Alumni Spotlight

Laura Nnadi, MPH

Laura graduated from Public Health with her M.P.H. degree (Epidemiology concentration) in May 2015. Since August 2015, she has been with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) in Dallas, Texas, where she is a Clinical Research Coordinator for the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine for the Adult Cystic Fibrosis program. Laura coordinates many pharmaceutical sponsored clinical trials. Her duties include regulatory management, creation of consent forms, site training, site activation and initiation, study visits, data collection, data entry, specimen processing, safety report management, study drug management and CF registry data entry. She also handles protocol management and collects and analyzes data for investigator initiated studies. Laura is very happy with her position. Working in research was a longtime dream of hers.

"Learning more about this rare disease and actually seeing the children and adults that live with this genetic mutation -- especially their modified lifestyle -- motivates me each day to work toward a drug that can add more years to their lives," she said.

Laura believes that her education and training from the Public Health (M.P.H.) program has properly prepared her for this position and is very grateful for her professors and advisers, most especially Dr. Kimble, Dr. Cunningham, Mrs. Pautz and Mr. Flannery.

Values Award Winner: Meenal K. Walia, MPA, MPH

Stephanie Byrne, MPH

Stephanie Byrne (pictured on the right) graduated in 2012 with a degree in Public Health, focusing on Health Management. Stephanie is the Medical Services Administration Director at Guam Regional Medical City, Guam’s first multispecialty and critical care hospital where she works along with Nicole Kitchens (pictured on the left), a graduate of the Physician Assistant master’s program. When we asked Stephanie what she was involved with in Guam, this is what she stated:

“Our remote location makes healthcare a large problem on Guam.”

“…The leading causes of death in Guam are similar to what you hear in the mainland US: Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke. But what is shocking is that locals will experience their first heart attack by early 40s and current surveillance is showing heart disease diagnoses for individuals in their mid 30's. Cancers are a battle on Guam and those who fall ill must seek care off-island. Given our remote location, this can cost in the $1000s in just airfare alone.”

In this role, Stephanie states that her department works “closely with the Public Health Department on Guam to ensure that we are meeting the population's needs. We have brought some of the first specialties the island has ever seen and by the end of the year we will have established the first STEMI PCI program as well as a comprehensive stroke program, neurosurgery program and cancer program. Because of our close proximity to China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, as well as the Micronesian islands we are a part of, we also get to dabble in medical tourism. We have also considered that our surgery teams might need assistance that they cannot readily gain access to so we have turned to telemedicine and considered this in our schematics for our OR.”

Overall, Stephanie states, “my job so far has been a little bit of everything that I got to learn in my program all blended into one. Global health, health education and promotion, health policy and hospital management, and now with FestPac, epidemiology! I definitely stay busy.”

Ian Chen, MD, MPH discusses sickle cell anemia

Kaleigh Rae, MPH 

Kaleigh Rae graduated from Public Health with her M.P.H. degree (Global Environmental Health concentration) in May 2015. She recently accepted a position as a Research Analyst in Vanderbilt's Clinical Pharmacology department.

Along with a team of physicians, Kaleigh will be studying autonomic dysfunction, participating in clinical trial coordination, clinical trial recruitment, data analysis and technical writing. Although the position of a Research Analyst is quite multifaceted, she feels confident that our medical school has given her the tools to succeed in this role and in the field of public health.