Public Health Archives - Page 2 of 6

Vedha Penmetcha

Vedha Penmetcha earned her bachelor’s degree in sports medicine and exercise physiology, with minors in global health technologies and medical humanities, along with a Spanish language certificate, from Rice University, Texas. Her passions lie at the intersection of medicine, social justice, and innovation.

Vedha’s global health design work is complemented by public health research. As a Stanford CARE research scholar, she evaluated racial and ethnic disparities in national breast cancer trends and advanced care planning, leading to presentations at national and international conferences. Inspired by these experiences, she began working with the International Health Systems Group at the University of Cambridge, where she is currently evaluating data-set diversity in health technologies.

Outside of research, Vedha is deeply committed to social justice. She has designed and led social justice programs on healthcare access. These experiences motivated her work as a Community Bridges Research Fellow, where she partnered with the Tahirih Justice Center to co-develop a mental health resource map tool for immigrant survivors of domestic violence.
Outside of her professional work, Vedha finds joy in movement and creativity. Trained in Bharatanatyam, she has been part of competitive Bollywood fusion and hip-hop dance teams in college. She also enjoys drawing, spending time with family and friends, and photography.

Vedha’s Fulbright-Nehru project is evaluating South Asia’s largest clinical breast examination (CBE) program launched by the Ushalakshmi Breast Cancer Foundation, Hyderabad, India. It is specifically looking at CBE performed by trained community health workers as a promising alternative to the high-cost mammography test.

Margaret Kuffner

Margaret Kuffner graduated cum laude from Boston College in May 2025 with a BA in international studies, with concentrations in global cultures and public health. Margaret developed a passion for the world at a young age, having lived in Switzerland with her family and later in Denmark as a Rotary Youth Exchange Student. During her undergrad junior year, she studied abroad in India through the School for International Training where she interned with the Comprehensive Rural Healthcare Project. Margaret’s professional experiences include working as a research assistant for the Mass General Lymphedema team, volunteering at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, and serving as a patient care intern at South County Health in Rhode Island.

She previously served as secretary general and currently holds the role of deputy chief operating officer at the Eagle Institute for Global Affairs and Leadership. In this capacity, Margaret advances the organization’s mission of fostering a globally conscious society through community collaboration, educational programming, and forward-thinking initiatives. In her free time, Margaret enjoys training for her next marathon, experimenting with new recipes, and going to the beach with friends.

As a Fulbright-Nehru research scholar, Margaret is investigating the implementation and impact of the World Health Organization Safe Childbirth Checklist (SCC) as a tool to promote a shared responsibility of safety between healthcare professionals (HCPs) and mothers. The SCC increases safe birthing practices by addressing key risks (e.g., bleeding, infection, high blood pressure) at four pause points: on admission; just before pushing; soon after birth; and before discharge. The project hopes to prove that when HCPs educate mothers and their companions about the SCC by actively encouraging dialogue around cross-checking SCC steps, mothers will be empowered, patient–HCP communication will be enhanced, and pregnancy, childbirth, and the postnatal period will be safer for mothers and their babies.

Neena Kapoor

Neena Kapoor is a third-year doctoral student in population health sciences (specializing in health systems) at Harvard University’s Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. As a member of the Quality Evidence for Health System Transformation (QuEST) research group, she collaborates with a global network of researchers to develop tools for measuring and improving health system quality. Neena has played a key role in managing and analyzing data from the People’s Voice Survey across more than 15 countries, capturing population perspectives on health systems worldwide. She has also contributed to research assessing the impact of COVID-19 containment policies on essential health service delivery across high-, middle-, and low-income countries.

Her work has appeared in multiple peer-reviewed publications like The Lancet Global Health, where she has examined user-reported confidence in health systems and quality of care globally. Neena holds a Master of Science in Global Health and Population from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Science in Medicine, Health, & Society and Child Development from Vanderbilt University.

Through the Fulbright-Nehru research award, Neena is investigating the quality of care and care pathways for pregnant women with chronic conditions in India. For her research, she is building on emerging longitudinal data from Jodhpur and Sonipat with qualitative interviews of women with chronic condition, seeking to learn about their experiences while receiving antenatal care. The project is also collecting qualitative insights to provide actionable recommendations. The study aims to highlight health system gaps and user preferences in order to guide resource allocation that can improve maternal health outcomes in India.

Ethan Harned

Ethan Harned is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. He is a pre-medical student with a background in psychology and compassionate medical care. At Notre Dame, he was awarded the prestigious Hesburgh-Yusko merit scholarship which is given to students who demonstrate scholarship, leadership, and commitment to social justice.

In his career, Ethan is pursuing a combined medical and public health degree to support pediatric patients who live in life-limiting conditions and to improve systems by working closely with them. Ethan exemplifies a steadfast commitment to global health and aims to make a meaningful impact on the lives of pediatric palliative care patients and their families worldwide.

Ethan’s Fulbright-Nehru project is studying how palliative care programs are designed for adolescents in India. The project is located in the states of Haryana and Kerala which represent contrasting environments for access to palliative care – while palliative care is an emerging specialty in Haryana, it is well developed in Kerala. He is conducting interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders such as policymakers, healthcare providers, caregivers, and adults in the 18–24 age group. These interactions are examining how palliative care programs in India meet the needs of their adolescent patients and the status of response to such programs. The aim of the research is to provide a framework to improve access to palliative care for adolescents across India and share lessons between the U.S. and India on caring for this population.

Shrutika Gupta

Shrutika Gupta is a recent graduate of Rice University, where she earned a BSc in biosciences cum laude and completed minor studies in global health technologies and medical humanities. While at Rice, Gupta was awarded the Wagoner Fellowship to conduct research in global surgery at the University of Oxford. Her work examined disparities in clinical outcomes after pediatric surgery across different countries. Shrutika also spent time in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with NEST360, an international alliance working to end preventable newborn deaths. There, she investigated the impact of hospital infrastructure on sick newborn care. She was also an undergraduate researcher in genome editing and neuroscience labs at the Bioscience Research Collaborative.

Shrutika is particularly passionate about developing accessible healthcare solutions. Through a Rice incubator program, she is developing a health intervention to improve access to maternal care in the rural areas of Texas. She has also collaborated on multiple medical device projects, including NeoTube, a neonatal feeding tube solution; ReVulva, a vulvar cancer training model (with Rice360 and the MD Anderson Cancer Center); and Brain Power, a low-cost intuitive EEG device (with Rice360, Georgetown MedStar, and the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Malawi). She was a finalist at the Johns Hopkins Healthcare Design Competition as part of Team NeoTube, and she has also presented her work on Brain Power at the Houston Global Health Conference.

Shrutika’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is investigating the impact of cultural practices on women’s engagement with healthcare systems during the postpartum period. As part of her study, she is interacting with patients, healthcare workers, and family members of patients to gather well-rounded and diverse perspectives. The goal is to identify trends that can help guide the development of interventions to minimize health inequities in India.

Sienna Fisher

Sienna Fisher graduated from Trinity University with a degree in international studies, concentrating in global health, and with a minor in women and gender studies. Throughout her undergraduate career, she engaged with interdisciplinary coursework which deepened her interest in the sociocultural determinants of health and healthcare accessibility. This academic foundation enabled her to pursue research across a range of topics, including narrative medicine, digital health communications, and women’s health.

Sienna first came to India in the fall of 2023 with the School for International Training to study public health, gender, and sexuality. During her semester abroad, she completed an internship with Aarohi, a nongovernmental organization in rural Uttarakhand. She collaborated with Aarohi’s Medical Mobile Unit and home health team during health camps and visits, and also conducted independent research on the evolution of women’s health in the Kumaon region of the Himalaya.

Since graduation, Sienna has worked as a medical assistant in interventional pain management and dermatology clinics. She hopes to integrate her passion for medicine, gender studies, and the humanities to improve healthcare accessibility and address health disparities within her community and beyond.

Sienna’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is focusing on the health experiences and perceptions of women aged 40 and above within marginalized communities in the rural regions of India. The study is exploring their overall health and health-seeking behaviors, with a focus on menopause, as well as reproductive and sexual health. She is also investigating the role of traditional health practices in addressing health needs when formal treatment is unavailable or inaccessible.

Sonia Taneja

Dr. Sonia Taneja is a general pediatrician at Boston Medical Center and a clinical instructor at Boston University’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. She was most recently a chief resident at the Boston Combined Residency Program in Boston Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital, where she was engaged in curricular development for both domestic and global health equity education.

She holds a BA in psychology from Yale University and an MS in public health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She is a former Parker Huang Research Fellow in India, where she conducted a mixed-methods study identifying the risk factors for mood disorders among caste-based sex workers in New Delhi and brothel-based sex workers in Kolkata and Patna. She obtained her MD from the Yale School of Medicine where she worked with the Elevate Policy Lab and the MOMS Partnership to replicate a community-based participatory research intervention for co-located social and mental health services for low-income parents.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, she is continuing her work with adolescents and families in partnership with the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh to develop a community-based participatory intervention mechanism to optimize medication-assisted therapy for opioid use disorder among adolescents in India. The goal of this research is to develop PYAR, or Parents as Youth Allies in Recovery, a family-centered behavioral intervention program designed to equip caregivers with skills to support medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) and HIV prevention among young people who inject drugs (YPWID). Dr. Taneja is utilizing community-based participatory research methods to interview youth who are under-engaged or have recently ceased MOUD and their caregivers to elicit the following: knowledge and attitudes about MOUD and HIV prevention services; challenges faced by YPWID and caregivers in recovery; and the intervention components that youth and caregivers identify as most effective and acceptable.

Amal Mitra

Dr. Amal Mitra is a Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Jackson State University (JSU), Jackson, MS, USA. He obtained his Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) and Master of Public Health (MPH) degrees from University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL. He received his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Prior to joining JSU, he worked as a senior medical officer and associate scientist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (icddrb), Bangladesh, where he started his research career in clinical medicine as well as in public health. Dr. Mitra is a recipient of external funding from numerous agencies including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of Agriculture (DOA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC). He is also a recipient of many awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award 2013, the Innovation Award for Applied Research 2004, and the Distinguished Faculty Researcher Award 1999.

Dr. Mitra’s Fulbright-Nehru research project focuses on adolescents’ mental health in relation to COVID-19. Demographic data, family history of COVID-19, and any other physical and mental illnesses of the participants (such as depression, anxiety, behavioral changes, sleep disturbances, and addictions) will be collected. The participants will be screened for mental health status using Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)-7 scales. The overall impact of human losses due to COVID-19 in West Bengal will be assessed. In addition, Dr. Mitra will offer a graduate-level course on Epidemiology of COVID-19, and hands-on training on statistical analysis of data.

Purnima Madhivanan

Dr. Purnima Madhivanan is an Associate Professor in Health Promotion Sciences at the Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at University of Arizona, Tucson. She received her medical training at the Government Medical College in Mysore, India and then an MPH and PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Madhivanan has extensive experience in conducting multi-site domestic and international clinical and translational studies. She is the site PI and the Director of the Global Health Training Program at University of Arizona, Tucson for the Global Health Equity Scholar consortium in collaboration with Stanford, Yale and University of California, Berkeley. She also directs the Fogarty-Fulbright Fellowship program for University of Arizona. Dr. Madhivanan has been a PI of multiple federal and foundation grants, as well as a mentor and investigator of numerous NIH, CDC, and industry-sponsored studies and clinical trials. She has also served on multiple national and international research and steering committees.

Her research has focused on disadvantaged populations, elucidating the dynamics of poverty, gender, and the sociopolitical determinants of health, in particular the impact on women and children living in rural and limited resource communities. She has worked in India, Peru, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Nigeria, Ethiopia and in the US. To situate her research close to the communities she serves, she established a clinical site in Mysore, India in 2005 while completing her PhD dissertation. For over a decade, the Prerana Women’s Health Initiative has delivered low-cost, high-quality comprehensive reproductive health services to 50,000 low-income women living in Mysore.

Her work has resulted in more than 200 peer-review publications. She continues to develop novel lines of research and has been supported by foundations, biotechnology companies, federal and international funding organizations. Dr. Madhivanan serves as an advisor to a number of state departments of Public Health, non-profit as well as governmental research organizations. In 2007, she received the prestigious International Leadership Award from the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation for her work on HIV prevention. She is recipient of several teaching and mentoring awards including the Maria Valdez Mentoring Award at the University of Arizona

The overarching goal of Dr. Madhivanan’s Fulbright-Nehru project is to advocate for the medical and social needs of female cancer survivors and build capacity for research that will develop a survivorship care evidence base, explore strategies to facilitate provision of survivorship care, and disseminate best survivorship care practices to Indian physicians and public health practitioners. It is estimated that about 34,000 women are diagnosed annually with cancer in the south Indian state of Karnataka. Assuming an 81% overall five-year survival rate, the state would have more than 137,000 women cancer survivors in any year. In India, there is almost no active follow-up for patients who survive cancer treatment and there is limited information about their physical and mental health, and overall quality of life.