Faculty & Staff Initiatives
At YSPH, our faculty and staff engage in real-world practice, linking public health students to rich hands-on opportunities to apply their learning and skills in service to communities. Here are several such partnerships and the leaders who support them.
City of New Haven, Office of Violence Prevention
Dr. Adrianne Katrina Nelson, PhD, MSc, MPH, is an associate research scientist at the Yale School of Public Health. She specializes in the design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions for early childhood and youth. Through the work of the Firearm Injury Prevention Consortium at YSPH and alongside Dr. James Dodington, MD, Jennifer Leaño, Dr. Sarah Lowe, PhD and Ms. Nelba Márquez-Greene, LMFT- their work on this interdisciplinary team aims to ensure respectful engagement and meaningful partnership with the city of New Haven.
CT Department of Public Health
Dr. Susan Nappi, DrPH, MPH is Executive Director of the Office of Community and Practice. She co-leads the two programs within the CT Department of Public Health Workforce Initiative together with project director, Ms. Nikole Allen, MPH, a contractor with Connecticut Public Health. Their work is aimed at diversifying and strengthening the statewide public health workforce through training and student placements with local and state public health agencies.
Dr. Linda Niccolai, PhD, is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Yale School of Public Health and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. As Director of the CT Emerging Infections Program at Yale, she oversees public health surveillance and applied epidemiology research focused on respiratory viruses (including SARS-CoV-2), foodborne illness, health care associated infections within communities, and HPV vaccine impact.
Ms. Jennifer Wang, MS, is Executive Director for the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health. She works to help develop local heat and air quality preparedness and response plans. She is also developing a state-specific climate change and health training curriculum for public health officials. This work takes place in partnership with the Center’s faculty directors, Dr. Robert DuBrow, PhD and Dr. Kai Chen, PhD; with the Connecticut Department of Public Health and several local health departments/districts; and with funding from CDC’s Climate and Health Program.
Fair Haven Community Health Care
Dr. Kathleen O’Connor Duffany, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Clinical Public Health in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at the Yale School of Public Health, Director of Research and Evaluation for the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE), and Co-Director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center. Dr. O’Connor Duffany examines and addresses social, biological, behavioral, and structural barriers to health equity. Through her association with CARE and the Yale-Griffin PRC at YSPH, she is working with Fair Haven Community Health Care to develop Food as Medicine programs within a new building, which opened in 2025. The building will house a food “farmacy,” a demonstration kitchen, and a community room to support nutrition education and community gatherings. Their pilot produce prescription program is underway, providing vouchers for produce to participating patients who have or are at risk for diabetes.
Hispanic Health Council
Dr. Sarah Lowe, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health, with secondary appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and Yale School of Nursing. Sarah leads a study focused on tailoring and evaluating a two-part Project Unloaded intervention that uses social media to educate and engage teens with facts about the risks of having and using guns while building their social media content creation and marketing skills to encourage peer-to-peer sharing of the risk information. Together with program manager, Ms. Jennifer Leaño and community scholar, Ms. Nelba L. Márquez-Greene, LMFT and bio statistician Dr. Tony Tong- their work is aimed to make communities safer through the linking of science and practice with grant funding from Fund for a Safer Future.
Dr. Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, PhD, is Professor of Public Health and Director of the Office of Public Health Practice, the Global Health Concentration track, and the Maternal Child Health Promotion track at the Yale School of Public Health. He is principal investigator of the Yale-Griffin CDC Prevention Research Center (PRC) and is currently leading a Produce Prescription program for pregnant women in Hartford, providing pregnant moms a gift card to purchase fruits and vegetables on a monthly basis. Outcomes for mom and baby are being assessed. This project is in partnership with Wholesome Wave and Dr. Kathleen O’Connor Duffany, PhD.
LiveWell Institute
Dr. Joan Monin, PhD, is Associate Professor of Public Health in the Social & Behavioral Sciences Department at YSPH. The school has joined with LiveWell and its Empowering Partnerships Network to cultivate a dementia-positive movement. Dementia positivity is the practice of identifying strengths of people living with dementia and of adjusting others’ attitudes, beliefs, communications, and behaviors to create a community where perceptions of people are driven by their strengths, rather than focusing on what capabilities they have lost or may lose as a result of their cognitive decline. Nearly twenty years after LiveWell opened its doors as the Alzheimer’s Resource Center, the World Health Organization and Alzheimer’s Disease International released a comprehensive report that proposed a new vision statement for the U.S. national dementia plan. This proposal encouraged the use of dementia-capable, dementia-friendly, and dementia-positive concepts to inform policy, practice, and research.
New Haven Healthy Start
Dr. Kathleen O’Connor Duffany, PhD, supported CARE team members Ms. Tomeka Frieson, MPH, and Ms. Victoria Tran, MPH to develop the Roots of Racial Inequities in Breastfeeding Training. This one-hour module covers the impacts of slavery on modern-day perceptions of breastfeeding, our long history of racism in breastfeeding and infant formula marketing, and racist practices and systems that contribute to current biases and practices evident in breastfeeding support. The goal is for awareness to lead to action and change in practices among healthcare providers. As such, the module includes interactive and actionable components, allowing space for participants to self-reflect, take accountability, and be called into the work of pursuing health equity for breast/chestfeeding Black Americans. Impact is being assessed.
Patterson Prevention Project
Dr. Ijeoma Opara, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Yale School of Public Health and Director of The Substances and Sexual Health (SASH) Lab. She leads pioneering research on health equity, substance use, mental health, and sexual health disparities among marginalized urban youth, utilizing participatory research methods and community collaboration.