Primary Department Faculty
Angela Bermudez-Millan
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Nutrition and Health Policy
Dr. Bermúdez-Millán, PhD, MPH, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences. She received her MPH and PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Connecticut. As a public health nutritionist researcher, her interest is to better understand and intervene on the social determinants of health, including food insecurity and its effects in cardiometabolic risk markers. She is the Principal Investigator of the “Monthly Cycling of Food Insecurity and Diabetes Risk (Food Insecurity Cycling-FIC) study. This longitudinal study is examining impact of food insecurity as it unfolds over the course of the month, to demonstrate changes in household food insecurity, dietary quality, emotional eating, binge-eating, mental distress worsens and diabetes markers. Dr. Bermúdez-Millán is also Co-PI in a pilot study, gathering quantitative and qualitative data to inform the design of a community-based intervention promoting appropriate and healthy weight through increased fruit and vegetables consumption among overweight/obese, low-income children participating in the WIC program. Dr. Bermúdez-Millán was Co-Investigator in the Diabetes Risk Reduction Through Eat, Walk, Sleep and Medication Therapy Management for Depressed Cambodians (DREAM) study, leading the community health worker nutrition intervention.
Stacey Brown
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Public Health Sociology, Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
Stacey Brown, PhD is an Associate Professor and Director of the Applied Practical Experience in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut, School of Medicine. For the past 20 years, she has collaborated with faculty and community partners to develop and implement curriculum promoting students’ understanding of social, economic, and political factors impacting health. Dr. Brown has developed extensive cultural competency, patient advocacy, and behavioral health curriculum with particular emphasis on partnering with community organizations to enhance student education and patient care. Her research explores the impact of structural inequality on the mental and physical health of marginalized groups. Dr. Brown has presented her work nationally and internationally and serves on local non-profit and regional advisory boards. Both personally and professionally, Dr. Brown works toward the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.
Doug Brugge
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Occupational and Environmental Health
Doug Brugge, has a PhD in cellular and developmental biology from Harvard University and a MS in industrial hygiene from the Harvard School of Public Health. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He has worked extensively with uranium mining communities, including those in the Navajo Nation. For over a decade, he has directed the Community Assessment of Freeway Exposure and Health, a series of community-based participatory research projects funded by NIEHS, NHLBI, NLM, EPA, HUD and the Kresge Foundation. He has about 200 publications, including over 50 on traffic-related ultrafine particle pollution and their association with health. He has worked in community-collaborations with many neighborhoods, including current work with the Hartford-based Community Research Alliance.
Jennifer Cavallari
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology
Dr. Cavallari’s research and practice is in support of worker well-being. She is a co-Director of the Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW), a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Total Worker Health® Center of Excellence. She leads the Total Teacher Health project which address teacher mental well-being through a prospective cohort study examining factors influencing teacher stress and an intervention study that adapts, implements, and evaluates CPH-NEW’s Healthy Workplace Participatory Program to address educator mental well-being. Additional research projects include the WorkTime project that examines the influence of work schedules on worker and family well-being. Dr. Cavallari is also involved in Total Worker Health education and has designed and produced e-learning activities for professionals and students. In addition to research, she teaches in UConn’s Public Health Sciences and within the Occupational Health Psychology Proseminar within UConn’s Department of Psychology. She received her doctorate from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health where she also completed a post-doctoral fellowship.
Audrey Chapman
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Humanities and bioethics
I teach a series of courses, three regularly: Public Health Ethics, Health and Human Rights, Reproductive Ethics and Rights and two intermittently: Comparative Health Systems and Comparing Countries’ Responses to the Pandemic. I chair the Department’s Curriculum Committee and the UConn Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee, and I serve on a variety of committee’s including the John Dempsey Hospital Ethics Committee, the UConn Health Merit Appeals Committee, and several Human Rights Institute’s committees located at Storrs. My current research is focused on the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable communities, and I have published on a variety of health, stem cells, and health and human rights topics.
I am trained both as an ethicist and a social scientist with a variety of graduate degrees in those subject areas and continue to work in both of those areas. I spent some ten years living and conducting research in Africa and the Middle East which has shaped my global perspective.
I am a board member of the Connecticut ACLU. I am a Deacon at the Immanuel Congregational Church in Hartford (and also an ordained UCC minister). I serve on the editorial board of several journals including Health and Human Rights and the Journal of Human Rights. I am a member of the State of Maryland stem cell research review committee. I have previously served on several UN and UNESCO human rights committees.
Emil Coman
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Medical debt, measurement instruments and racial/ethnic health disparities, spatial epidemiology
Dr. Coman has a PhD in communication science and specializes in research methodology applied to several scholarly fields. He has been trained in emotions by his late communications mentor Ross Buck, in statistical modeling (through the backdoor of path analysis though) by Dave Kenny, and in causality by Judea Pearl, who are all still mentoring him. He is an Assistant professor (in residence) in the DPHS and Family Medicine departments and is assisting medical students, residents, and faculty from UConn Health, Storrs, and elsewhere, with research projects, grants, and publications. He works in the Health Disparities institute, where he applies modern analytical methods from across a range of domains, from epidemiology, econometrics, social sciences, and ‘pure’ statistics. He is the moderator of the long running SEMNET, the Structural Equation
Modeling listserv and serves as US Co-Chair of the CASFM Research Methods Working Group, in NAPCRG – North American Primary Care Research Group. He blogs about applied statistical tricks @ evaluatehelp.blogspot.com
Shayna Cunningham
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Maternal and Child Health, Community-Based Participatory Research
Shayna Cunningham, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences (DPHS). Her research focuses on promoting health equity, particularly related to maternal and child health, for structurally marginalized populations. She has extensive experience in the use of mixed methods study designs and community-based participatory research. Her current projects include the development and evaluation of interventions aimed at improving perinatal outcomes and addressing the rising burden of non-communicable diseases among women. She also provides leadership and support for several State-funded initiatives at the Center for Prevention Evaluation and Statistics.
Dr. Cunningham received her PhD and MHS from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Prior to joining DPHS, she was a faculty member in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health. Other work experiences include serving as a Program Officer for the Global Development and Population Program at the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Senior Research Associate and Director of Data Products and Services at Sociometrics, and Public Health Officer for the International Rescue Committee.
Ellis Dillon
Research Area(s) of Interest: Aging
Ellis Dillon, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Center on Aging with a faculty appointment in the Department of Public Health Services. She is a sociologist and health services researcher who leads and collaborates with the Center on Aging teams focused on evaluation of innovations in Connecticut Department of Social Services policy and programs for older adults and people with disabilities. She uses mixed methods and qualitative research to evaluate how to improve serious illness care and quality of life for patients and families, especially in the areas of hospice and palliative care, psychosocial care, and shared decision making. Her research also commonly focuses on access to and delivery of mental health care and the psychosocial well-being of patients, families, clinicians and other healthcare workers.
Faculty Directory Link
Kelly Ferreira
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Emotional Development, Emotion Regulation, Mental Health and Disability
Kelly Ferreira, PhD, is a part-time assistant professor at the UConn University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the UConn School of Medicine. Dr. Ferreira’s work has been focused in many different areas, including (but not limited to) the study of emotional development and emotion regulation, with an emphasis on how certain emotion regulation styles can impact cognition and other behavioral issues. Additionally, Dr. Ferreira has recently developed an interest in the examination of mental health professionals training and experiences in providing mental health services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Within the UCEDD, much of Dr. Ferreira’s work consists of advising and supporting trainees from various disciplines in developing research projects related to disability.
Wenqi Gan
Research Area(s) of Interest: Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Dr. Gan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Public Health Sciences, the UConn School of Medicine. He received systematic training in clinical and preventive medicine, environmental and occupational health, especially methodological training in epidemiology and biostatistics. He has a medical degree in Preventive Medicine from Shanghai Medical University, and a PhD in Environmental Epidemiology from the University of British Columbia. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Gan has worked as an Epidemiologist and Biostatistician in the areas of cardiovascular diseases, chronic lung diseases, environmental health, occupational health, and substance use disorders. He is experienced in research methodology including study designs, statistical methods, and data analytics. In particular, he is interested in automatic data processing in medical research. Dr. Gan is keen on research collaboration and will provide best assistance and support in research methodology. Dr. Gan is interested and has expertise in environmental and occupational epidemiology, especially about health effects of air pollution, loud noise, and other emerging environmental health concerns.
James Grady
Research Area(s) of Interest: Statistical methods
Dr. James Grady received his doctoral degree in Biostatistics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1992 and joined the University of Texas Medical Branch faculty in 1993. He also has an MPH from Yale and went to Fordham University in New York City for undergraduate. He joined the faculty at UConn Health in 2011 and is currently director of the Biostatistics Center in the Connecticut Convergence Institute and Professor of Public Health Sciences in the School of Medicine.
He has over 25 years of research experience as the lead biostatistician for numerous NIH-funded collaborative studies involving clinical and translational science in large scale population based studies and basic science. Dr Grady has for over 15 years provided service to NIH as a grant reviewer for NIDCR and NIDDK for secondary data analysis and statistical methodology grants. He is past president of the Association of Clinical and Translational Statisticians. Educational roles include teaching a core course in the MCTR program and training PhD students through graduate research internships.
David Gregorio
Research Area(s) of Interest: Disease surveillance and Cancer epidemiology
Dr. Gregorio is Professor of Public Health Sciences and Director of UConn’s Program in Applied Public Health Sciences. He is a social epidemiologist who teaches and conducts research on the drivers of inequity that produce an array of health disparities across our population. His work on the causes and control of screening-detectable cancers has illustrated how socioeconomic factors affects the care seeking treatment outcomes of individuals and the communities wherein they reside. Current research projects include (a) an examination of community-level disparities in socioeconomic status and their impact on prognoses of women diagnosed with breast cancer, (b) how voter participation levels may contribute to the health and health care costs of communities, and (c) how we can motivate public health practitioners to expand the prevention framework to incorporate ‘precursory’ initiatives that will encourage greater social engagement in the interest of building civic responsibility and social capital. He received a PhD in sociology and MS in Epidemiology from the University at Buffalo and bleeds blue year around – for the Yankees in the summer, my Buffalo Bills in the fall and the UConn Huskies throughout the Winter.
Kristin Guertin
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Chronic disease epidemiology; Nutritional epidemiology; Modifiable Lifestyle factors; Biomarkers; Cancer risk and survivorship and Type 1 diabetes
Dr. Kristin Guertin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. Dr. Guertin is a chronic disease epidemiologist with expertise in the design, conduct, and analysis of epidemiologic studies. Her recent and ongoing studies focus on outcomes including ovarian cancer survival, Type 1 Diabetes, and COVID-19.
Dr. Guertin’s formal training is in nutrition (PhD, Cornell 2013) and epidemiology (MPH in Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Yale 2008). She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics where she developed expertise in self-reported diet, smoking, and metabolomics.
Amy Hunter
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Injury Epidemiology, Violence Prevention, Firearm Injury Prevention, Child Maltreatment Prevention, Racial Disparities and Disproportionality, Risk Algorithm Development
Dr. Amy A. Hunter is an Assistant Professor of Public Health Sciences and Pediatrics. She is Chair of Admissions for the Department of Public Health Sciences, Director of Medical Student Summer Research for the School of Medicine, and Principal Investigator of the Connecticut Injury Surveillance System at the Connecticut Children’s Injury Prevention Center. She trained at the CDC funded Injury Control Research Center at West Virginia University where she earned her MPH and PhD in epidemiology with a focus in injury prevention and control. Her primary research involves preventing violence against children, with a focus on developing methods to improve child maltreatment detection. Dr. Hunter is currently the principal investigator of a study funded by the Patterson Trust to improve child physical abuse detection in emergency departments using novel machine learning methods. She is past chair and member of the scientific programs committee of the Injury Control and Emergency Health Services section of the American Public Health Association
Youngji Jo
Research Area(s) of Interest: Infectious diseases
Dr. Jo is an Assistant Professor/ Dr. Jo’s research approach 1) explores ways to construct health systems/cost-effectiveness models that account for epidemiologic factors as well as supply and demand-side constraints to improve efficiency, equity, and financial sustainability of the health system 2) elucidates the underlying processes and mechanisms that contribute to the outcome, beyond simple association and prediction, and 3) integrates new sources of data, methods, and practice, such as Digital Health, in expanding our understanding of disease transmission pathways and improving current practice related to disease prevention and control. Her research has contributed to identifying the specific epidemic and health systems conditions and threshold points in which an intervention can achieve its optimal cost-effectiveness at scale or by targeting subpopulations. Dr. Jo’s current research interest includes developing a mathematical model to assess the clinical impact and cost-effectiveness for integrated and multi-month drug dispensing scenarios for people living with HIV and other chronic diseases to guide optimal drug dispensing strategy. Her long-term goals are to identify how dynamic trajectories of supply and demand-side factors might alter the existing understanding of causal relationships in the context of HIV/TB service delivery and develop a working model of health systems’ performance that can help design and implement HIV/TB prevention and treatment in resource-limited settings.
Chia-Ling Kuo
Research Area(s) of Interest: Statistical methods indication for associations with multiple age-related diseases and conditions
Dr. Chia-Ling Kuo is an Associate Professor of Public Health Sciences. She is a biostatistician by training. She received her PhD degree in Biostatistics from the University of Pittsburgh and pos-doctoral training in Statistical Genetics at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. She has used existing data from large cohorts in the US and UK (e.g., UK Biobank, Health and Retirement Study, and Dog Aging Project) to address cutting-edge research questions in aging, with the focuses on biological aging, geroscience-guided interventions, pharmacogenetics and pharmacoepidemioloy. Dr. Kuo is a NIH-funded investigator. She led studies on APOE gene that has a geroscience including Alzheimer’s disease and COVID. She is also funded by NIH to identify modifiable exposures associated with telomere length and investigate how the associations impact health outcomes. Additionally, she is a co-investigator in the data core to support the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at UConn and a co-investigator on multiple NIH-funded grants. In education, Dr. Kuo has provided statistical assistance to residents and fellows in the School of Medicine and School of Dental Medicine. She is a co-author, with the trainees, of 40 peer-reviewed articles.
Zita Lazzarini
Zita Lazzarini, JD, MPH (she/her/hers) is a public health lawyer and faculty member at University of Connecticut School of Medicine where she is the Director of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Director of the Division of Public Health Law and Bioethics within the Department of Public Health Sciences. She graduated from University of California Berkeley, University of California Law San Francisco, and Harvard School of Public Health. She also completed a Fellowship in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School.
Bing Lu
Research Area(s) of Interest: Biostatistics and Epidemiology
Dr. Lu is a Professor in Biostatistics and Epidemiology. He has a multidisciplinary background in biostatistics, epidemiology, and medicine, with specific teaching and research interests in longitudinal analysis, design and analysis of clinical trials, statistical methods in epidemiology, and outcomes research of chronic diseases. As the PI, Co-I and lead biostatistician, Dr. Lu has been involved in numerous established and innovative projects in a variety of areas including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease, lupus, obesity, and women’s health. He has extensive experience in studies using large epidemiological data including the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
Dr. Lu is an elected fellow of the American College of Epidemiology. He has served as an Associate Editor for Contemporary Clinical Trials, an international journal of clinical trial methodology, and Associate Editor for Arthritis & Rheumatology, a prestigious journal of the American College of Rheumatology. Dr. Lu’s statistical interests include design and analysis of clinical trials & observational studies, statistical methods in epidemiology, longitudinal data analysis, and causal inference.
Bonnie McRee
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Health services research with a focus on the implementation and evaluation of prevention programs aimed at reducing psychoactive substance misuse and use disorders.
Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) curriculum development and training programs for health professions including medical, dental, nursing, allied health and pharmacy disciplines.
Preventing pre-natal alcohol/substance exposure through the implementation of SBIRT programs in healthcare settings.
Dr. Bonnie McRee is an Assistant Professor of Public Health Sciences and Director of the CT SBIRT Training Academy. She has a broad background in health services research with a focus on the implementation and evaluation of prevention programs aimed at reducing substance misuse and use disorders. As an investigator on numerous federally funded grants, she has over 30 years of experience in developing and managing clinical trials, several of which have laid the groundwork for large implementation efforts in screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment (SBIRT) initiatives. She has developed SBIRT curriculum across a range of health professions including medical, dental, nursing and pharmacy disciplines. Dr. McRee is currently the principal investigator of a CDC-funded initiative examining the systems-level implementation of SBIRT services in Planned Parenthood of Southern New England’s 15 health centers. She is the lead evaluator on a SAMHSA- and State-funded program designed to reduce opioid misuse, over-dose and death across CT. She received her MPH and PhD in Public Health from the University of Connecticut.
Erin Mead Morse
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Mixed methods research to inform tobacco control and tobacco regulatory science; Tobacco-related disparities; Understanding alternative (non-cigarette) tobacco and multiple tobacco product use in young adults, pregnant women, and other high priority populations
Erin Mead-Morse, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut, School of Medicine. She is a social-behavioral public health researcher in the areas of tobacco control and regulatory science with an emphasis on health equity. Dr. Mead-Morse conducts multi-modal research to understand the multilevel risk factors for the use of tobacco and nicotine products, their health effects, and communication about these products and their risks in high-priority populations, with the goal of informing interventions and policy. She is currently the principal investigator of an NIH-funded study examining the effects of flavorings in little cigars on addiction and smoking in young adults who smoke both cigarettes and cigars, and the principal investigator of a recently completed NIH-funded study examining the effects of e-cigarette use during pregnancy on maternal and child health. Dr. Mead-Morse received her PhD at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Maryland’s Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science.
Megan O'Grady
Research Area(s) of Interest: Addiction Health Services Research and Implementation Science
Dr. Megan O’Grady is an Assistant Professor of Public Health Sciences. She is an applied social psychologist and health services researcher, and her research and evaluation program aims to improve the system of care for and prevention of substance use disorders. Dr. O’Grady is currently the principal investigator on an NIH-funded study examining the implementation of a text messaging program for unhealthy alcohol use in emergency departments, co-investigator on 5 NIH-funded studies on substance use services implementation, and lead evaluator on several SAMHSA- and State-funded projects in partnership with New York State and the State of Connecticut. In addition, she directs the Center for Prevention Evaluation and Statistics (CPES) at UConn Health and is co-chair of Connecticut’s State Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup. She received her PhD at Colorado State University and was a post-doctoral fellow in UConn Health’s Alcohol Research Center.
Marney Pollack
Research Areas of Interest:
Special Education, Applied Behavior Analysis, Behavioral and Mental Health, Trauma-Informed Care
Marney Pollack, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in Residence in the Department of Public Health Sciences, Child and Family Studies, at the UConn School of Medicine, and a faculty member at the A.J. Pappanikou Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service (UConn UCEDD). With philosophical roots in humanism and behaviorism, Marney studies school-based, trauma-informed behavior supports for children. Her research focuses on the development and evaluation of individualized behavior interventions that promote student growth and wellbeing. Grounded in her training as a special educator and behavior analyst, Marney’s areas of specialization include functional behavior assessment, function-based intervention, emotional/behavioral disorders, interdisciplinary collaboration, and single case research designs. Her research and other professional activities are motivated by a commitment to dismantle systemic barriers and promote equitable access to—and meaningful inclusion in—the public education system.
Marney received her Ph.D. and M.S. in special education with an emphasis in applied behavior analysis from Vanderbilt University in 2023 and 2020, respectively. She earned her B.A. in psychological science from Central Connecticut State University in 2016. Prior to joining the UConn Health faculty, Marney held several roles in the fields of special education and behavioral health, including special education paraeducator (West Hartford Public Schools), psychopharmaceutical research assistant (Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital), and lead project coordinator (UConn Neag School of Education).
Brian Reichow
Dr. Brian Reichow is an Associate Professor of Public Health Sciences and Associate Director of the University of Connecticut Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service. His current research interests include the translation of research to practice, the use of systematic review methods and meta-analytic methods to identify evidence-based practices, and applied research involving young children with or at risk of developing disabilities and their families. He has been a technical advisor for the World Health Organization for over a decade assisting WHO with the development of practice guidelines and training materials to increase the identification, management, and treatment of children with developmental disabilities in lower- and middle-income countries. This work recently led to the release of the World Health Organization Caregiver Skills Training for Families of Children with Developmental Delays or Disabilities (https://openwho.org/courses/caregiver-skills-training), an open-source program that is available freely through WHO. Dr. Reichow is currently Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Early Intervention, the leading journal in the field of early childhood special education and early intervention and is Co-Editor of the Disability Coordinating Group of the Campbell Collaboration and Campbell Systematic Reviews.
Mayte Restrepo
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Global Health and Early Childhood
Dr. Restrepo is an Assistant Professor. She received her doctoral degree in Public Health in 2021 and her MPH in 2014, both from UConn. She also holds a master’s degree in International Studies. She received the Emergent Scholar award from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation (2020-2021) for her research on the Colombian armed conflict and its impact on women’s increased risk for intimate partner violence and mental health problems. Currently, Dr. Restrepo is working on building a surveillance system for Adverse and Positive Childhood Experiences in Connecticut using publicly available and administrative data sources. Data from this system will be used to identify child populations at higher risk of adverse childhood experiences and gaps in the provision of prevention programs. She expects data from this system will be available to the public through a web portal in 2023. She is also collaborating with colleagues from Colombia and Puerto Rico on a project to understand better the role of potentially traumatic experiences in children’s mental health in socio-politically complex contexts. Dr. Restrepo’s goal is to advance her research in preventing adverse experiences in childhood by focusing on factors that have been found to promote positive health outcomes despite adversity.
Greg Rhee
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Population-based clinical outcomes research and health care policy
Dr. Rhee is a psychiatric epidemiologist and mental health services researcher studying the access to care, quality of care, and clinical and patient-reported outcomes in patients with psychiatric or substance use disorders. My current research focuses on affective disorders (e.g., depression and bipolar disorder), suicidality, cannabis use disorder, and opioid use disorder among other conditions. My expertise is grounded in population-based observational studies using large databases to characterize unmet needs and national practice patterns in the assessment and management of behavioral health conditions. I also investigate long-term comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions for psychiatric and substance use disorders.
Dr. Rhee is an accredited professional statistician (PStat®) certified by the American Statistical Association with extensive experience with administrative claims data, national health and healthcare survey data, and other data sources including electronic health records, and mortality data. He has served as a senior statistician in 100+ peer-reviewed research articles and has successfully served as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on multiple research projects funded by major federal agencies, including Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Helen Swede
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Cancer Chemoprevention and Cancer Disparities
Dr. Swede, an Associate Professor and a molecular and classical epidemiologist with close to 25 years of research experience in leadership and collaborative roles. Dr. Swede teaches in the public health curriculum, has been a mentor to several dozen MPH students over the years, and coordinates our PhD program. In the School of Medicine, Dr. Swede serves as a Co-Director of the Capstone Projects of the Scholarship & Discovery Program overseeing long-term projects for roughly 300-400 medical students across all four years of the curriculum. Her main research focus is racial/ethnic disparities in cancer outcomes, particularly regarding clinical and genetic factors in breast and colorectal cancers. A growing area of Dr. Swede’s research program in disparities is the role that sickle cell trait plays in the heightened occurrence of adverse events among African-American breast cancer patients. Other research interests include the surge of obesity-related metabolic risk factors for cancer and other chronic diseases among youth, and survivorship concerns for breast cancer survivors returning to work. Dr. Swede is the recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award (2016) from the UConn Foundation and the Joan Segal Award for Outstanding Faculty in Public Health (2014). Dr. Swede was selected by the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General to author a chapter on oral cancer for the Surgeon General’s Report on Oral Health (2022) and is the Guest Editor for a special issue on cancer in the journal Nutrients.
Howard Tennen
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Stress, Coping & Adaptation to Chronic Illness
Dr. Tennen is the Vice-Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences, and he serves on the Department’s graduate program admissions committee. In the School of Medicine, he serves as Associate Scientific Director of the UConn Alcohol Research Center, Associate Director of the UConn Masters in Clinical and Translational Research Program, and Chair of the School of Medicine’s Senior Appointments and Promotions Committee.
Dr. Tennen is a University of Connecticut Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Massachusetts. Since 1978, he has been at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in the Departments of Public Health Sciences and Psychiatry. Dr. Tennen is the Editor of Journal of Personality. His research examines stress, coping and adjustment to threatening encounters, including cognitive adaptation as a predictor of health outcomes in the face of serious illness, the daily dynamics of chronic pain, stress and alcohol use, gene-stress interactions, and the application of daily process methods in clinical trials.
Scott Wetstone
Research Area(s) of Interests:
Evidence-based decision making, epidemiology, biostatistics, and the critical appraisal of the research literature.
Dr. Wetstone is an associate professor of Public Health Sciences. He serves as the course director of the first year medical/dental school course on Health Systems Science, is the thread director of the medical school’s evidence-based decision making objectives, and course director of two MPH required courses on the introduction to epidemiology and biostatistics. He is an innovative classroom instructor, but his past funded research concerned the use of computers in medical education (for patients and physicians.)
Misti Zamora
Research Area(s) of Interest: Environmental Health & Engineering
Dr. Levy Zamora’s research interests are to investigate how modifiable factors, such as commute mode, exercise habits, or home address, influence personal exposures to ambient and indoor pollutants and the severity of subsequent health effects. Exposures between individuals often exhibit substantial variability since they can be strongly influenced by personal choices. I am chiefly interested in identifying effective ways individuals can reduce their exposure to pollution sources in order to prevent and/or mitigate negative health effects. Knowledge about what choices are most impactful will enable individuals to make lifestyle choices that can meaningfully reduce their exposures. I am currently focusing on traffic-related air pollution (TRAP), which is a complex mixture of particulate and gaseous pollutants that vary spatially and temporally in an urban environment. There is increasing evidence that TRAP inflicts a broad range of deleterious health effects on both health-compromised and healthy individuals. I am also exploring how employing novel low-cost technology can lead to improved exposure estimates to traffic-related air pollution and inform how individuals can make realistic decisions to reduce their exposures. She is currently conducting a NIEHS funded study entitled, “Effects of Transportation Choices on Commuter Health (ETCH): Impacts of modifiable factors on personal exposures and acute health”.