People

Marivel Davila, PhD
Health Department Co-lead, Marginalized Populations Working Group
As the Director of the Health and Justice Epi Center in the Bureau of Health Promotion for Justice-Impacted Populations with NYC Health Department, Marivel is responsible for the oversight of surveillance, research and evaluation activities centered on the mental health of NYC children and adolescents. During their time with the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, Marivel was responsible for evaluation activities in the Maternal and Child Health Division which included leading a multidisciplinary team in building a foundation for the provision of mental health services. They have been involved in health-related research activities on a number of projects. As the Polling Supervisor for the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, Marivel was a member of the team that studied the impact of the Voting Rights Act on city councils in Texas. Marivel also spent four years conducting marketing research activities among Latino consumers throughout the United States and Latin America. They hold a doctoral degree in Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences and MPH from the University of Texas School of Public Health, and a BA degree in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin.

Francesca Gany, MD
Academic Co-lead, Marginalized Populations Working Group
Francesca Gany, M.D., M.S. was the founder and Director of the Center for Immigrant Health, NYU School of Medicine, of the NYU Cancer Institute CORE Center (Cancer Outreach, Outcomes and Research for Equity), and of the Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, and Human Migration concentration in the NYU Global Masters of Public Health program. She is now the founding Chief of the Immigrant Health and Cancer Disparities Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She has served as the Principal Investigator on a number of pioneering immigrant health studies and programs in the areas of cardiovascular disease, cancer treatment adherence and quality of life, language access and cultural responsiveness, technology and immigrant health, and health care access. She has led several studies in underserved communities that have followed thousands of participants. Her work has led to the development of long-term policy and programmatic changes. Dr. Gany received her B.S. from Yale University, her M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, did her residency training in Primary Care Internal Medicine at New York University Medical Center/Bellevue Hospital, and received her Master’s of Science in Health Policy from New York University.

Lisa Bates, ScD
Academic Co-lead, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Dr. Lisa M. Bates is Vice Chair for Education and Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Bates is a social epidemiologist currently engaged in research programs focused on the social determinants of health in both the U.S. and South Asian contexts. In the U.S., her research draws on secondary data sources to interrogate structural drivers of socially patterned health outcomes in terms of gender, race, class, and immigration status, and mechanisms by which features of the social environment impact health, with a particular emphasis on common mental disorders. Her research portfolio in South Asia involves extensive primary data collection efforts in both Bangladesh and Pakistan and consists of quantitative and qualitative inquiry into the nexus of poverty, women’s empowerment, intimate partner violence, and mental health and child developmental outcomes. Recent projects have yielded rich multi-level explorations of critical social dynamics and health outcomes as a function of novel methodologies and interdisciplinary collaborations. Much of this current work is also focused on understanding early life developmental trajectories of children born to mothers diagnosed with perinatal depression, and the potential for low-dose, scalable community-based interventions to mitigate risk.

Mary Huynh, PhD
Health Department Co-lead, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Dr. Mary Huynh has directed the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Office of Vital Statistics since February 2015. She previously worked for the Bureau of Epidemiology Services and the World Trade Center Health Registry. Dr. Huynh was also an assistant professor at CUNY Lehman College and the CUNY School of Public Health. She received her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2003. She was awarded the Joel Kleinman Perinatal Epidemiology Fellowship at the National Center for Health Statistics, where she analyzed national birth data as a post-doctoral fellow. Her research interests include the impact of structural racism on birth outcomes and maternal health.

Sandra Albrecht, PhD
Academic Investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group & COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group 
Sandra Albrecht is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She completed her BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, her MPH from Columbia University, and her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. She also received post-doctoral training at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Albrecht’s research focuses on the socio-cultural and neighborhood-level factors that contribute to a high burden of nutrition-related diseases US immigrants and Latinos. Past research projects include investigating the social determinants of weight gain in Latino and Chinese immigrants and exploring the role of ethnic enclaves in shaping nutrition-related outcomes in Latinos. With funding from an NIH/NIDDK K01 award, Dr. Albrecht’s emerging research seeks to understand the social and behavioral mechanisms underlying the high burden of type 2 diabetes and its complications in diverse groups of Latinos. Most recently, she has also been serving as a scientific editor and Chief Epidemiologist for @Dear Pandemic, a social media-based, multi-disciplinary COVID-19 science communication project aimed at tackling the “infodemic” of misinformation that has helped to cripple the response to the pandemic.

Sarah Bajwa, MS
Health Department Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Sarah Bajwa is an Environmental Health Scientist in the NYC Health Department Environmental Health division, Environmental Health Assessment & Communication unit, where she assesses indoor air quality. She is currently surveying apartments that are collocated with a dry cleaner, to sample for a dry cleaning chemical/solvent called PERC, a potential carcinogen. She also helps identify the sources of lead exposure for adult lead poisoning cases. She has worked on data-driven epidemiology projects relating to asthma prevalence within ethnic minority populations, including American Indians/Coharies in North Carolina and Latinx children in Delaware. In her free time, Sarah likes traveling abroad and hiking. She is involved with a grassroots organization called the Muslim Jewish Solidarity committee and is interested in local peace-building and learning about other cultures.

María Baquero, PhD 
Health Department Investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group & COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group 
As a social epidemiologist, Dr. Baquero focuses on the individual- and neighborhood-level circumstances that shape the health of urban underserved populations. Incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods in her work, she has worked in Latin America and the United States on community-based program evaluations for non-governmental organizations, documented human rights violations and conducted epidemiologic studies to examine health inequities. She is currently Senior Social Epidemiologist in the Bureau of Epidemiology Services at the NYC Department or Health, where her research includes projects on maternal/infant health among people experiencing homelessness, the health and wellbeing of people who have contact with the criminal-legal system and their families, and the relationship of work environment with COVID-19 risk. Prior to joining the Health Department in 2017, Dr. Baquero was faculty at the Master’s in Public Health (MPH) program at CUNY Lehman College. She received her BA (History) from Northwestern University, and her MPH (Forced Migration and Health) and PhD (Epidemiology) from Columbia University.

Kizzi Belfon, MPH
Health Department Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group 
Kizzi Belfon is a Senior Research Analyst in the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In her role, she leads surveillance, research and evaluation of the New York City neighborhood birth equity strategies, as well as development of the Health Department’s annual report to City Council on expanding access to doula care in the city. She is also responsible for monitoring neighborhood birth outcomes, including development of appropriate data visualizations. Kizzi has worked for the NYC Health Department for more than 4 years, providing data and analytical support to anti-gun violence, HIV prevention and HIV/HCV micro-elimination initiatives. In these roles she has actively sought opportunities to prioritize each program’s indicated populations, introduce community and service provider voices in program model modifications, and facilitate feedback of service data to providers to improve service delivery. She holds an MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the SUNY Downstate School of Public Health, and a B.A. in Biology from New York University. A Grenadian transplant to Brooklyn, Kizzi commits much of her personal time to community building efforts. She’s a mediocre runner who loves soca music and delights in every opportunity to join a Caribbean carnival celebration.

Lauren Birnie, MPH
Health Department Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group 
Lauren is a Senior Research Analyst and the Coordinator for the New York City Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (NYC PRAMS) within the Bureau of Maternal, Infant, and Reproductive Health at the NYC Health Department. In this role, Lauren oversees the research agenda for and all administrative aspects of NYC PRAMS, a population-based survey of people who recently gave birth in NYC administered in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lauren has eight years of experience at the NYC Health Department and has worked on research projects related to respectful care during childbirth, the relationship between stressful life events and maternal mental health, and home visiting programs, among others. Lauren received her MPH from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and her BA in French from New York University. In her free time, Lauren enjoys hiking, knitting, and exploring new parks with her partner and son.

Earle C. Chambers, PhD
Academic Investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group & COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
In addition to being a devoted partner and the father to two brilliant and socially conscious children, Dr. Earle Chambers is Director of Research and associate professor of Family and Social Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine – Montefiore Health System in The Bronx. He completed his B.S. in Biology at Duke University, his MPH at the University of Illinois School of Public Health (Chicago), and his PhD in epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Dr. Chambers completed his post-doctoral training at the New York Obesity and Nutrition Research Center at Columbia University. His research examines the intersection of the social and built environment on chronic disease risk among historically excluded populations. Dr. Chambers is leadership faculty in the NIH-funded New York Regional Center for Diabetes Translation Research and has expertise in diabetes prevention including research examining the reach and effectiveness of the Diabetes Prevention Program in clinical settings. Dr. Chambers’ research has been supported by the NIH, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

Aldo Crossa
Health Department Investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group
Aldo is an epidemiologist at the Bureau of Epidemiology Services in the NYC DOHMH where he leads several analytic efforts to improve the Agency’s population level measures of food insecurity and access. Aldo is particularly interested in the use of population surveys and other quantitative data sources to highlight the health of underrepresented communities in New York City.  Aldo received an MS in Statistics from the University of Kentucky. 

Devin English, PhD
Academic Investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group
Dr. Devin English is committed reducing health inequities through understanding, combatting, and preventing social stigma and its negative effects for Black U.S. Americans. During his graduate studies, he completed a three-year NIH F31 project examining daily racial discrimination measurement and modelling its longitudinal effects on psychosocial outcomes among Black adolescents and adults. Through his current NIMH K01 project, Dr. English is building on his interdisciplinary racial health inequities research to examine the effects of intersectional stigma on HIV risk among adolescent Black gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. As a part of this project, he engages in community-based participatory-informed research to co-develop a strengths-based mHealth intervention that helps to combat the negative effects of intersectional stigma among these young men. Dr. English also seeks to contribute to stigma prevention through policy, teaching, and mentoring and hopes to integrate multilevel stigma prevention along with the interventions on which he is currently working. He received a PhD in Clinical/Community Psychology from The George Washington University, and a BA in Psychology from Macalester College.

Karen Florez, PhD 
Academic Investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group
Dr. Florez’s training and research experiences are directly related to her deep-rooted interest in the sociocultural determinants of health. She first began exploring the intersection between culture and health as an undergraduate medical anthropology student, when she focused on understanding medical systems and health equity among disadvantaged populations. Upon graduation, she worked for a nonprofit research firm to investigate the barriers that impeded low-income Latino women from receiving preventive cancer screening exams. At Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, she explored the ways in which sociocultural factors (e.g., acculturation, fatalism) shape health behaviors among Latinos. Her dissertation tested a novel theoretical framework to investigate whether patterns of assimilation were differentially associated with obesity among Latino adults. Dr. Florez continued her focus on health disparities research at the RAND Corporation where she used social network analysis to investigate the role of social networks and ties within the food environment in an urban food desert in Pennsylvania. She also conducted a cross-sectional analysis to investigate the association between exposure to the U.S. and obesity in a representative population of Mexicans living in the U.S and Mexico. Collectively, these research experiences have enabled her to obtain funding from RWJF New Connections and NIH that have allowed her to further explore the interplay between sociocultural and neighborhood-level factors and their impact on childhood obesity among low-income children and adults. Dr. Florez is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.

Lily Glenn, MPH
Health Department Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Lily Glenn is an Evaluation Data Analyst in the Bureau of Equitable Health Systems (BEHS) within the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness. In her role at BEHS, Lily develops evaluation plans and data collection instruments to evaluate chronic disease-focused interventions in clinical and community settings. She also analyzes a variety of quantitative and qualitative data on topics including healthcare utilization, chronic disease prevention and management, and integration of behavioral health into primary care, among others. Lily has broad public health interests, spanning topics such as food access, sexual violence prevention, and mixed methods research and evaluation. Lily received her MPH from Columbia University in 2016. She is an avid cook and a year-round bicycle commuter.

Teresa Janevic, PhD
Academic Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Dr. Teresa Janevic is a perinatal epidemiologist with a focus on health disparities and social determinants of population health. Her research examines why social exposures, such as neighborhood context, racial discrimination, migration, and stress, influence maternal and child health outcomes and the role of quality of health care in these relationships. Dr. Janevic also studies the impact of programs and policies on perinatal outcomes and implementation science to reduce maternal and child health inequalities. She has expertise in study design and advanced analytic methods, as well as the use of large administrative databases for research. Dr. Janevic has a particular interest in using population-based data to study groups often left out of health research, especially immigrant women and children. Health outcomes in the scope of Dr. Janevic’s research include gestational diabetes, preterm birth, maternal obesity, perinatal mental health, neonatal morbidities, and perceived discrimination in health care. Dr. Janevic completed a MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at University of California, Berkeley, a doctorate in Epidemiology from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and a post-doc in Global Health at Jackson Institute for Foreign Affairs, Yale University.

Sheng Li, PhD
Academic Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Dr. Sheng Li is an Assistant Professor and systems modeler in CUNY school of Public Health. He was trained in medicine, epidemiology and complex system study from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His research includes statistical, systems modeling, and big data analysis for influenza, measles, rubella, HIV and PTSD in past 10 years. He is particularly interested in using systems models to discover health disparities in minority immunities in NYC (particularly in American Asian groups and American Hispanic groups). Recently, he carried out group model building study for childhood obesity in local minority community, as well as taught courses in Systems Thinking and Systems Modeling for public health.

Yan Li, PhD
Academic Investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group
Dr. Yan Li is Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His research interests include systems science and simulation modeling in population health, cost-effectiveness analysis, and big data analytics. His research has been published in leading academic journals in both public health and systems engineering fields. He is a Principal Investigator of a four-year, $3.15 million R01 Grant funded by the National Institutes of Health to develop innovative systems science models to inform health policies and programs for preventing cardiovascular disease in New York City. His research has also been supported by other funding agencies such as Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, European Commission, and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Adolescent Health. He was awarded the Systems Science Scholarship by AcademyHealth in 2017.

Stephanie Lovinsky-Desir, MD, MS
Academic Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Dr. Stephanie Lovinsky-Desir is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Pulmonary Division at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She completed her general pediatrics training at the Children’s Hospital of Montefiore in the Social Pediatrics program and her pediatric pulmonary fellowship at New York Presbyterian – Columbia University. Her research is focused on understanding how environmental factors impact children with asthma, particularly in urban and minority communities. Her current work is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NHLBI and NIEHS), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through the Amos Medical Faculty Development Award, and the Driscoll Children’s Scholar Fund. She is an elected member of the Society for Pediatric Research and was recently recognized by the journal Pediatric Research for the Early Career Investigator Spotlight. She is also the recipient of the American Society for Clinical Investigation Young Physician-Scientist Award. Dr. Lovinsky-Desir’s multidisciplinary approach to studying urban environmental asthma has led to fruitful collaborations throughout several schools at Columbia including the School of Medicine, the School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. She is excited to continue with her team science approach and collaborate through the HD4NYC program.

Nneka Lundy De La Cruz, MPH
Health Department Investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group & COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Nneka Lundy De La Cruz is a Data Manager in the Bureau of Epidemiology at the NYC Health Department. In this capacity, Nneka manages data cleaning and recoding datasets, including the Community Health Survey (CHS), for internal and external analysts, as well as responding to internal and external data requests. Nneka has been with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene since 2004, first starting in the Division of Mental Hygiene. She received her MPH from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and BA in Anthropology from Trinity College (CT). Nneka’s research interests include social determinants of health as well as the health of ethnic minorities.

Simone Martin-Howard, PhD
Academic investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group
Dr. Martin-Howard is an Assistant Professor in LIU-Brooklyn’s School of Business, Public Administration, and Information Sciences. Dr. Martin-Howard received her Ph.D. in Global Affairs from Rutgers University-Newark. Her dissertation was “Evaluating Income Generation, Nutrition, and Parenting Programs on Maternal and Child Health Outcomes: A Multi-Program Case Study of a Community-Based Organization in the Western Cape, South Africa.” She holds an MA in International Relations and an MPA from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Dr. Martin-Howard also received three Advanced Certificates of Study in Health Services Management and Policy, Conflict Resolution, and Security Studies from the Maxwell School. She received a BS in Criminal Justice and Spanish from St. John’s University. Dr. Martin-Howard’s research interests include healthcare policy & administration, global health, maternal and child health, transnational crime, prisoner re-entry, and addressing violence as a public health issue. Dr. Martin-Howard has taught at Rutgers University-Newark and John Jay College of Criminal Justice and has held positions at the NYC Health Department, the Onondaga County Health Department, the NYS Department of Health, the Syracuse VA Medical Center, and the Vera Institute of Justice. Simone is a Member of the American Society of Criminology, the American Society for Public Administration, the International Studies Association, the American Sociological Association, and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

Sheela Maru, MD, MPH
Academic Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
As a faculty member at the Arnhold Institute for Global Health, in the Department of Global Health and Health Systems Design, and in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai, Sheela focuses on health systems strengthening to address global and local health inequities in reproductive, maternal and child health. Her two geographic areas of focus are South Asia, specifically rural Nepal through her work with the non-profit Possible, and NYC, through her work at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. Her research methods include implementation science, qualitative methods, and community-based participatory research. Sheela is the faculty lead for the CURE-19 partnership, a collaboration between Mount Sinai Department of Global Health and Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst and Queens Hospitals, formed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in NYC to examine and address inequities worsened by the pandemic for communities cared for in the public hospital system. Prior to Mount Sinai, Sheela practiced at Boston Medical Center and served as Director of Global Women’s Health and the Refugee Women’s Health Clinic. She trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston Medical Center, completed a fellowship in Global Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and received her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She currently lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, with her partner, twin boys, and parents.

Kathryn Peebles, PhD, MPH
Health Department Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working
Kathryn is a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the Bureau of Epidemiology Services. At DOHMH, Kathryn has worked primarily on the COVID-19 response, including as a case investigator in adult care facilities, assessing COVID-19 vaccination confidence and concerns, and evaluating COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness. She is a graduate of the University of Washington’s Epidemiology PhD program, where her research focused on HIV prevention among women in sub-Saharan Africa. Before her PhD work, Kathryn was a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama, focusing on water and sanitation work, and then earned an MPH in Health Behavior from University of North Carolina. In her spare time, Kathryn enjoys running, knitting, and sewing.

Simone Reynolds, PhD
Academic Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Simone Reynolds is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. She graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (BS, Biology); New York Medical College (MPH, Epidemiology); and the University of Pittsburgh (PhD, Reproductive, Perinatal and Pediatric Epidemiology). She was awarded the Reproductive, Perinatal, and Pediatric Epidemiology T32 pre-doctoral Training Grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child and Human Development; her research was performed using the historical US National Collaborative Perinatal Project cohort (1959-1965). She previously served as the Study Coordinator for the National Children’s Study Connecticut Study Center at Yale University. As Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, she teaches Principles of Epidemiology and two upper level Epidemiology Research Methods courses. Her research interests include: Reproductive, perinatal and pediatric epidemiology, reproductive exposures, women’s health, fetal growth, preterm birth and birth outcomes, environmental factors related to maternal health, adverse pregnancy outcomes, infant health and the subsequent life course.

Tawandra Rowell-Cunsolo, PhD
Academic investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group
Tawandra L. Rowell-Cunsolo is an Assistant Professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Social Work. She received her PhD in Social Welfare from the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, and her postdoctoral training at the HIV Center for Clinical & Behavioral Studies at Columbia University. Her research broadly examines the intersection of the criminal legal system and health outcomes. Dr. Rowell-Cunsolo has been the Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on a number of NIH-funded studies to improve health outcomes and reduce HIV risk behaviors among minoritized populations. She is the recipient of a K01 study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse that examines HIV risk behaviors among formerly incarcerated individuals. She is also a fellow in the RWJF Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program.

Perry Sheffield, MD, MPH
Academic Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Dr. Perry E. Sheffield is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Environmental Medicine and Public Health and Pediatrics and a member of the Mount Sinai Institute for Exposomic Research and Transdisciplinary Center on Early Environmental Exposures, a P30 Core Center of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. She co-directs the NY State Children’s Environmental Health Center —the first state-wide, publicly funded model for children’s environmental health clinical services in the U.S. and serves as Deputy Director of the Federal Region 2 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit (PEHSU), a US EPA and CDC program that builds environmental health capacity in New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Dr. Sheffield’s research focuses on reducing environmental threats to vulnerable populations such as children and workers with a primary focus on extreme heat and air pollution. 

Jeanette Stingone, PhD
Academic Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Dr. Stingone is a formally-trained environmental epidemiologist with a focus on perinatal and pediatric health. She received her BS in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University, an MPH from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, she conducts research that couples data science techniques with epidemiologic methods to investigate how prenatal and early-life environmental exposures affect health and development throughout childhood. Currently, she is investigating how machine learning approaches can be used to uncover the combinations of multiple environmental exposures that contribute to disease and disability in children including birth defects, adverse neurodevelopment and early puberty. Dr. Stingone also has a strong interest in documenting the clustering of environmental exposures in vulnerable neighborhoods, contributing to issues of environmental injustice and health inequity. Her goal is to conduct research that is informative to both public policy and impacted communities by accurately assessing multiple exposures and translating study results to have clear public health interpretability.

Azure Thompson, DrPH
Academic investigator, Marginalized Populations Working Group & COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Dr. Azure Thompson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at SUNY Downstate School of Public Health. Dr. Thompson received her DrPH and MPH in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. Her research focuses on the social determinants of substance use among urban populations. She is particularly interested in researching substance use among black women including explorations of the influence of urban environments on their use. Thompson’s early research explored the influence of urban environments on the recovery process among women. Her more recent research has examined the causes and consequences of cigarette smoking among women. Prior to her appointment at Downstate, Dr. Thompson was a Research Scientist at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. She was also a scholar in Yale’s NIH BIRCWH career development program in women’s health and addictive behaviors, NIMH postdoctoral trainee at Rutgers University, NIDA predoctoral trainee in drug abuse research at the National Development and Research Institute, Inc. and W.K. Kellogg Fellow in Health Policy Research. Through her work, she seeks to inform the development of programs and policies that contribute to the elimination of addiction related health inequities.

Jennifer Woo Baidal, MD, MPH
Academic Investigator, COVID-19 Health Inequities Working Group
Jennifer Woo Baidal is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Pediatric Weight Management in the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She received her B.S. from UCLA and her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She completed her pediatric internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology at Boston Children’s Hospital. She completed the Harvard-wide Pediatric Health Services Research fellowship and holds an MPH degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Woo Baidal’s research focuses on prevention of racial/ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities in obesity and related complications. Her research program translates clinical, community, and epidemiologic findings into population-level interventions during pregnancy, infancy, and early childhood to prevent childhood obesity and chronic diseases. She has experience in longitudinal data analysis, randomized and natural experiments, and qualitative research methods. Her current research projects, funded through NIH, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, target prevention of early life risk factors for obesity and its liver complications in vulnerable populations.