MEET THE NEW RESEARCH ASSISTANTS AND GLOBAL INNOVATION FELLOWS JOINING THE START CENTER THIS FALL

The Strategic Analysis, Research, & Training (START) Center is thrilled to introduce the five newest team members joining our Center this fall. The team includes two MBA students, two PhD students in Epidemiology, one MPH Student in Global Health. Learn more about each of these impressive new team members below.

INCOMING GLOBAL INNOVATION FELLOWS

BRENDAN AMLAND

Brendan Amland is a second-year full-time MBA student at the Foster School of Business. He received his bachelor’s degree in Global and International Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara. Upon graduation, Brendan taught supplemental educational and extracurricular programs at a nonprofit in Los Angeles before moving on to teach English in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. Most recently, he worked for nearly five years in the durable medical equipment field where he led a customer experience and sales team to improve patient care and build strong relationships with local healthcare facilities. Post-MBA, he intends to pursue a career focused on the intersection of technology and strategy within healthcare.

ADAOBI CHINE, MA

Adaobi Chine is a second-year MBA Candidate at the Foster School of Business. She received her bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from the American University of Nigeria and master’s degree in Finance from Cranfield University, England. Before joining the Foster School, Adaobi was a management consultant at KPMG and Deloitte as well as a banker; her professional experience cuts across organization restructuring, strategy development, process improvement and project management. This summer, Adaobi will be interning at Adobe as a data science program manager in the Digital, Video & Audio (DVA) Engineering Group. Adaobi is passionate about using technology to improve businesses and communities; she intends to pursue a career in technology post-MBA.

INCOMING RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

SARAH COX, MSPH

Sarah Cox is an Epidemiology PhD student at the University of Washington. She earned her BSBA in Health Sector Management and Policy at the University of Miami and her MSPH in International Health: Global Disease Epidemiology and Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has experience working in industry, government, & research, and is the co-founder of two global non-profit organizations, One Sun Health, Inc. and Science Corps. Most recently, Sarah worked as an Epidemiologist/Informatician for the San Francisco Department of Public Health with a focus on population health data science, communicable disease surveillance, and health informatics. Sarah is passionate about vaccine epidemiology, infectious disease modeling, immunization access, implementation science, and reducing health disparities.

RAMYA KUMAR, MPH

Ramya Kumar is a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington. She is a Boston University Dr Martin Luther King Jr Scholar, and earned her MPH from the Boston University School of Public Health. Ramya joins the START team after living and working in Sub-Saharan Africa for 6 years. She has experience in both field epidemiology, and epidemiologic research. Together with the Zambian Ministry of Health and US CDC, she has established the Zambia Field Epidemiology Training Program, and responded to several infectious disease outbreaks. Ramya has also worked on several tuberculosis (TB) and HIV research projects including a multi-national HIV prevention trial with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, operational research on TB service delivery with the USAID-funded Eradicate TB Project, and a national TB drug resistance survey. Her research interests include infectious disease, behavioral epidemiology, socio-economic/ethnic health disparities, and the political determinants of health.

MATHIAS LALIKA, MD

Mathias Lalika is a first-year MPH student in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington. He received his medical degree summa cum laude from the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina in Havana, Cuba. During his medical training, he worked as a Research Assistant, where he conducted original research on cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and cervical cancer, did several literature reviews, and presented his research works in regional and national conferences. Prior to returning to his home country of Tanzania, Mathias completed his medical internship at the Arnaldo Milián Castro University Hospital in Villa Clara, Cuba. He is currently serving as a Regional Coordinator for the Pan African Health Alliance (PAHA), an organization he helped found as a medical student—which has grown to include members throughout Africa. His interests include infectious diseases, chronic diseases, improving maternal and child health outcomes, and addressing health disparities.