September 30, 2016

New faculty and the 20th incoming class of students were celebrated and received their school pins at Dornsife’s annual welcoming ceremony on September 15. The incoming professors bring new expertise in structural determinants of health, occupational health exposures, intimate partner violence, and health disparities, as well as in novel statistical, geo-spatial and econometric techniques.

Scarlett Bellamy, ScD, MS, Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Bellamy was previously Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she developed and implemented statistical methods for cluster- and group-randomized trials. These methods have been used in longitudinal trials of behavioral modification interventions and multicenter trials addressing health disparities, among other areas.

Kim M. Blankenship, PhD, Professor, Department of Community Health and Prevention

Blankenship will join the faculty in Winter quarter 2017. Her work focuses on the social determinants of health and structural interventions to address them. She is currently Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology and Director of the Center on Health, Risk and Society at American University.

Ali Groves, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Community Health and Prevention

Groves’ research focuses on the intersection between HIV infection and intimate partner violence among women. She works to implement and evaluate interventions to mitigate women’s risk of HIV and intimate partner violence. Dr. Groves was previously a Faculty Fellow in Residence in the Department of Sociology at American University.

Tran Huynh, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health

Huynh’s research focuses on identifying effective interventions to assist small businesses in protecting the health of their employees, specifically Vietnamese employees of nail salons. She has also worked to develop occupational exposure assessment strategies for workers who participated in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill clean-up. Huynh was previously at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Gina S. Lovasi, PhD, MPH, Dornsife Associate Professor of Urban Health, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Co-Director of the Urban Health Collaborative

Lovasi comes from Columbia University where she co-directed Mailman School of Public Health’s Urban+Health Initiative. Her research examines how local policies and initiatives influence cardiovascular and respiratory health.

Ryan McKenna, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Management and Policy

McKenna uses his economics expertise to analyze the impact of health information technology in hospital settings on patient outcomes, physician behaviors, and costs of care. McKenna recently received his PhD in Economics from Stony Brook University.

Harrison Quick, PhD, MS, Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Quick brings spatial biostatistics expertise in Bayesian methods. He worked on characterizing spatial inequalities in health across small areas while at the University of Missouri and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Leah Hope Schinasi, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health

Schinasi had been a post-doctoral fellow in the Department. She works on projects related to environmental health effects and health disparities, including a new Dornsife SPH collaboration with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia evaluating the impact of community context on various child health outcomes.