Current PhD Students

I am a first year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. My research interest is in the implementation, evaluation and modeling of public health interventions and/or policies geared towards the control of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, TB, hepatitis, and other diseases of global health importance.

Emmanuella Asabor is a joint MD Candidate and PhD Student in Epidemiology at Yale University Schools of Medicine and Public Health whose research sits at the intersection of social medicine, epidemiology, and health policy. Emmanuella has been recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 Honoree and a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Research Fellow for her research and advocacy in COVID-19, police violence, asylum medicine, and global health. Her research has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Vanity Fair, USA Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and more. She earned her bachelor’s at Harvard University where she studied the history of medicine and global health. She also holds a master’s degree in African Studies from the University of Cambridge. Prior to Yale, she shaped supportive housing policy in New York City through a joint New York University and New York State Department of Health initiative. In her spare time, she enjoys travel, cooking, Nigerian literature, and occasionally re-living her opera-singing past.

I graduated from YSPH with my MPH in Spring 2017 and started the PhD in Fall 2018. My research is split between microbial analysis of Legionella in the environment and statistical modeling of sporadic legionellosis. I am particularly interested in quantifying the fluctuations of Legionella in natural reservoirs after rainfall events and modeling the influence of climate/weather on disease incidence both temporally and spatially. I have previously explored both the role of pneumococcal vaccine on antibiotic resistance and spatial trends of IPD in CT during my masters internship in Weinberger lab.

Melanie Chitwood  is a PhD student in the Ted Cohen Lab. She is interested in using mathematical models to understand the transmission and prevalence of airborne infectious diseases, mainly tuberculosis and COVID-19. She has previously worked as a Research Associate in the Cohen Lab, where she was involved in projects in Brazil and and on COVID-19 estimates and projections. Ms. Chitwood received her BA from Hampshire College and her MS in Global Health and Population from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Rebecca is a PhD candidate in the Grubaugh Lab in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. Her research focuses on the outbreak dynamics of emerging viruses in human and animal populations. Previously, Rebecca was a Research Analyst in the Prevention Policy Modeling Lab at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where her work focused on modeling the potential impact of changes in disease control strategies. She received a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and also has four years of experience in global and domestic health consulting.

Mallory Ellingson, MPH, is a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial diseases. Her research interests include vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases, with a specific focus on improving vaccine communication and understanding vaccine acceptance and refusal. Prior to starting at Yale, she earned her MPH in Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. She also worked as a Public Health Program Associate in the Global Health department on projects related to maternal immunization and interventions to improve vaccine uptake.

My research focuses on translational studies of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa with an emphasis on parasite dynamics and treatment pharmacology and how these impact the emergence and spread of drug resistance. I currently work as an MD/PhD student in the Parikh Lab in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health. My previous research at the University of Texas at Dallas focused on altered cellular metabolism in cancer and other pathological conditions. I was previously enlisted as a cavalry scout in the US Army and deployed twice in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn. Afterwards I earned a BS in Biology and a MS in Biotechnology at UTD before joining the MD/PhD program at the Yale School of Medicine in 2017.

Kelly is a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. Her research interests focus on reducing vector-borne and zoonotic diseases in low income countries by identifying social, biological, and environmental risk factors of disease. Specifically, she hope to use molecular epidemiological studies to gain insight into pathogenesis and to improve the prevention and control of infectious diseases.

Rachel matriculated to Yale in 2018 to pursue MD/PhD training at Yale School of Medicine and Yale School of Public Health. She graduated from Duke in 2016 with a double major in global health and psychology. At Duke, she began conducting global mental health research, with her thesis focusing on adolescent mental health in rural Kenya. After graduating, she took a gap year to study malaria elimination in low- and middle-income countries at UCSF, and another to study the intersection of nutrition, epigenetics, and cardiovascular disease at the Framingham Heart Study. At Yale, Rachel is completing her dissertation on implementation of evidence-based tuberculosis care in Uganda in Dr. Luke Davis' lab. Rachel is also affiliated with Dr. Sarah Lowe's Trauma and Mental Health Lab to study the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers. Rachel hopes to advance her training in biostatistics and mixed methods throughout her MD/PhD training.

Katherine (Katie) Hill is a first year PhD student in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. She is also a Public Health Workforce Development Fellow with Office of Public Health Practice at YSPH. Katie earned her MPH at George Washington University, where she was a Michael Milken Public Health Scholar. Her interests within public health research include sexual health and behavior, substance use and addiction, kratom, and improving the health of criminal justice-involved individuals.

After completing her undergraduate degree at Georgia Tech, Ann spent 9 months in India conducting public health research with a Fulbright research fellowship. Ann plans to continue public health research during her PhD with a mixed-methods approach. Ann enjoys spending time hiking and outdoors.

Jiye Kwon is a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. She is primarily interested in the intersection of epidemiology, pathogen genomics, bioinformatics, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases. She aims to integrate these areas to study the risk, development, and spatiotemporal spread of resistance and pathobionts to ultimately strengthen disease surveillance systems. Prior to her doctoral studies, Jiye earned her MPH with public health modeling concentration from Yale School of Public Health and conducted respiratory and gastrointestinal microbiome research with the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG) while working in the Pettigrew Lab.

Dan Li (also known as Dan-Dan Li) graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts with high honors in Chemical and Physical Biology and a minor in Mathematical Sciences in 2015. She is currently a fifth year MD/PhD candidate doing her PhD study in Former Dean Sten Vermund’s lab on the impact of COVID-19 on women and children. As an aspiring OB, Dan holds issues affecting women and children’s lives close to heart. She is the founder and CEO of Education without Barriers, a 501c(3) nonprofit aims to bridge the education accessibility gaps through free, real-time online education and mentorship for vulnerable children across the globe.

Alexandra Savinkina is a first year PhD student in the Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. She is interested in using mathematical modeling to answer questions at the intersection of infectious disease epidemiology and national and global health policy, with a focus on health equity. Prior to coming to Yale, Alexandra was a data analyst at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and then worked in simulation modeling at Boston Medical Center's infectious disease department.

I was born in Kansas City but spent most of my early life in a small town in Southeast Kansas. I went to PIttsburg State University in Kansas for undergraduate, where I studied biochemistry, played jazz, and researched the use of magnetic nanoparticles as diagnostic tools for infectious diseases. I recently completed my PhD at Yale School of Public Health under the mentorship of Dr. Luke Davis, and my dissertation work evaluated the implementation of contact tracing for COVID-19 using mixed methods. My primary research interests include implementation science, global health, infectious disease, harm reduction, and social networks. Clinically, I am interested in family medicine and plan to pursue full-spectrum training in order to one day practice rural family medicine. Outside of work, I like playing music, baking, fishing, and exploring the outdoors. My favorite time of year is Fall/Winter, but that has nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with eggnog.

Natasha Turyasingura is a first-year PhD student in the Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases Department. Before coming to Yale, she worked as a Postbaccalaureate Scholar at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in Oncology Drug Discovery and with the Global Health unit and as an Intern in Translational Discovery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute. She is interested in molecular epidemiology and how we may use this information to develop and implement novel diagnostics and therapies.