News & Events

Kendra Schmid, PhD

Faculty Highlight – Dr. Kendra Schmid teaches BIOS 823/CPH 653, Categorical Data Analysis. While this course is an MPH biostatistics concentration course, students in other programs also enroll. Dr. Schmid is developing an online section of the MPH biostatistics core course, BIOS 806/CPH 506, to be offered in spring 2013. Dr. Schmid’s methodological research focuses on statistical shape analysis, and more specifically, on methods of describing, mapping, and matching shapes using landmark coordinates. As a biostatistician, she serves as a statistician for research projects across… Continue Reading

Maha Farid

Student Highlight – Maha Farid is a PhD candidate in the College of Public Health (COPH) Department of Environmental, Agricultural, and Occupational Health, in the toxicology track. Maha graduated from medical school in Egypt in 2001 and earned a master’s degree in in forensic medicine and toxicology in 2006. In 2008, Maha received a scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Egypt to pursue a PhD in toxicology. She began her PhD program in the COPH in August of 2008. Maha… Continue Reading

Shinobu Watanabe-Galloway, PhD, Research on Mental Illness and Substance-Related Disorders

Spotlight on Research at COPH – Across the United States, two million persons with serious mental illnesses are booked into jails each year. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, about 40% of state prison and local jail inmates have substance use disorders, and 25% have substance use disorders with mental illness. There is a substantial overlap between the behavioral health and criminal justice systems. Dr. Shinobu Watanabe-Galloway and her research team worked with the Behavioral Health Division of… Continue Reading

“Sleep tight! Don’t let the bed bugs bite!”

Public Health Community Advisory – Over the last two years, bed bugs have increasingly been found in hotels, apartments, houses, shelters, cruise ships, buses, trains, airplanes, dorm rooms, schools, hospitals, and department stores. Bed bugs even invaded the New York Ritz Carlton Hotel in January 2012, showing that bed bugs know no boundaries regardless of income bracket. The cause for the rise in infestations remains unclear, but is likely due to bed bug populations developing resistance to pesticides, increased domestic and international travel aiding transport,… Continue Reading

New Developments in the Fight to End HIV Infection

Public Health in the National News – The Food and Drug Administration approval of a pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is an exciting development in the fight to end HIV infection. The public health community working to prevent new infections now has another in a wide array of tools with which to prevent HIV transmission. Clinical studies have shown those who start a PrEP regimen do not engage in behaviors that transmit HIV with any greater frequency than before using the drug. Despite this, some public… Continue Reading