Dr. Deziel obtained a Master’s of Industrial Hygiene and Doctorate in Environmental Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research is focused on applying statistical models, biomonitoring techniques, and environmental measurements to provide comprehensive and quantitative assessments of exposure to traditional and emerging environmental contaminants in population-based studies. Her research uses a combination of large, administrative datasets and detailed community-focused studies to advance understanding of environmental exposures to chemicals, particularly carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. This research also serves to illuminate exposure mechanisms underlying associations between environmental chemicals and disease, thereby informing more effective policies to reduce exposures and protect public health. Dr. Deziel's contributions have been directed at two main areas: (1) exposure and human health impacts of unconventional oil and gas development (“hydraulic fracturing”) and (2) residential exposure to chemicals in common consumer products (e.g., pesticides, flame retardants) and cancer risk (particularly thyroid cancer). In addition, she consider disproportionate burdens of exposures (“environmental justice”) and the combination of environmental and social stressors in the context of her work.

Olivia N. Kachingwe, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding how healthcare providers, peers, family members (particularly fathers), and technology can better support the sexual and reproductive health of Black youth and young adults, with an emphasis on health disparities rooted in systemic racism and discrimination against LGBTQ+ communities. A central component of Dr. Kachingwe’s research is strong partnerships with community-based organizations and providers. She has expertise in qualitative methods and community-engaged research. Dr. Kachingwe received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in Behavioral and Community Health and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Maternal and Child Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. Dr. Kachingwe’s most recent projects include (1) a qualitative exploration of parent-child sexual health communication among Black LGBTQ+ young adults and (2) the evaluation of an evidence-based parenting intervention implemented among Black fathers and fathers on probation, parole, and supervised release.

Professor Parikh’s research interests focus on translational studies of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Parikh focuses upon several aspects of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, including studies on optimizing treatment regimens, novel chemoprevention strategies, drug resistance emergence and spread, and parasite dynamics. Current projects include: (1) understanding parasite, drug, and host factors affecting response to artemisinin-based antimalarial therapies using a combination of individual and population-based approaches to inform treatment guidelines (Uganda and Burkina Faso); 2) cluster-randomized trial of endectocides to reduce malaria transmission (Burkina Faso); and 3) characterizing the epidemiology of antimalarial drug resistance and non-falciparum species in sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon and Burkina Faso), 4) testing of a novel noninvasive diagnostic device for malaria (Cameroon). Dr. Parikh has ongoing projects in several African countries, which utilize observational and cross-sectional designs, as well as prospective clinical trials. Recently, the Parikh lab, in collaboration with colleagues at Colorado State University (Prof Foy), and IRSSINSTech in Burkina Faso (Prof. Dabire and Ouedraogo) were awarded an International Center of Excellence in Malaria Research. Dr. Parikh received his M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed his medical residency training at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. After completing his fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco and Masters in Public Health at UC Berkeley he joined the faculty at UCSF. He has been a member of the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases in the Yale School of Public Health and Section of Infectious Diseases in the Yale School of Medicine since 2012.

Professor Townsend received his Ph.D. in 2002 in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University, under the advisement of Daniel Hartl. His Ph.D. was entitled "Population genetic variation in genome-wide gene expression: modeling, measurement, and analysis", and constituted the first population genetic analysis of genome-wide gene expression variation. After making use of the model budding yeast S. cerevisiae for his Ph.D. research, Dr. Townsend accepted an appointment as a Miller Fellow at the University of California-Berkeley in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, where he worked to develop molecular tools, techniques, and analysis methodologies for functional genomics studies with the filamentous fungal model species Neurospora crassa, co-advised by Berkeley fungal evolutionary biologist John Taylor and molecular mycologist Louise Glass. In 2004, he accepted his first appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Connecticut. In 2006 he was appointed as an Assistant Professor the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. In 2013 he began to work on statistical approaches to fit mathematical models of disease spread and emergence, and to work on the somatic evolution of cancer, and was appointed as an Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. In 2017 he was named Elihu Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and in 2018 he was appointed Elihu Professor of Biostatistics and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. In 2019 he was appointed a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, in recognition of the development of innovative approaches to population biology, including the evolution of antimicrobial resistance, disease evolution and transmission, and evolution of tumorigenesis; and research that has enabled curtailment of pathogen evolution, outbreak mitigation, and informed therapeutic approaches to cancer metastasis and evolution of therapeutic resistance in cancer. In 2021 he was selected as the Co-Chair-Elect of the Cancer Evolution Working Group of the American Association for Cancer Research. In 2022 he was appointed Co-Director of the Genetics, Genomics, and Epigenetics Program of the Yale Cancer Center. In 2023 he was elevated to Co-Chair of the Cancer Evolution Working Group of the American Association for Cancer Research.