WITH GRATITUDE TO THE LING AND TOM FAMILIES for their continuing generous support 20 17
GRATITUDE
WITH GRATITUDE
Thank you to the Ling and Tom families for their continuing generous support of our Tulane SPHTM/ISD MPH students by funding these important annual awards.
1
Jack C. S. Ling International Health and Sustainable Development Student Service Award
Jack C. S. Ling International Travel Awards
2 THE LING AND TOM FAMILIES
Jack C.S. Ling International Health and Sustainable Development Student Service Award (given at graduation)
Coralie Marie-Audrey Ngbichi
Coralie served as a research assistant with MEASURE Evaluation project team at Tulane and collected and managed data on health information systems for more than 30 low and middle-income countries to strengthen their health information system.
She credits SPHTM for giving her the in-depth knowledge and understanding of overall public health challenges especially those in low-medium income countries. She felt technically and practically well-prepared and confident to work in international health and development, in areas such as program design, implementation and management, health monitoring and evaluation, and adolescent reproductive health.
Coralie is currently a Project Manager for JSI and is on-site in Côte d’Ivoire.
INTERNATIONAL HEALTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SERVICE AWARD2017
INTERNATIONAL HEALTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SERVICE AWARD2018
Angel Norwood
Angel was ideally suited for the award’s emphasis on and recognition of having provided service to the department faculty, staff, and students exemplified by her work in our school’s Admissions Office. Her supervisor noted that Angel, “Advanced our diversity recruitment by organizing and staffing an event on Xavier University’s campus. This included speakers, catering and invitations. Both faculty from Tulane and Xavier participated.” The supervisor also noted that, “After witnessing Angel’s abilities, I assigned her our most challenging Graduate Assistant tasks. Her work was the most accurate and efficient that I have seen in my tenure as Director.”
Angela is now a Clinical Psychology PhD student at Howard University with research interests in Maternal and Child Health, HIV/AIDS, Early Childhood Development, and Mental Health as a Public Health issue.
Johana Elizabeth Teigen, MPH
Johanna received this award in appreciation of her outstanding service to faculty, staff, and students as a graduate office assistant during the 2018-19 school year. Colleagues attested that she was thoughtful, diligent, proactive, and full of positive energy when responding to requests and carrying out projects. She was helpful and always up for any challenge.
Johanna is currently working as a project coordinator with EcoHealth Alliance on two multidisciplinary One Health projects. The first focuses on Rift Valley fever prevention and surveillance in South Africa, and the second is on the burden of disease in Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in the Arusha region of Tanzania.
INTERNATIONAL
HEALTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SERVICE AWARD - 2019
INTERNATIONAL HEALTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SERVICE AWARD - 2020
Cozette Boakye
Cozette was recognized for her exceptional service to students and faculty at Tulane’s Changemaker Institute, where she mentored students, supported community partnerships, and assisted with the revision of their curriculum. She was also instrumental to students’ learning through her work with the community group IWES, where she developed a digital platform to openly discuss issues related to gender and sexuality among New Orleans LGBTQIA youth, students of color, and students with diverse learning needs.
Molly Mae Pace
Molly served as the coordinator for Tulane SPHTM’s Global Scholars Program, where she connected esteemed leaders in global health with public health students, published a magazine that highlighted international health, and coordinated volunteer activities. For her practicum, she conducted research with the United Nations Development Program regarding access to reproductive health and domestic violence services in the Caribbean during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also worked with the Mary Amelia Women’s Center researching early childhood care in New Orleans. Molly was selected as the 2021 Tulane SPHTM commencement speaker.
Theresa Catherine Ridings, MPH
Cozette currently works as a Program Officer at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Communication Programs.
Molly currently serves as the Healthcare Preparedness and Response Program Coordinator with the New Mexico Department of Health Bureau of Health Emergency Management where she works closely with the statewide coalition of hospitals and clinics and with Tribal leadership to help strengthen emergency management. Molly plans on pursuing a DrPH.
INTERNATIONAL HEALTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SERVICE AWARD - 2021
Theresa provided outstanding service to faculty, staff, and students as a graduate assistant. She effectively promoted admissions events and promptly and enthusiastically responded to questions from prospective graduate students. In addition, as the graduate assistant for SPHTM’s Social Innovation Learning Lab, Theresa coordinated data collection activities for the new learning lab and organized a public “design thinking” workshop and alumni panel to teach graduate students how to leverage social innovation tools in their programming and research. She was also an active member of the SPHTM student organizations, Global Scholars and SALUD.
Theresa currently works for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) as a New Business Development Officer. In this role, she coordinates large grant and contract application submissions to the CDC, USAID, and private foundation donors to further EGPAF’s mission to end Pediatric AIDS.
INTERNATIONAL HEALTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SERVICE AWARD - 2022
Taylor Reisz, MPH
Taylor was selected because of her exceptional academic performance and service to the school and department. She volunteered to represent IHSD MPH students in the department’s monthly Academic Program meetings as well as serving as a research assistant to several faculty members.
After graduation, Taylor secured a position with the Louisiana Department of Health in the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Department as a Disease Intervention Specialist.
INTERNATIONAL
Jack C.S. Ling International Travel Awards (No travel awards were given from 2021- 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic)
Thuan Vuong
Thuan was involved in several community projects during his time at SPHTM. In the summer of 2017, she worked at the United National Population Fund in Bangkok, Thailand, as an advocate for reproductive health and rights. Her work supported women and girls across 36 countries in Asia and the Pacific island nation to obtain healthcare at little to no cost. She also helped assess the social stigma within the Vietnamese community in New Orleans on addictive behaviors and its effect on mental health and the community’s disaster preparedness post-Hurricane Katrina.
Thuan is currently a Program Manager in Supply Chain Management at Chemonics International, a global leader in international development consulting.
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL AWARD
- 2017
Hannah Allen
Hanna traveled to the Philippines to be an intern with the Filipino Red Cross in Mandaluyong Manila, Philippines, where she was the evaluation fellow of the HIV-AIDS Peer Education Division.
In her practicum, she experienced complete autonomy over a project for the first time. As an evaluation manager, she was responsible for collecting and analyzing data that helped influence several design changes to a national program. The travel award allowed her to gain international travel and work experience to learn about the importance of using new technologies in public health. This internship helped pave the way for her journey into data science in public health.
Sienna Kurland
Sienna completed her practicum in Mokono, Uganda, working with the NGO OmniMed, which trains community health workers to identify and treat common ailments such as malaria and diarrheal diseases. There she developed video training modules to be delivered on tablets in different villages to enhance understanding and retention of the content. The award helped her pay for airfare and other expenses. The experience solidified her interests in medical education and in working with underserved populations.
Sienna is currently a primary care physician and an Assistant Professor at UCSF.
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL AWARD - 2017
- 2017
INTERNATIONAL
TRAVEL AWARD - 2017
Elizabeth Tracy
In 2017, Elizabeth worked with Asociación Benéfica Prisma, an NGO located in Peru, to support a research and implementation project that was aimed at increasing cervical screening through improvements in screening and follow-up strategies in Iquitos and Lima.
This internship provided her valuable field experience in applying theory she had learned in the classroom to support women and affect change in the community. She was able to develop skills not only in research (i.e., quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis), but also in program implementation (i.e., project management and instrument design).
Elizabeth currently is a Practitioner of Integrative Pelvic Health and Holistic Somatic Healing for Women, and the Founder and CEO of Wild Roots, Inc., which supports women to experience vibrant holistic wellbeing and empowering connection with their bodies and wombs based in Medellin, Colombia. She offers services (such as workshops, sessions, and retreats) both in-person and online, in English and Spanish.
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL
AWARD - 2018
Kendra Smith
Kendra completed a practicum as a Development Intern with WellShare International, a non-profit working with underserved communities in Minneapolis and Africa at their project sites in Uganda and Tanzania. The Uganda project trained village health teams to advance community-based access to injectable contraceptives and family planning education. She provided capacity building for these teams to accurately collect client data into their client registers, address gaps in the monitoring tools, and clean the data collected. Tanzania’s project was to implement their Afya Kwa Pamoja iPad training with health facility staff and community health workers. She supervised the randomized collection of 100 maternal and child health household surveys and planned, implemented, and facilitated an iPad training. The iPads were pre-loaded with health videos and educational information.
Her practicum experience and lessons learned contributed to securing her current position at HealthPartners. The experience in data collection and capacity building has been used significantly in her current role.
Jacqueline Willits
Jacqueline completed her practicum with the Ministry of Social Development in Bucaramanga, Colombia, where she worked as an assistant on the ministry’s child and adolescent programs, as well as conducted a study on the barriers to access to reproductive health care. As part of her study, she carried out qualitative interviews with over 30 pregnant adolescents and shared her findings with ministry staff to influence future reproductive health programming.
This financial support she received from the travel award allowed her to gain valuable experience in research and reproductive health in Latin America.
Jacqueline currently works as a Product Development Manager at CVS Health. She has been able to apply the research skills she acquired at Tulane to a business context, developing healthcare products that address and solve stakeholder problems, and provide a good user experience.
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL AWARD - 2018
Rafat Noor
Rafat participated in a two-month internship in Bangladesh with a program at Save the Children International in the summer of 2018. She was assigned to the Strengthening National Midwifery Program where she developed case stories and summary reports by completing a literature review, conducting interviews with project stakeholders, and by analyzing primary-level healthcare facility data. She worked closely with implementation officers and gained valuable insights into applying theoretical program monitoring knowledge to real-world situations. The Jack Ling Travel Award helped cover travel expenses.
Rafat currently works in the local government sector of Canada as a Research and Evaluation Specialist in the Community Service Division in the City of Red. The experience contributed immensely to building a strong foundation for a rewarding career in her area of interest.
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL AWARD - 2018
Ayzsa Tannis
Ayzsa completed her practicum in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she worked as a research assistant with the Instituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria. There she enhanced her Spanish fluency, learned GIS software, expanded her international maternal and child health network and expertise, and co-led a systematic review and meta-analysis that led to her first publication as a first author.
Ayzsa now works as a contracted Epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division. At the CDC, she works with the New Vaccine Surveillance Network which conducts active, population-based surveillance for hospitalizations and outpatient visits associated with acute respiratory illnesses in the pediatric population and focuses on the use and impact of vaccines and the impact of vaccine policies.
Jack Martin
In his practicum, Jack served as a Food Security and Nutrition Intern at Helen Keller International (HKI) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He was tasked with enacting and organizing a youth nutrition program aimed at empowering young and school-age children to advocate for a more nutritious and sustainable diet among their peers. He was also involved in other food security and nutrition programs hosted by HKI such as local fish farm enhancement and breastfeeding campaigns. The travel award helped to offset the costs of travel and accommodation, which allowed him to participate in his practicum for over six months.
Jack is currently a Program Manager of Business Engagement and Social Responsibility at Amazon. He facilitates the relationship between Amazon-owned businesses and the Worldwide Social Responsibility Team. Jack oversees strategic partnerships and programs among these businesses (AWS, Amazon Fresh, etc.) to address human rights issues across the value chain.
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL AWARD - 2019
Fran Senkowsky
Fran considers her practicum experience to be a very significant part of her MPH experience at Tulane. Her goals while working on the Entusi Impact Evaluation Study in Uganda were to assess the impact of their community development projects around Lake Bunyonyi, to present findings, and to make recommendations for future areas for improvement.
During her practicum, Fran learned skills such as how to develop a plan to monitor and evaluate a public health intervention or program based on a theory of change. Her experience is useful in her current role as the Client Success Manager at BridgeCare, a software company for government agencies and local organizations that are working to build a better early childhood education and childcare system for families and care providers. She builds client relationships, bridges knowledge gaps internally and externally, builds reports to help clients identify childcare areas of demand, and configures software to meet each organization’s needs.
Michaela Gerace
Machaela completed an internship on the impact of health services for women, children, and adolescents with the ISLAC Project, a collaboration between Every Woman Every Child of the United Nations, the University of Santiago de Chile, and Tulane University. She documented institutional responses in Latin America and Caribbean countries to the rising maternal and neonatal mortality linked to hospital patient overload because of the pandemic. She conducted literature reviews and synthesized key findings into documents aimed at informing policymakers for advocacy and fundraising efforts. These activities broadened her understanding of global health challenges, honed her facility in cross-cultural collaboration, and taught her international research and documentation skills.
Machaela now contributes to humanitarian response training as a Program Officer at International Medical Corps. She has played pivotal roles in projects that strengthen the capacities of local and national nonprofits in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen for effective humanitarian and disaster response.
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL AWARD
- 2020
Andi Sutter
Andi used her award funds to support her practicum as a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Intern based in Freetown, Sierra Leone with SUDU Salone. This small non-profit works to place orphaned students with families whom they train and support while attending to their educational needs, physical health, and socio-emotional well-being. Throughout the summer, she built relationships and improved her technical, communication, and adaptive management skills. She designed and developed the MEL strategy and family health curriculum, without additional stress of finding funds to support her cost of living.
After graduation, Andi accepted a job as a MEL Officer for John Snow International working on a Routine Immunization project that provides technical assistance for identifying and reaching under-immunized children across 18 countries. Today, she continues her MEL journey through professional development and growth.
https://sph.tulane.edu/ihsd