MEET THE NEW RESEARCH ASSISTANTS AND FACULTY JOINING THE START CENTER THIS SUMMER

The Strategic Analysis, Research, & Training (START) Center is thrilled to introduce the six newest team members joining our Center this summer. The team includes three PhD students in Epidemiology, one MPH/MS Student in Nutritional Sciences & Epidemiology student, and one MPA student in Public Policy & Governance.

In addition to the five research assistants joining our team, START has also engaged a new faculty lead, beginning this summer. Learn more about each of these impressive new team members below.

INCOMING RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

MIRANDA DELAWALLA, MPH
Miranda Delawalla is a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington. 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.

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.

EMAHLEA JACKON, NDTR

Emahlea Jackson is a dietetic intern, second-year MPH Candidate in the Nutritional Sciences Program, and  first-year MS Student in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington. She earned a bachelor’s degree in dietetics from Seattle Pacific University. While completing her undergraduate education, she assisted with studies related to nutritional epidemiology and the human microbiome at both the National Cancer Institute and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She previously provided nutrition counseling as a Registered Dietetic Technician (NDTR) at Lahai Health, a free clinic dedicated to serving patients experiencing financial hardship. Most recently, Emahlea completed a thesis project that examined the relationship between household food security status and presence of disordered eating behaviors in youth and young adults with diabetes.

TANYA LIBBY, MPH
Tanya is a PhD student in Epidemiology at the University of Washington. Before joining START, Tanya worked as an Epidemiologist for the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), a component of CDC’s Emerging Infections Program, providing technical consultation to CEIP staff and local health jurisdictions on foodborne outbreaks and epidemiologic research methodology, including reviewing protocols, proposals, survey instruments, reports, presentations and manuscripts. She is highly analytical, detail-oriented, and dedicated to achieving global health equity. She is an experienced data analyst with a passion for using data to inform public health interventions. She has skills in statistical analysis, data visualization, program monitoring and evaluation, spatial analysis (ArcGIS), epidemiologic methods, study design, and outbreak response.

SAMIKSHYA PANDEY
Samikshya Pandey is an MPA student at Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Washington. She received her undergraduate degree on Mathematics-Economics from Furman University, South Carolina. She has research experiences of working as primary author and research assistant for two research papers during her undergraduate studies. During her time in undergraduate, she also spent a semester in Edinburgh, Scotland. She also interned in Louis Berger in Economics and Institutional Development department for their project “Sakchyam: Access to finance, Nepal”.

She is interested in conducting policy analysis and program evaluation on contemporary policy issues in the field of international development, fiscal policies, and Women Empowerment. She hopes to build technical and analytical skills to prepare for a career in policy research and impact evaluation.

INCOMING FACULTY LEAD

RENA PATEL, MD, MPH
Dr. Rena Patel is an infectious diseases/HIV physician and Assistant Professor in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Department of Medicine and the International Clinical Research Center in Department of Global Health at the University of Washington.  In addition to seeing patients, she conducts mixed methods research, using both qualitative and quantitative tools, in HIV and reproductive health in Kenya and South Africa.  Prior to joining UW, she was Assistant Professor in Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she completed her infectious diseases training.  Dr. Patel completed her medical school and residency at Stanford University, MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health, and MPhil in Sociology from University of Cambridge.  She has previously also worked in India, Tanzania, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Uganda.