HBS Awards and Accomplishments: September 2020

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HBS Awards and Accomplishments

A monthly series featuring ten awards and accomplishments across the Department of Health, Behavior & Society.

  1. A study from HBS faculty member, Will Beckham, PhD, was awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health, as part of the RADx-UP program, which aims to increase testing for populations that COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted. The project is titled "LITE CONNECT: Addressing testing gaps and epidemiologic disparities of COVID-19 among transgender people in the United States." Beckham is a co-investigator, and the primary investigator is Andrea Wirtz, PhD, a faculty member in the Department of Epidemiology.
  2. HBS faculty members, Melissa Davey-Rothwell, PhD, and Karin Tobin, PhD, received a small grant from the Bloomberg American Health Initiative to evaluate Casa de Zulma, a housing initiative for transgender women in Los Angeles.
  3. Darriel Harris, an HBS doctoral student, received a Center for a Livable Future-Lerner Center Fellowship, granted to doctoral students who are dedicated to addressing food systems-related public health issues.
  4. Lena Jewler, a research assistant in HBS, spoke at the Princeton University Center for Human Values' Ira W. DeCamp Bioethics Seminar on October 7, 2020. The event was titled "Pandemic Ethics: Should we make use of volunteers in human challenge trials?" Jeweler spoke about volunteering for human challenge trials for COVID-19 vaccines, highlighting the disproportionate effect that COVID-19 has had on communities of color within the U.S., particularly among Black Americans.
  5. HBS faculty member, Ryan Kennedy, PhD, and doctoral student, Meagan Robichaud, participated in the Tenth Meeting of the WHO Study Group on Tobacco Product Regulation from September 28 to October 2, 2020. They produced a chapter for the 2020 meeting related to online marketing of electronic nicotine delivery systems and heated tobacco products, including an examination of how retailers/manufacturers/users were posting content related to COVID-19.
  6. Along with colleagues from the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, HBS faculty members, Eileen McDonald, PhD, and Andrea Gielen, ScD, were awarded funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Fire Prevention and Safety grants program for their proposal titled “Fire and Life Safety Education (FLSE) in the COVID Era and Beyond.” The proposal aims to conduct a national survey of FSLE activities in U.S. fire departments, develop a guidance document for safely conducting FLSE in the future, and host a one-day summit to share results. McDonald will serve as primary investigator and Gielen will serve as an investigator.
  7. HBS doctoral student, Mudia Uzzi, was selected to join the newest cohort of Health Policy Research Scholars (HPRS). A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program developed for doctoral students from marginalized backgrounds and underrepresented populations, HPRS works to promote health and equity in communities across the U.S. As a member of HRPS, Uzzi will focus on exploring structural drivers of violence and trauma in Baltimore City.
  8. A study led by Department of International Health faculty member, Melissa Walls, PhD, and HBS faculty member, Sean Allen, DrPH, was awarded $1 million in SCIBAR funding. The project is titled “Translating Mixed-Methods Research in Addition and Overdose to Policy and Practice in Indigenous Communities throughout the United States.”
  9. HBS faculty member, Cui Yang, PhD, is the co-investigator on a new NIH-funded study to expand access to COVID-19 testing among Latinos in Baltimore. The project is part of NIH's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative to improve COVID-19 testing for underserved and vulnerable populations.
  10. Daniel Zaltz, an HBS doctoral student, was awarded the 2020-2021 HER-NOPREN Early Childhood Working Group Fellowship. The working group is a collaborative effort of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Eating Research (HER) program and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network (NOPREN).