Saron Goitom is a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. Her current research interests include contextualizing the way in which stressful life events during pregnancy influence their children's internalizing behaviors in early childhood, by examining the influence of larger structural factors like poverty, trauma, racism and discrimination. In her previous work as a programmer analyst, she was involved in evaluating the effectiveness of safety-net programs in reducing acute care utilization and increasing long-term linkage to primary care,...
Alex Schulte is a Health Policy PhD student at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the role of social and organizational networks in improving equitable access to healthcare, in particular sexual and reproductive healthcare. Alex is interested in leveraging computational social science methods, such as causal inference and machine learning, to address complex research questions with the goal of improving health equity. Prior to starting her PhD, Alex led sexual and reproductive health programming at the Deloitte Health Equity Institute in New York City. She...
Valentín "Val" Sierra is a PhD student at Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare with a designated emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies. Their clinical and research agendas focus on eliminating mental health disparities, particularly suicide and depression, for urban Native American young people through culturally grounded practices and interventions. Sierra is an Associate Clinical Social Worker and an active member of the California Yaqui (Yoeme) Indian community. They hold a MSW from Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare and a BA in Native American Studies, with highest honors, from...
Sofia is an MSW/PhD student at the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare studying under Dr. Jill Duerr Berrick. Her research interests include analyzing front line child welfare decision making and applying econometrics tools to practice issues in the field.The CSSTP fellowship will support development of text analysis and modeling skills, in addition to training in leading data science techniques.Sofia received her BA in Economics from UC Berkeley in 2019. Prior to entering graduate school, Sofia was an assistant budget analyst at...
Mahader Tamene is a PhD student in the Division of Epidemiology at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. A public health scholar dedicated to facilitating health and justice for underserved populations globally, her research focuses on maternal and child mental health disparities, particularly community-based interventions that address the structural forces driving these disparities. Tamene has worked in community health education, health research, program implementation and evaluation both domestically and abroad. She holds an MSc in global health and population from Harvard T.H....
Solis Winters is a PhD student in Health Policy, with a specialization in Population Health and Data Science, at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Her research focuses on improving health and nutrition during the first 1000 days of life, from pregnancy through age two. She is especially interested in using methods from causal inference to better understand what types of community-based interventions can improve birth outcomes and child malnutrition in low-income communities. Prior to starting her PhD, she worked at the Inter-American Development Bank, where she researched mechanisms...