|
Education to Practice: MPH Program Graduates
Where They Are, What They're Doing
|
*****************************************************************************
Yelena Bird, MD, MPH
New Mexico State University, 2004
College Assistant Professor, Public Health & Biology
New Mexico State University
Yelena Bird, MD, MPH, resides in Las Cruces, New Mexico and serves as a College Assistant Professor in Public Health & Biology at New Mexico State University (NMSU). She is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in Molecular Biology at NMSU. She earned her medical doctorate at the Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juárez in June of 2002. She is the recipient of the Outstanding Graduating Medical Student and Scholar Award from the Instituto de Ciencias Biomédicas, Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She has made several contributions and is heavily involved with a variety of public health projects in Juárez, Mexico, mainly with Adolescent Tobacco Use, Prevention, and Cessation initiatives. She has been an invited presenter in numerous national and international public health conferences and forums. Most recently, she has been the primary investigator of a $75,000 research project, funded by the Center for Border Health Research, and entitled: “Breast Cancer Risk: A Molecular Biological & Public Health Approach Among Women in Juárez, Mexico”. Dr. Bird’s public health skills as acquired during her MPH academic tenure at NMSU are complementary in many respects to her medical training and have centered more on patient education and prevention fronts of diseases prevalent on the US-Mexico border region. Dr. Bird views the Department of Health Science at NMSU as a tight-knit family of professionals committed and dedicated to improving the health of the communities they have been entrusted to serve and who work well together in an effort to accomplish this goal.
|
|
*****************************************************************************
Kellie Hawkins, MPH
University of Southern California, Summer 2003
Policy Analyst
Office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles County
Ms. Kellie Hawkins is involved with education policy in the office of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. She received an undergraduate degree in Biology from Howard University and a graduate degree in Public Health from the University of Southern California. As an epidemiologist, she was dedicated to promoting HIV/AIDS awareness among ethnic and minority youth. She joined the Villaraigosa administration this past July to help institute positive changes in the City of Los Angeles.
Currently, Ms. Hawkins is active in the California State Democratic Party where she serves as a delegate to the 47th Assembly District and a member of the legislative action committee. This past summer, she was appointed to serve on the 47th Assembly District’s Education Commission. Her current position with Mayor Villaraigosa has allowed her to make an impact on the community through public service. Ms. Hawkins’s future plans involve the establishment of a center for healthcare policy as a mechanism to address the health concerns of the underserved populations in Los Angeles.
The Value of My MPH Program
“The Master of Public Health (MPH) program at the University of Southern California (USC) has allowed me to make a clear connection between policy and the populations we aim to serve as public health professionals. As a native resident of Los Angeles, I am able to see the vital role that policy and advocacy play in assuring healthcare for many of our underserved populations. Training in biostatistics and epidemiology provided the necessary tools to understand disease trends and risk. This fuelled a passion to address these trends by advocating for programs and services within my community. In my current position in the Mayor's office, I am able to use my public health background to interpret disease reports and advocate for changes in policy affecting the residents in the City of Los Angeles. The USC MPH program features faculty and instructors with diverse backgrounds and experiences, which significantly enhanced my overall experience. I was exposed to the best and the brightest faculty and students which enabled me to build a strong support network.“
|
*****************************************************************************
John Moraros, MD, MPH, CHES
New Mexico State University, 2004
Assistant Professor, Public Health
New Mexico State University
John Moraros resides in Las Cruces, New Mexico and serves as a College Assistant Professor in Public Health, while completing his Doctoral Studies in Molecular Biology at New Mexico State University (NMSU). He received his Master’s of Public Health and was honored as the Outstanding Master’s Student at NMSU in 2004. He has received the Best Overall Presentation Award during the Paso del Norte Conference in 2003 and 2004 for his research work involving Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) against pregnant women in Mexico. He earned his medical doctorate at the Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juárez as the valedictorian of the 2002 class. He also received the Distinguished Award in Community Health Service in 2002 for his medical and public health contributions in the colonias of Juárez, Mexico. In 2005, he was awarded a $25,000 Border Health Research Cluster grant by NMSU and an additional $75,000 grant by the Center for Border Health Research in order to pursue a study that would endeavor to elucidate the casual relationship between the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and cervical cancer through the use of molecular biology and epidemiological research. Throughout his extensive work and research, he has found the training he received during his pursuit of his MPH degree at NMSU to be imperative in ideally complementing his holistic approach to community health through the prism of population based medicine. Additionally, he finds inspiration in the sense of commitment to community health and derives comfort in the comradery and support he receives from his colleagues at NMSU in their mutual effort to improve upon the health disparities issues that plague the US-Mexico border region.
|
*****************************************************************************
Terra Van Dyke, MPH
New Mexico State University, 2005
Director of Marketing
Mesilla Valley Hospice
I am currently the Director of Marketing for Mesilla Valley Hospice where I am in charge of a staff of 8 individuals who run our entire admissions process. e do all of the marketing, public relations, community education, grant writing, fundraising, and outreach in the Dona Ana County area. The MPH program at New Mexico State University gave me the ability to better understand community health and the needs of our community members. It has allowed me to develop community programming and effectively reach those who need our services.
|
*****************************************************************************
Luis Horacio Solis Lopez, MPH
New Mexico State University, 2005
Tobacco Prevention Coordinator
Families & Youth, Inc.
I have been working for a non-for-profit organization for three years now providing community based tobacco use prevention education. My MPH education has afforded me the skills for grant writing, behavior change theories, community organizing, and health education/promotion initiatives concerning New Mexico.
I believe that I am a value to this organization in that I have been awarded a $300,000 grant from the New Mexico Department of Health Tobacco Use Prevention and Control (TUPAC) Program to provide tobacco use prevention initiatives in the community and the school system. I supervise a part-time employee and every semester I hire an intern from NMSU. In addtion, I have been offered a promotion position, but I have declined due to my academic endevours. I am currently applying to medical school where I could one day incorporate both my community health and medical care experiences for the benefit of my community.
My scope of work consists of but is not limited to educating health care providers about being better involved with their patients, teaching a life skills curriculum at a local elementary school, community events, a group of high school students trained to provide peer education, and the Tobacco Free Las Cruces Coalition who keep elected officials informed of any issues concerning tobacco use and our communities.
|
*****************************************************************************
Mary Cheryl B. Nacionales, MPH, CHES
San Jose State University, May 2000
Women’s Health Partnership Director
Community Health Partnership
The Community Health Partnership (the Partnership) is a consortium of community health centers throughout Santa Clara and southern San Mateo counties that strengthens the healthcare safety net for the medically underserved. I currently direct the Women’s Health Partnership (WHP), the mission of which is to promote health and wellness, and improve awareness of and access to healthcare for medically underserved women in their middle years (40-64 yo). WHP focuses on coalition building, policy/advocacy, community health education and outreach, conference/community forums, and clinical services technical assistance. As the WHP director, my primary role is to identify and secure opportunities, foster partnerships, support my team members, and to do strategic visioning. Without my degree nor the work experience, I do not believe that I would have the confidence to take on such responsibilities.
I value my MPH degree because it provides me with the framework and tools to be a successful public health educator, a social change agent. This degree has opened doors for me to become a leader in helping shape my profession at national and regional levels. My MPH provided me with a good foundation for addressing the community’s health priorities through community organizing, needs assessment, strategic planning, program development, intervention implementation, evaluation, and policy/advocacy.
What I appreciate most about receiving my MPH degree from San Jose State University is that the program is community focused. The faculty has taken great strides in developing curricula and providing an academic environment that ensures that their graduates have not only mastered skills and theories to be an effective public health educator, but also are challenged to develop health systems and promote health with the mindset of the community first -- a community with diverse cultures, views, and life experiences.
|
*****************************************************************************
Marcie Grello, MPH, CHES
East Stroudsburg University, May, 2005
Partnership Program Coordinator
National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Information Service
As the Partnership Program Coordinator for the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Information Service, Atlantic Region, I am involved in state, regional, and local initiatives for cancer control. I serve 22 counties in the Northeast and North Central Pennsylvania. In this capacity, I participate in PA State level and regional level cancer control planning and implementation (the PA Cancer Control Consortium – PAC3), perform GAPS analyses to assess the cancer burden and needs for all the counties I serve, support the Northern Appalachia Cancer Network and its coalitions in their cancer control efforts for the rural PA counties, speak at and provide training for workshops and conferences, and specifically target underserved and minority populations in the area of breast and cervical cancer, tobacco prevention, and recruitment to clinical trials. In addition I provide technical support for all our partners, including coalition building, partnership development, data collection, population assessment, program planning, and evaluation. This technical support also includes participating in the grant review process for partner’s potential projects as well as partner agency funding decisions; assisting community cancer coalitions with technical support for program planning; providing consultation for conference planning, evaluation, and research efforts; developing and delivering training and education programs to meet the needs of cancer control partners; informing partners of existing and new cancer resource materials; and creating targeted promotional materials for cancer control outreach.
I had been working in the public health field for 10 years before starting the ESU MPH program. The MPH program was a great fit for me; the courses opened my eyes to the “bigger picture” of public health and instilled in my a greater understanding of the public health community. The program has helped me develop better working relationships and be more effective in my job. One of the greatest advantages of attending ESU’s MPH program is that what I learned in every class has some connection to the field and I can relate what I've learned to my duties in my job right away. I’ve been able to understand how to work with others, the best way to approach a situation, gather relevant information, develop an appropriate course of action and to determine how effective the efforts are. As a health professional, I have been able to seize new opportunities since starting the MPH program. I am better able to bring my ideas and input to the initiatives I am a part of; I receive more respect and I feel more equipped to handle any situation that comes along. The most important lesson for me, however, was the wealth of opportunities that I didn't know existed. Doors have opened for me that I previously didn't know were there.
|
|
Council of Accredited MPH Programs
c/o SOPHE
750 First Street, NE
Suite 910
Washington, DC 20002
P: (202) 408-9804 F: (202) 408-9815
info@mphprograms.org |
|
