Our Team
Emily S. Gurley, PhD, MPH
Emily is an Associate Scientist in the Department of Epidemiology and leads multi-disciplinary studies on the transmission and prevention of emerging and vaccine preventable diseases, such as Nipah virus, hepatitis E virus, and arboviruses. She has worked in Bangladesh for more than a decade and her interests include improving the communication and collaboration between field epidemiologists and infectious disease modelers and development of novel surveillance strategies. Her research adopts a One Health approach to the study and prevention of infectious disease, taking into account the ecological context in which human disease occurs. Emily is the Co-Director for the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) site in Bangladesh, aiming to determine the etiology of and prevent child deaths. She also works closely with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global Disease Detection program.
Melissa A. Marx, PhD, MPH
Dr. Melissa A. Marx is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is an expert in epidemiology and evaluation who specializes in developing, disseminating and utilizing new metrics and methods to evaluate and improve international programs, focusing on maternal, neonatal, child health and nutrition and HIV, TB and malaria in low and middle income settings. Dr. Marx is committed to building sustainable capacity in the analysis and use of routine data for program improvement and has developed and evaluated learner-focused training programs for students and public health practitioners to move that agenda forward. While at CDC as an EIS officer and in the Zambia field office, she developed, conducted, and oversaw outbreak investigations and epidemiologic studies on HIV, Ebola, zoonotic transmission of anthrax, typhoid fever, cholera, food-borne illness, Hepatitis B and C, STIs, and drug resistant organisms including MRSA, among others.
kyle aune
Kyle is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. He earned an MPH degree with a focus in epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Kyle is interested in the effect climate change has on infectious disease transmission, and his dissertation research focuses on extreme weather events and influenza transmission. His dissertation research has built on a foundation of epidemiologic methods, infectious disease epidemiology, virology, and biostatistics coursework to develop skills in spatial statistics and analysis, remote sensing, machine learning, and statistical programming with R and SAS.
Lindsay avolio
Lindsay is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Environmental Health and Engineering. She works in the Environmental Health Microbiology and Immunology Lab on the development and application of serological assays for population-level surveillance of a variety of infectious disease exposures. Broadly, she is interested in the role infectious diseases play in the adverse health effects of climate change, in OneHealth, and in issues of environmental justice. Her doctoral research, also conducted at Johns Hopkins, focused on the development of a salivary multiplex immunoassay to assess common food and waterborne pathogen exposures and infections, with an emphasis on Shigella and Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC). She holds a MS in Biotechnology from Clarkson University where she worked with human cell-material interactions as well as a BS in Biology and a BS in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences from Clarkson University.
TOM Carpino
Tom Carpino is a doctoral candidate in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. As a predoctoral NIH fellow, he researches stigma, HIV, and STIs in sexual and gender diverse communities. He is a member of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights, and his dissertation research characterizes epidemiological characteristics of monkeypox. Prior to Hopkins, he earned an MPH from Columbia University in biostatistics and was a co-investigator on projects related to Covid-19, HIV, climate change, and health systems.
Pranab chatterjee
Pranab is a doctoral student in the Department of International Health, in the Global Disease Epidemiology and Control concentration. Pranab received his MBBS degree from Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, India and MD in Preventive/Community Medicine from University College of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. He also holds a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the Royal College of Physicians, London, UK. Prior to joining the doctoral program, he worked with the Indian Council of Medical Research, focusing on infectious disease epidemiology, antimicrobial resistance, vaccines, and One Health. He has extensive experience of working in low-resource, community-based settings. He is interested in tropical infectious diseases, emerging infections, and antimicrobial resistance, especially working on the threats emerging at the human-animal-environment interface.
amy dighe
Amy is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology. Her research focuses on the use of serological data to better understand infectious disease dynamics. Previously, Amy completed her PhD in Epidemiology at Imperial College London where she studied the dynamics of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus in dromedary camel populations and the potential use of animal vaccination to avert human infection. She was also part of the Imperial College London COVID response team. Amy’s wider interests include One Health approaches to zoonotic spillover prevention, the use of dynamic and statistical modelling to support decision making, and working with public health practitioners to improve the use of analytics as part of outbreak response as a member of the R Epidemics Consortium.
Kyra Grantz
Kyra is a doctoral student in infectious disease epidemiology. Her research focuses on the feasibility of treatment-as-prevention to achieve Hepatitis C virus elimination among people who inject drugs. She is also interested in modeling fine-scale spatial and temporal dynamics of disease transmission with epidemiologic and pathogen genetic data. Kyra has collaborated closely with many public health authorities, including the US CDC, WHO, MSF, and various ministries of health to study influenza, dengue, yellow fever, Ebola, rotavirus, leprosy, and chikungunya. She has experience in the implementation and analysis of clinical trials in low-resource settings and during outbreak responses.
natalya kostandova
Katie Kurowski
Katie is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. She earned an MPH degree with a focus in infectious diseases and vaccinology from UC Berkeley in 2020. She is interested in One Health approaches to infectious disease spread and how the human-environment interface can impact infectious diseases. Katie’s dissertation research looks at respiratory pathogen immunity among neighbors and workers in high density industrial livestock operation areas. At Berkeley, Katie worked on a study that examined the effects of economic and WASH determinants on the carriage of antimicrobial resistant E. coli in children.
annie martin
Annie is a doctoral student in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH). She received her B.A. in Anthropology and Biology from Washington University in Saint Louis in 2013 and spent two years working in electronic medical record systems. She obtained her Masters in Public Health from BSPH in 2016. She subsequently worked in international development for four years, living in Lusaka Zambia, and working in public health surveillance system support and design, with a focus on constructing feedback-oriented infectious disease surveillance systems.
Annie’s research for her dissertation focuses on testing whether simple innovation in tried malaria control and elimination strategies can better reduce disease burden in both high and low transmission settings.
Emma Moynihan
Emma is a doctoral student in the Department of Environmental Health & Engineering in the Exposure Sciences and Environmental Epidemiology track. She also received her MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2018. She is specifically interested in the impacts of climate change on the etiology and transmission of diseases. Prior to graduate school, Emma was a Fulbright Scholar in Malaysia, which propelled her passion for public health. She has experience working on multiple surveillance programs on behalf of the CDC and state governments from which she brings expertise in survey design and implementation, statistical programming, and data analytics along with skills in spatial analysis.
Katherine Robsky
Katherine is a PhD candidate in the Department of Epidemiology. Her dissertation research uses spatiotemporal patterns to identify populations at risk for TB that could be prioritized for preventive and case finding interventions in urban Kampala. She previously completed her MPH in Infectious Diseases at University of California. She has extensive experience working in government public health agencies, both as ASPPH/CDC Allan Rosenfield Strategic Information Fellow partnering with the Ministry of Health and Human Services in Namibia and as the Surveillance and Informatics Coordinator for the California Department of Public Health TB Control Branch. Her interests include using routinely collected data for research purposes, implementation science, and application of spatial analysis methods.
Molly Sauer
Molly is a doctoral student in the Department of International Health in the Global Disease Epidemiology and Control track. Her work centers on using multi-method approaches to strengthen infectious disease and immunization program and policy decision-making and implementation. She is specifically interested in building health system and community resiliency, tackling misinformation and vaccine hesitancy, and navigating the impacts of climate change on infectious disease transmission. She has worked in state, federal, and international health systems and organizations, bringing experience in environmental health surveillance and education, health governance and intergovernmental relations, and health education and communication. She also holds an MPH in infectious diseases and applied epidemiology from JHSPH and is certified in public health (CPH).
claire smith
Claire is a PhD student in infectious disease epidemiology and is also pursuing a concurrent MHS degree in biostatistics. Her research focuses on scenario modeling of COVID-19 transmission, characterizing heterogeneity in contact network structure, and modeling influenza antibody dynamics. Prior to joining JHSPH, Claire received a BA from Yale University in applied mathematics
steven sola
Steven is a doctoral student in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. Prior to Johns Hopkins, he received his MSPH in Environmental Health and Engineering from Emory University and completed an infectious disease epidemiology fellowship with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists at the New York State Department of Health. While at the New York State Department of Health, he assisted with outbreaks of measles, cyclosporiasis, and COVID-19. Steven is interested in WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) in low-resource settings and community-based climate resiliency. He is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Indonesia, and is constantly searching for authentic Indonesian food in the US.
Margaret Tomann
Margaret is a PhD student in the Department of Environmental Health & Engineering on the Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology track; and a trainee in the Occupational Epidemiology and Biomarkers Program at the Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health. Her research is focused on the use of electronic health records data for environmental and occupational epidemiology. Before starting at Hopkins, she worked in Central Appalachia doing community-based public health work, teaching public health at The University of Virginia’s College at Wise, and as the Director of the Black Lung Clinic Program in Virginia. She completed her MSPH in Tropical Medicine and Parasitology at Tulane and a graduate certificate in Appalachian Studies at Radford University.
connor volpi
Connor is a doctoral student in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society and Cancer Epidemiology, Prevention, and Control T32 Predoctoral Fellow. Prior to Johns Hopkins, he received his MPH from Brown University. Connor’s research interests have revolved around addressing health disparities that impact gender and sexual minority communities. He is currently working on addressing disparities at the intersection(s) of HIV, aging, and cancer among men who have sex with men and has been researching advancements in HIV/AIDS care (e.g., injectable PrEP). Moreover, he is interested in the application of implementation science and mixed-methods methodology to improve health outcomes for the LGBTQ+ community.
patrick wedlock
Patrick is a DrPH student in the Implementation Science concentration. He received his MSPH in International Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2016. He is currently a senior research analyst with the Public Health Informatics, Computational and Operations (PHICOR) team based at the City University of New York and was previously a research associate at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research has included using modeling and other computational tools to inform public health decision making. This has included using simulation models to improve the design of vaccine supply chains and evaluate the clinical and economic impact of vaccines. He is interested in improving the interface between public health research and decision making.
Former Members
Qifang bi
Kechna Cadet
Lelia Chaisson
CATELYN COYLE
dylan duchen
brooke jarrett
Forrest Jones
Kyu Han Lee
gideon loevinsohn
Jowanna Malone
katie overbey
eshan patel
Neia Prata Menezes
jean olivier twahirwa rwema