Skip to main content
Health Equity Scholars Doctoral Programs

Meet Our Health Equity Scholars

These students are eager to examine and dismantle racist and discriminatory health and wellness structures. Impatient to make a difference in their communities, they are developing equitable public health interventions that will help people thrive both across the United States and around the world.

Vanessa Boadi, MHSA

Headshot of Health Equity Scholar Vanessa Boadi
  • DrPH student
  • Health Equity and Social Justice
  • Research Interest: Evaluate and improve representation in patient recruitment in clinical trials

Breanna Calhoun, MS

Headshot of Breanna Calhoun
  • PhD student
  • Department of Population and Family Reproductive Health
  • Research Interest: Understand and address U.S. disparities in maternal health

Rashida Callender, MPH

Headshot of Rashida Callender
  • PhD student
  • Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
  • Research Interest: Evaluate environmental justice and climate resilience using a health equity lens

Mia Campbell, MHS

Headshot of Mia Campbell
  • PhD student
  • Department of Mental Health
  • Research Interest: Evaluate health equity in adolescent mental health and prevention

Aja Clarke, MPH

Headshot of Aja Clarke
  • PhD student
  • Department of Population and Family Reproductive Health
  • Research Interest: Evaluate adolescent health, sexual and reproductive health, and menstruation using a health equity lens

Ameilia Cobb, MPH

Headshot of Ameilia Cobb
  • DrPH student
  • Health Equity and Social Justice
  • Research Interest: Evaluate how health equity intersects with Black birth equity and maternal mental health and disparities

Jennifer Farfalla, MPH

Jennifer Farfalla
  • DrPh student
  • Health Equity and Social Justice
  • Research Interest: evaluate proven and innovative ways to create an equitable public health response to drug overdose that accounts for stigma, racism, and other drivers of inequities.  

Lillian Funke, MPH, MSN

Lillian Funke
  • DrPH student
  • Health Policy and Management
  • Research interest: Identify aspects of the midwifery model of care that can address the Black maternal/perinatal health crisis in the U.S. 

Sierra Grey-Coker

Sierra Grey-Coker
  • PhD candidate
  • Department of Biostatistics
  • Research Interest: Using statistical methods, evaluate positive public health outcomes to reduce health disparities

Indya Hairston, MPH

Headshot of Indya Hairston
  • DrPH student
  • Health Equity and Social Justice
  • Research Interest: Evaluate and understand the intersection of health equity with Black women's sexual and reproductive health as well as maternal health, using community-based research methods. 

Tori Lawson, MPH

No Image Available
  • DrPH student
  • Health Equity and Social Justice Concentration
  • Research interest: Evaluate the nexus between health inequity, epigenetics, neighborhoods, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)