STUDENTS
Jaeyoon Cha
Jaeyoon Cha is an undergraduate senior studying Molecular Biology and Global Health and Health Policy at Princeton University. Her interest in the interactions between biology and the environment motivates a comprehensive understanding of health and illness. Jaeyoon’s commitment as an aspiring leader in public health has led her to serve as a refugee health coordinator in Nashville, an exchange student in the laboratories of ETH Zürich, and a social impact designer and ethnographer tackling structural, human-centered health issues across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Her thesis investigates the epigenetic effects of environmental stress.
Under the mentorship of Philip Ashton at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Jaeyoon has been evaluating the epidemiology of Tuberculosis (TB) and the World Health Organization’s End TB Strategy in high burden countries. As these countries are disproportionately of lower income, Jaeyoon hopes to leverage her research to encourage broader discourse on the social determinants of health and to advocate for global health equity, especially for resources to fight against preventable infectious diseases.
Drew Prinster
Drew Prinster is a senior undergraduate at Yale University majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics and completing Yale’s Global Health Scholar multidisciplinary academic program. Throughout the summer of 2018, Drew served as a Unite For Sight Global Impact Fellow in Honduras with the ZOE Eye Clinic, where he contributed to ZOE’s outreach trips to rural villages and administered surveys for a study on the patient perceptions of cataract surgery. Drew later presented this research at the 2019 Unite For Sight Global Health and Innovation Conference and has since served as a Unite For Sight Campus Representative at Yale. Throughout the past two years Drew has continued his involvement in global health in Honduras as a research assistant with a Yale lab that conducts a public health and social networks study in the western highlands of the country. He spent the summer of 2019 in Honduras conducting qualitative interviews and field testing to assess the cultural appropriateness of a mental health survey for the lab, and he has recently been focusing on computational genomics and microbiome research. Currently, Drew is becoming increasingly interested in the roles of big data and emerging technologies in medicine and health equity.
Mansi Purwaha
Mansi Purwaha is a final year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. She is pursuing an Honors Bachelor of Science in Human Biology and Population Health Science with co-op. She is part of the Global Health and Innovations Lab at University of Toronto under Obidimma Ezezika and previously worked at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Hospital (CAMH) in Toronto as a Research Assistant in the Neurochemical Imaging Program. Her work at CAMH focused on the effectiveness of a nutraceutical in reducing Postpartum Depression.
As a health and life sciences student, she is working towards utilizing her education and research to bring improvements in the lives of the people who need it the most. She has worked on 5 research projects at the University of Toronto including "Differential Regulation of Hox Gene expression", "Role of Obesogens on adipocyte development in utero", "Urbanization: Unintentional Human Intrusion on the Ecosystem", "Diphtheria control and prevention among Rohingyas in Bangladesh" and "Diabetes control and prevention among Indigenous Populations in Canada". She also worked in a private hospital in New Delhi, India for 8 months which helped her understand the health system in a developing country and the different types of disease burdens and challenges they face.
Nechelle Dias
Nechelle Dias is currently earning her Bachelor of Science in Molecular and Cell Biology, as well as her Bachelor of Arts in Human Rights at The University of Connecticut. Over her breaks and part-time during the semester, she works as a Medical Assistant at The Sister Caritas Cancer Center in Springfield, MA, and has accrued a passion for healthcare and research. Her research with Philip Glynn, MD has looked at the effectiveness of telehealth in oncology, and how the use of virtual consultations can reduce healthcare disparities in low income areas of America. Nechelle has leadership positions in several organizations on campus dedicated to health advocacy. As Outreach Chair for Huskies for Haiti, she has hosted panel discussions on racial disparities in the healthcare field. As a board member of Global Health Spaces on Campus at her university, she has helped organize a vaccine innovation event. Nechelle currently volunteers at Connecticut’s Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services where she aids in health equity efforts.