The Center for Firefighter Injury Research and Safety Trends (FIRST), led by Jennifer Taylor, PhD, MPH, CPPS of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, is proud to announce the 5^th anniversary of the Fire service Injury Research, Epidemiology and Evaluation (FIRE) Fellowship. Fellowship recipients, known as “FIRE Fellows,” hail from the Dornsife School of Public Health and include alumni. During the summer they will be trained in data management and analysis, quantitative and qualitative methods, professional development, and learn about the fire service through stakeholder engagement and field immersion. Since its inception in 2016, 21 fellows completed the program with 30% being newly minted alumni. 

The 2020 FIRE Fellowship recipients are (from left to right, back row to front row)

Zuhaib Haleem, MPH(c) 2021, Department of Health Management & Policy

Alexandra Trautman, MPH 2020, Department of Community Health & Prevention

Oreoluwa Oladimeji, MPH(c) 2021, Department of Community Health & Prevention

Alexandria Reguinga, MPH(c) 2021, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health

Rozhan Ghanbari, MPH(c) 2021, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Katherine Castro, MPH 2020, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Nathaniel Philip, MPH(c) 2021, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health

Gabrielle Mullin, MPH(c) 2021, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics (not pictured)

The FIRST Center is a research enterprise organized to support the United States fire and rescue service through objective data collection and analysis. The 10-week paid FIRE fellowship is supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Assistance to Firefighter Grants program. 

The FIRST Center has three distinct research areas to address injuries in the fire service:

1) SAVER – Stress and Violence to fire-based EMS Responders: quantifying violence and developing a checklist intervention,

2) FOCUS - Firefighter Organizational Culture of Safety: an industry specific instrument to measure safety climate within fire departments,

3) IDEA –Injury Data Evaluation and Analysis:building non-fatal injury data systems for fire departments.

The fellows will be mentored by:  FIRST Center Director, Jennifer Taylor, PhD, MPH, CPPS; Senior Project Manager, Andrea Davis, MPH (2012), CPH; EMS Project Manager, Regan Murray, MPH (2017); Outreach & Communications Manager, Lauren Shepler, MPH (2015); and FIRE Fellowship alumni.

For more information please contact Victoria Gallogly, Outreach & Communications Coordinator: vhg25@drexel.edu