal as an independent researcher in tobacco control.

Loxley Seager

Were there any significant experiences in your life that inspired you to choose the field you are pursuing? What made you interested in this area (please describe)? 

As someone who is a part of the gender, sexuality, and romantic minority (GSRM) community, the concerns of those in my community have always been at the forefront of my interests in public health. Of the topics concerning the GSRM community, I am particularly interested in both improving mental health and reducing HIV-related stigma among adolescents. Within those topics, I am interested in using sexual health education among adolescents to destigmatize living with HIV, improving care among youth living with HIV, and reducing rates of depression and suicidality among GSRM adolescents by normalizing non-hetero and non-cisgender identities. I am particularly interested in investigating protective factors, rather than risk factors for research and health interventions because it focuses more on the things that are within an adolescent’s control (such as providing GSRM community programs for them to participate in) rather than those outside of it (such as their GSRM identity, which is unchangeable). In my research, I aim to incorporate protective factors and resiliency to build interventions that introduce and build on those positive characteristics for GSRM communities to ultimately improve their overall health.

Where are you originally from? Please describe any hobbies, community, or volunteer activities you are passionate about.

I am from mid-Michigan, just north of the capital, Lansing. I lived in Oregon for 5 years, but while I lived there, I talked about Michigan so much that one of my close friends once told me that if they were asked to describe me to someone, they would sum me up by saying, “They really love Michigan”—and I really do. My family has always kept active no matter what season it is—going boating, hiking, camping, biking in the summer, and skiing in the winter. Since becoming aware of the importance of self-care for mental health, however, I picked crocheting back up and find it to be a very relaxing activity to unwind with.

Describe an accomplishment for which you are particularly proud.

I had several false starts following high school before I found what I wanted to do and be successful in school. About halfway through my undergraduate program, I learned that I have ADHD, yet I still graduated Cum Laude with my BS in Public Health in just 3 years. I like to share this about myself in part because I feel that talking about mental health is incredibly important to destigmatizing it— thus improving care— but also because I am proud of the work that was required of me to do well in school despite the challenges that neurodivergence presents in traditional academic settings

Breana Castonguay

What excites you in your field/public health?

Everything! The field of HIV/AIDS is transitioning before my very eyes. I was at the International AIDS conference the first time they revealed the promising news of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Now I am helping contribute to the field of injectable therapies where a daily pill may one day be a thing of the past. It is VERY exciting! But it is important to me that we make sure these amazing therapies are available to all communities and at the same time, consider the intersectionality of racist policies and the affects of racism on community health and access. These are things I want to continue to think about and develop interventions for during my PhD training at GWU. 

Were there any significant experiences in your life that inspired you to choose the field you are pursuing?

Michelle Alexander’s Book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” came out the first year of my graduate program. That book coupled with lectures in the Health Disparities course inspired me to learn everything I could about a system built on racist policies affecting persons, families, and communities of color.

Rebecca Erenrich

Megan Jones

Describe your public health area of interest in layman’s terms.
Broadly, I am interested in utilizing social and behavioral science to understand the mechanisms of risk-taking behavior and health behavior change among adolescents and vulnerable populations. Through my research, I hope to examine the pathways through which trauma and life instability are associated with health-related behaviors (e.g., substance use, sexual risk behaviors, physical activity, medication adherence, etc.) to ultimately inform the development of interventions that mitigate the effects of such experiences on long-term health outcomes. Additionally, I hope to study how social processes and internal constructs, such as self-efficacy, motivation, stigma, and social relationships influence behavioral health outcomes among marginalized groups.

Why did you pick the Milken Institute SPH?
I chose the Milken Institute SPH because of its emphasis on approaching public health from a multidisciplinary perspective and the various faculty members focusing on community-engaged approaches, health disparities reduction, and behavioral risk-taking. With much of the current research at GWU aligned with my own interests, it is the perfect place to pursue my doctoral training.