Firearm Injury Prevention Team

Dr. Megan L. Ranney is an emergency physician, researcher, and leading advocate for innovative, intersectional approaches to public health. She is the Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, the C.-E. A. Winslow Professor of Public Health, and a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Yale University. Dr. Ranney is the first Dean to lead the school since it became a fully independent graduate institution in 2024, with a new strategic vision of linking science and society, making public health foundational to communities everywhere. Dr. Ranney’s career has been driven by her front-row seat to preventable public health crises, from her formative years in the Peace Corps to her 20+ years as a practicing emergency medicine physician. Whether addressing motor vehicle injuries and firearm violence, HIV and COVID-19, or the importance of healthcare access, her first-hand experiences have fueled her...

Nelba holds a Bachelor of Music from the Hartt School and a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Joseph College. Nelba taught and supervised at the Family Therapy program at the University of Winnipeg’s Aurora Family Therapy Centre and later worked as the Coordinator for Klingberg Family Therapy Center’s outpatient child and adolescent psychiatric clinic. She also served as adjunct faculty at Central Connecticut State University. Nelba founded the CTAMFT (Connecticut Association for Marriage and Family Therapy) Diversity Committee and served on the CTAMFT Board of Directors. For her advocacy, she received the 2004 Minority Fellowship Award by the AAMFT, the 2004 Distinguished Professional Service Award, and the 2013 Service to Families Award by the CTAMFT. In 2017 she was awarded the Key to the Centre award at the Aurora family Therapy Centre in...

Dr. Degutis, a native of Chicago, received her Bachelor of Science degree from DePaul University, and her MSN and DrPH from Yale University. She is a consultant in injury and violence prevention and policy, public health preparedness, and public health policy. Some of her current work focuses on suicide prevention in veterans, and firearm violence prevention, as well as public health practice. She is former Executive Director of Defense Health Horizons, a program of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, based at the Uniformed Services University. In addition, she was the Chief Science Officer and Board Chair for The Avielle Foundation. She chaired the Board of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), is past president of the Society for the Advancement of Violence and Injury Research (SAVIR), and chairs the Advisory Board of the...

Sarah Lowe, Ph.D., 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. Her research focuses on the long-term mental health consequences of a range of potentially traumatic events, as well as the impact of such events on other domains of functioning, such as physical health, social relationships, and economic wellbeing. Her work explores the mechanisms leading from trauma exposure to symptoms, and the role of factors at various ecological levels – from genetics to neighborhoods – in shaping risk and resilience. She uses a range of methodologies to achieve her research aims, including structural equation modeling, latent growth curve analysis, geospatial modeling, and qualitative analysis, among...

Dr. Danielle (Dani) Poole is a population health scientist notable for her contributions to the evidence base for humanitarian decision-making. Within the broader field of humanitarian health research, her work is centered around two themes: 1) measuring needs among populations affected by crises with a focus on health during displacement, and 2) developing novel research methods for complex settings. To address these lines of inquiry, Dr. Poole applies methodological approaches spanning the epidemiological, geospatial, and biostatistical sciences. Recent and ongoing research contributions that have informed humanitarian response include the Yale University independent review of the Joint Intersectoral Analysis Framework (in partnership with UNOCHA), development of the Humanitarian Data Strategy for UNFPA’s Humanitarian Office, and geospatial analysis of health facility attacks in...