This June, three research assistants graduated from the Strategic Analysis, Research & Training (START) Center’s training program. Jeremy Beckford, MPH, PhD candidate, completed his research assistantship and is now working to complete his dissertation. Miranda Delawalla, MPH, PhD, completed her research assistantship and graduated with her PhD in Epidemiology. Santiago Estrada, MPH, PhD candidate, completed his research assistantship and is now working to complete his dissertation.

Below, learn more about our impressive graduates and the work they completed while engaged with START.

Jeremy Beckford, MPH

Jeremy Beckford is a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington. He received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from San Jose State University. He then earned his MPH in Applied Epidemiology from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, where he completed his thesis on substance use stigma and risk behaviors among people who inject drugs. He has served as an AmeriCorps Member through AIDS United, and later worked with the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system in New Orleans, LA. Jeremy has experience in field work, qualitative and quantitative research methods, and multiple languages including SAS and R. His research interests include epidemiologic methods, social epidemiology, and infectious disease epidemiology.

Jeremy worked on six projects during his one year engagement at START, acting as the Project Manager for one of them. Below are highlights from two of the projects Jeremy worked on:

• Lessons from WA on Effective Modeling-Policy Partnership: The START team documented how evidence from modeling and analytics was used to inform policy in Washington State’s COVID-19 response and identified lessons learned from this experience—which can inform research-policy partnerships, policy decisions, and formation of responsive systems to address public health emergencies in the future.
• Understanding Vaccination Data Quality Incentives: The START team conducted a review on published literature, identified a guiding conceptual framework, and interviewed experts from global programs focusing on vaccination projects. START provided an evidence database that lists the different successful interventions for improving vaccination coverage data quality, along with lists of barriers and facilitators.

Miranda Delawalla, PhD, MPH

Miranda Delawalla earned her PhD in Epidemiology this June. Before beginning the PhD program, she received her MPH in Epidemiology at the University of Washington on the Maternal and Child Health track and completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Georgia in Biology and Psychology. While a student at the University of Washington, she has had experience as a teaching assistant and has developed analytic and writing skills through a few different internships. Broadly, Miranda’s primary research interests are mental health and maternal and child health, with a particular emphasis on adolescent mental health.

Miranda worked on eight projects during her two year engagement at START, acting as the Project Manager for two of them. Below are highlights from two of the projects Miranda worked on:

• Biomarkers of Gut Health for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health: The START team conducted a systematic review of environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) to delineate the distribution of EED biomarkers and extract associations between EED biomarkers and health outcomes among women of reproductive age to support the design and implementation of future interventional trials.
• Mapping the Long-term Sequelae of Acute Shigella Infection in Young Children: The START team conducted a systematic review of the long-term sequelae of acute Shigella infection in children under 5 years of age to inform data collection for the Enterics for Global Health (EFGH) Shigella surveillance study and support the value proposition for Shigella vaccines.

Miranda will be starting a T32 post-doctoral position at the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, at the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors in July.

Santiago Estrada, MPH

Santiago Estrada is a PhD student in Epidemiology at the University of Washington. Santiago holds an MPH in Epidemiology from San Diego State University and a BS in Microbiology from the University of California, Davis. Santiago has worked on studies that have covered a diversity of subjects: in-home smoking, intimate partner violence in persons who use methamphetamine, and epilepsy in children with cerebral palsy (to name a few). Santiago enjoys data analysis and using programming languages to solve difficult problems. He has experience in Python, R, Java, C++, SAS, and other languages. His research interests lie in quantifying mortality and survival in persons with mental illness, particularly personality disorders. He also enjoys teaching, having been a teaching assistant for courses in epidemiology, Java programming, and SAS programming.

Santiago worked on four projects during his two year engagement at START, acting as the Project Manager for one of them. Below are highlights from two of the projects Santiago worked on:

• Malaria Molecular Surveillance M&E Framework: The START team conducted a basic literature review in concert with key informant interviews from Foundation partners to update a draft M&E framework that initially stemmed from a conference in Dakar, February 2020. The updates to this framework were accompanied by a “how-to” guide in word document format that explained how new grantees could use that framework to plan for M&E in their own contexts and grants.
• Routine Immunization Strengthening in Polio High-Risk Geographies – Gender Integration: The START team conducted a review on academic and grey literature, as well as key informant interviews, to identify how gender interfaces with routine immunization activities in 10 focus geographies. These interactions were not limited to equal coverage of antigens, but included the influence of dynamics at the individual, household, community, health system, and policy level.

These three START graduates will continue to engage with START’s extensive alumni network, established in 2011. START often invites alumni to share their experiences after graduating from the training program at all-team meetings and, additionally, taps into the alumni network for content expertise on projects. The alumni network is comprised of highly skilled START graduate professionals employed in global health, business, and consulting across disciplines.