Current Students

Saki Amagai

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Yuan Luo, PhD

Bio: Saki received her BA in Chemistry (minor in Biochemistry) from Carleton College. Prior to joining HSIP, Saki worked with a team within Northwestern University Medical Social Science Department to develop a smartphone app to remotely assess cognitive function. As a PhD student on the Health and Bioinformatics track, she is interested in using technology and big data to better understand health and promote healthy aging.

Benjamin Barrett

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Abel Kho, MD

Bio: Ben received a B.A. in Biology and Sociology from Bucknell University and an Sc.M. in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to entering HSIP he worked as a biostatistician for the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study, a prospective cohort study of HIV infection. Past research has included applying spatial analytics to study cervical cancer screening uptake among women in the Peruvian Amazon, working to understand the underlying factors that explain racial/ethnic disparities in depressive symptoms among sexual minorities, and studying the differential risk for a variety of diseases, including smoking-related cancers, diabetes, proteinuria, and frailty, in people with and without HIV. As a student in HSIP, he hopes to use informatics methods to understand and address health disparities, particularly those related to access to healthcare.

Mercy Berchie

Entry year: 2023

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Theresa Walunas, PhD

Bio:

Mercy received her Doctor of Optometry degree from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana in 2022. Prior to joining HSIP, she worked in the dual capacity of an intern Optometrist and a research and teaching assistant at the Department of Optometry and Vision Science at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. She has a wealth of clinical experience and insights into the diagnosis and management of ocular conditions which underscores her passion for research that bridges clinical practice and innovative data-driven methodologies in ophthalmology.

Past research experience aimed at improving the diagnosis of glaucoma and includes investigating the utility of the Optical Coherence Tomography’s macular ganglion cell complex for glaucoma diagnosis and management, structure-function correlations in glaucoma, differentiating myopia from glaucoma, and using machine learning to facilitate automated detection and diagnosis of glaucoma.

Chelsea Brown

Entry year: 2024

Program:  Social Sciences and Health (SSH)

Advisor: Chris Rini, PhD

Bio: Chelsea's work encompasses the development and testing of psychosocial mHealth interventions. She has experience in agile digital health product management and has collaborated on the development and research of several algorithmic mHealth interventions aimed at promoting well-being. Chelsea earned a B.M. in Music Therapy from the University of the Pacific. She completed post-baccalaureate research associate positions at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the UCLA Medical Center, where she investigated a digital mindfulness intervention for improving focus in teens and explored the role of music therapy interventions in reducing perinatal stress. She has co-authored five publications related to digital interventions, mindfulness, and therapeutic music. Currently, she serves as a co-investigator for an A2 Pilot Award, which aims to utilize machine learning to improve cultural fit for a psychosocial intervention targeting rural older adults at risk for Alzheimer's disease. Chelsea is dedicated to enhancing digital mental health delivery and intervention fit to enhance treatment adherence and accessibility for those who need it most.

Hannah Cheng

Entry year: 2024

Program:  Social Sciences and Health (SSH)

Advisor: Chris Rini, PhD

Bio: Hannah received her BS in Neuroscience and Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh and her MS in Epidemiology and Clinical Research from Stanford University. Before joining HSIP, Hannah worked as a senior research analyst at the Stanford Center for Dissemination and Implementation, where she examined how to effectively and efficiently improve access to addiction treatments. She was also a project manager at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System contributing to research aimed at improving care for underserved Veterans living with HIV, chronic pain, and/or opioid use disorder. Her long-term goal is to leverage implementation science to transform the status quo of healthcare access so that everyone can receive high-quality medical care and live their healthiest life.

Katie Cohen

Entry year: 2023

Program:  Social Sciences and Health (SSH)

Advisor: Jessica Schleider, PhD

Bio: Katie Cohen received a B.S. in Psychology from the University of South Carolina, an M.A. in Psychology from Stony Brook University, and an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Northwestern University. Katie is interested in the integration of non-traditional mental health interventions (single session interventions, mental health apps, peer support, etc.) into traditional settings frequented by youth and young adults (schools, primary care, etc.)

Lixuan Cong

Entry year: 2020

Program:  Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety (HQPS)

Advisor: Richard Epstein, PhD, MPH

Bio: Lixuan received her BA in Museum Studies at Fudan University and her Master of Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has extensive research experiences on improving access to health services in both U.S and China. Prior to joining the HSIP program, she worked as a health policy researcher in Shanghai Health Development Research Center. In her PhD study, she hopes to work on applying qualitative methods in program evaluation and learn more about developing interventions that will make better quality of care accessible to underprivileged populations.

Emily Dinelli

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR)

Advisor:  Allen W Heinemann, PhD

Bio: Emily holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with Honors from West Texas A&M University and a Master of Prosthetics & Orthotics from the University of Texas Medical Center. Emily completed a prosthetics residency at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab where she provided patient care for those with limb loss. During her time at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, she conducted research for the Center for Bionic Medicine (CBM) in which she studied the impact of added prosthetic mass on energy expenditure for individuals with above knee limb loss. She completed her orthotics residency with Hanger Clinic where she provided clinical services in various outpatient and inpatient settings in addition to conducting outcomes-based research for Hanger's Clinical & Scientific Affairs (CSA) department. Her research interests include health services research related to limb loss, disability, and chronic illness with hopes to improve access and quality of health services among these populations.

Jenny Ding

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Yuan Luo, PhD

Bio: Jenny received her BS in Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics from UCLA and her MS in Healthcare Analytics and Information Technology from Carnegie Mellon University. Previously, she was an undergraduate research assistant for three years studying gene regulation during inflammatory and innate immune responses. Her master’s work involved building clinical decision support tools to predict disease prognosis from Electronic Health Records and developing Machine Learning (ML) models to analyze large-scale sequencing data. Prior to joining HSIP, she was a data scientist at Merck’s preclinical development department, where she used Natural Language Processing algorithms to automate literature selection in meta-analysis and wrote scripts to inspect clinical trial data. In her PhD study, she hopes to leverage multi-modal healthcare data and ML to understand disease subtypes and aid the development of precision medicine.

Ngoc Duong

Entry year: 2023

Program:  Biostatistics (BIOSTAT)

Advisor: Lihui Zhao, PhD

Bio: Ngoc obtained his Master's degree in Biostatistics from Columbia University. He then worked as a data analyst in the Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University, where he applied statistical methods to answer questions in population health and health services research. He is interested in learning new methodologies and innovative applications of statistics to help drive knowledge discovery in the health sciences.

Arielle Eagan

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Social Sciences and Health (SSH)

Advisor: Lisa R Hirschhorn, MD, MPH

Bio: Arielle Eagan is a clinical social worker and mixed methods researcher who has worked globally in maco-spaces, including implementing psychosocial support programs in Zambia for adolescents with HIV and working as a Research Fellow for the Minister of Health in Rwanda. She holds a Bachelors in Child Psychology and Sociology, and a Masters in Clinical Social Work from Boston College and has completed two advanced fellowships, one in Pediatric Palliative Care at Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Boston Children’s Hospital, and the other in Global Health as a part of the Global Health Corps. She has co-authored 27 publications and multiple high-level ministerial disease burden reports for countries including Sierra Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan, and Kenya. At the start of COVID19, she worked in a hospital emergency room social worker in Boston, helping patients navigate COVID19 from psychosocial and social perspectives. Since moving to Chicago, she joined Dr. Jaline Gerardin’s Malaria and COVID19 Disease Modeling lab here at Northwestern, where she led the team’s weekly COVID19 forecasting for the state of Illinois as well as a sentinel surveillance costing project. Arielle is excited to begin a PhD in the Health Integrated Sciences Program here at Northwestern in the fall under the advising of research mentor Dr. Lisa Hirschhorn and to continue to explore implementation in global health.

Chris Eyo

Entry year: 2023

Program:  Social Sciences and Health (SSH)

Advisor: Brian Mustanski, PhD

Bio: Chris received a BS in Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2018 and an MA in Adolescent Chemistry Education from Relay Graduate School of Education in 2021. Prior to Northwestern, Chris designed and taught university English courses in Leticia, Colombia through The Fulbright Program, and high school chemistry in Bronx, NY. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic heavily influenced his decision to pivot to medicine, and after 3 years teaching, he joined the MD/PhD program at Feinberg School of Medicine and the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health & Wellbeing (ISGMH). He is broadly interested in LGBTQIA2S+ [children's] health, policy, and education. Long-term he would like to use his clinical and research training primarily to inform local and federal legislation that govern how racial, sexual, and gender minorities can/not navigate healthcare spaces. His (evolving) clinical interests include pediatrics, infectious disease, and microbiology.

Noah Forrest

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Theresa Walunas, PhD

Bio: Noah is a current NU MSTP student joining HSIP's Health and Biomedical Informatics track. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Portland in 2016, and subsequently worked on projects in the health informatics space. In his PhD, Noah wants to utilize medical record and biorepository data to identify common genetic markers among patients with autoimmune diseases. He would like to eventually use insights in his research in implementing personalized genomic medicine. In addition to his academic interests, Noah enjoys running along the lakeshore, biking to new neighborhoods around the city, and finding new recipes to cook at home.

Angela Freeman

Entry year: 2019

Program:  Social Sciences and Health (SSH)

Advisor: Judith T Moskowitz, PhD

Bio: Angela is a public health professional with experience in health administration, health disparities research, and STEM/health science education pipeline and workforce development program management. She earned a BA in Fine Arts from Purdue University and a Master of Public Health in Community Health Sciences from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health. Prior to HSIP, Angela spent the past six years working for Rush University Medical Center. As project manager for Building Healthy Urban Communities she provided oversight of this initiative designed to improve education, employment and health outcomes of Chicago’s west and south sides. A collaboration with the Medical Home Network (MHN) and Malcolm X College - City College of Chicago, this program sought to develop new curriculum for allied health professionals, advance more sophisticated and effective continuing education models for providers and health professionals, train an elite group of health disparities researchers and test new models of care while ensuring efficiency, cost control and high quality. Her current research interests include health disparities, population health management, higher education, social epidemiology and the intersection of social determinants, place-based strategies and health.

Howard, D., Howard, J., Scott, L., & Freeman, A. (2021). Student Job Readiness During a Pandemic. Journal of Health Administration Education, 38(1), 377-388.

Scott, L., Howard, J. E., Howard, D. M., & Freeman, A. C. (2021). From Followers to Leaders: Building First-Time Leaders Through Transformational Leadership and Lifelong Learning. In Handbook of Research on Innate Leadership Characteristics and Examinations of Successful First-Time Leaders (pp. 191-203). IGI Global.

Peter Graffy

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Abel Kho, MD

Bio: Peter received his BA in Anthropology and Women & Gender Studies from Luther College and his MPH from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining HSIP, Peter was a research coordinator for the ENRICH-US Study as part of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center (SOQIC) at Northwestern. While attending UW-Madison, his work focused on predictive disease modeling using machine learning to measure biomarkers on CT. He has also studied and published on other topics, such as opportunistic screening and detection of osteoporosis, image characterization of liver morphology changes in NAFLD and NASH, effect of gender identity on sexual health practices, and the determinants of homelessness for chronically unhoused individuals. As an HBMI student, Peter is interested in the intersection of GIS spatial analysis and epidemiology, developing computer-aided detection tools for the EHR to opportunistically predict disease, and methods to bridge the gap between the scientific community and the general population.

Vijeeth Guggilla

Entry year: 2023

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Theresa Walunas, PhD

Bio: Vijeeth is a current NU MSTP student joining HSIP's Health and Biomedical Informatics track. He received his B.S. in Computer Science and Biological Chemistry with a concentration in Neuroscience from Grinnell College in 2021. During his PhD, Vijeeth is interested in exploring how medical data can be leveraged in predictive contexts that can be translated into tangible clinical practice improvements. He hopes to combine his training from HSIP and medical school to come up with new ways of thinking about and taking advantage of the abundance of available medical data. Outside of school and lab, Vijeeth enjoys playing video games/board games and going to various shows in the Chicago area with his friends.

Sae Han

Entry year: 2020

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Nicholas Soulakis, PhD

Bio: Sae received her B.S. degree in Human Biology, Health, and Society from Cornell University and her MPH and certificate in Health Promotion Research and Practice from Columbia University. Prior to joining HSIP, she worked at NCI (as a health communication fellow) and at NIA (as a Clinical Protocol Coordinator/Program Analyst) in their offices that oversee the Institutes' clinical research grant portfolios. While at Northwestern's HSIP, Sae will be pursuing a doctoral degree in Health and Biomedical Informatics and is interested in building on the intersection between health informatics and epidemiology. Specifically, during her PhD studies, she will focus on applying informatics techniques to analyze existing and untapped data sources to identify and study relationships between Alzheimer's disease risk factors.

Massett, HA [et al, including Han, SH]. Challenges, facilitators, and messaging strategies for Latino populations participating in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias in clinical research: a literature review. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. 2021.

Alexandra Harris

Entry year: 2020

Program:  Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR)

Advisor: Neil Jordan, PhD

Bio: Alex holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from The University of Alabama and a Master of Public Health from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Prior to starting the HSIP doctoral program, she was a project lead at the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), a leading national healthcare quality measurement organization. Under contract to CMS, she led reevaluation efforts for 21 national outcome measures publicly reported in CMS value-based payment programs. In this role, she also coordinated the development of two outcome measures for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) program. Her research interests include health economics, particularly as it pertains to pharmaceutical pricing and understanding the effect of healthcare market consolidation on patient outcomes.

Triche EW, Xin X, Stackland S, et al. Incorporating Present-on-Admission Indicators in Medicare Claims to Inform Hospital Quality Measure Risk Adjustment Models. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(5):e218512. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.8512

Tobias Holden

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor:  Jaline L Gerardin, PhD

Bio: Tobias received his B.S. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology with a concentration in Quantitative Biology from Yale University in 2017, and was an NIH PREP Scholar in the Department of Pharmacological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai before joining the MSTP at Northwestern in 2019. He is interested in applying mathematical modeling to population health, with a focus on social and environmental determinants of disease. As a medical student he worked with the Illinois Dept. of Public Health to analyze racial/ethnic disparities in the state’s COVID-19 epidemic. During his PhD he will focus on modeling public health interventions to reduce the burden of malaria in endemic settings. He hopes to combine his training from HSIP and medical school to address the community health challenges that result from global climate change.

Cassandra Iroz

Entry year: 2018

Program:  Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety (HQPS)

Advisor: Julie K Johnson, MSPH, PhD

Bio: Cassandra is a first year student in the Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Track within the Health Sciences Integrated PhD (HSIP) program. Cassandra earned her BA in Biology from Carleton College and her Master of Science in Health Communication from Northwestern University. Prior to joining the PhD program she worked as a Clinical Research Project Manager within the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS) where she worked on studies in a variety of areas including weight loss, urology, and liver transplantation. As a PhD student she is hoping to build upon her previous work to understand how improved communication within the healthcare team and with patients can improve quality and safety for all patients.

Hyojung Jang

Entry year: 2023

Program:  Biostatistics (BIOSTAT)

Advisor: Lihui Zhao, PhD

Bio: Hyojung received her B.S. and M.S. in Applied Mathematics & Statistics from Stony Brook University. Her fields of interest includes: Microbiome, Machine Learning, Causal Inference, Survival Analysis, and Personalized Medicine. She plans to study statistical theories and methods more deeply at the beginning of my PhD training. Hyojung will then dig deeper into new research topics and develop new statistical methods eventually. Furthermore, she hopes to participate in comprehensive biomedical studies in interdisciplinary collaborations with experts in the field.

Hanzi (Maria) Jiang

Entry year: 2023

Program:  Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR)

Advisor: Megan McHugh, PhD

Bio: Hanzi (Maria) Jiang received her Master's in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. Upon graduating, Hanzi served as a Data Analyst at West Side United of Rush University Medical Center. Her work focused on evaluating community health initiatives on Chicago's West Side through data analysis and community-based participatory research. Hanzi's research interest lies in the intersection between social epidemiology and health services research. As a PhD student at HSIP, Hanzi would like to continue exploring research methods that utilize epidemiologic, spatial, and socioeconomic data for a better understanding of the impact of health inequity,  as well as econometrics methods to advance the evaluations of policy interventions.

Amy Krefman

Entry year: 2024

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Theresa Walunas, PhD

Bio:

Amy received a B.A. in Art History from Dartmouth College and an M.S. in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Northwestern University. Prior to entering HSIP, she worked in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern, most recently as Assistant Director of Data and Statistics for the Northwestern University Data Analysis and Coordinating Center (NUDACC). Past research includes longitudinal patterns in cardiovascular health, data harmonization of cardiovascular and dementia-related data, and estimating family trees using electronic health records. Her research interests include data visualization, harmonization, communication, and best practices for data collection and management in reproducible research.

Cheol Min (Matthew) Lee

Entry year: 2023

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Deborah Winter, PhD

Bio: Cheol Min (Matthew) received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. Before joining HSIP, he studied Biomedical Informatics at Washington University in St. Louis and gained research experience on Alzheimer's Diseases and aging at WashU NeuroGenomics and Informatics Center. At Northwestern, Matthew will continue to study Health and Biomedical Informatics and aim to enhance biomedicine by leveraging informatics. He is also a big fan of soccer and enjoys watching movies.

Lauren Leviton

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety (HQPS)

Advisor:  Richard Epstein, PhD, MPH

Bio: Lauren is a first year student in the Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Track within the Health Sciences Integrated PhD (HSIP) program. She earned her BS in Human Development and Family Studies and a minor in Spanish from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and her master’s in social work from the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the PhD program, she worked as a Social Worker in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at Northwestern Medical Group where she developed and implemented the first primary care social work role in the division. She also worked at Lurie Children’s Hospital as a Social Worker in the Division of Genetics and provided direct patient care to individuals and caregivers impacted by rare genetic conditions. Recently she partnered with colleagues to create Northwestern Medicine’s Health Equity Action Team (NM HEAT). Lauren is pursuing a PhD to contribute to research in the area of social determinants of health and healthcare disparities through a quality and safety framework.

Yikuan Li

Entry year: 2019

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Yuan Luo, PhD

Bio: Yikuan received his B.S. degree in Information Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and later M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University. Prior to joining in the doctoral program, he worked on applying natural language processing and machine learning to build clinical predictive models with Electronic health record (EHR) data. He also has industrial experience in Microsoft as a support engineering intern and in IQVIA as a consulting intern. His research interests include integrating informatics into healthcare to deliver a better treatment to patients and improve the population’s health outcomes.

Wang, Hanyin, Yikuan Li, Meghan Hutch, Andrew Naidech, and Yuan Luo. "Using Tweets to Understand How COVID-19-Related Health Beliefs Are Affected in the Age of Social Media: Twitter Data Analysis Study." Journal of medical Internet research 23, no. 2 (2021): e26302.

Li, Yikuan, Hanyin Wang, and Yuan Luo. "A comparison of pre-trained vision-and-language models for multimodal representation learning across medical images and reports." In 2020 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM), pp. 1999-2004. IEEE, 2020.

Wang, Hanyin, Yikuan Li, Seema A. Khan, and Yuan Luo. "Prediction of breast cancer distant recurrence using natural language processing and knowledge-guided convolutional neural network." Artificial intelligence in medicine 110 (2020): 101977.

Wang, Hanyin, Yikuan Li, Hongyan Ning, John Wilkins, Donald Lloyd-Jones, and Yuan Luo. "Using Machine Learning to Integrate Socio-Behavioral Factors in Predicting Cardiovascular-Related Mortality Risk." In MedInfo, pp. 433-437. 2019.

William Liem

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Social Sciences and Health (SSH)

Advisor: Andrew Berry, PhD

Bio: William (he/they) received a BA in Sociology from the University of British Columbia and a MSW (System Dynamics specialization) from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to HSIP, William consulted as a system dynamics consultant and design strategist for technology, public health, and education sectors. His consultancy work focused on using community-based system dynamics methods to understand barriers to designing and delivering equitable programs and services. William was also an Adjunct Instructor and Research Projects Coordinator with the Social System Design Lab at Washington University, where he co-taught a system dynamics simulation modeling course to masters and doctoral students. William’s research interests broadly include LGBTQIA+ health equity, community-based system dynamics, agent-based modeling, and designing equitable technologies. In their PhD, William hopes to co-design systems-informed solutions surrounding LGBTQIA+ health equity issues and structural homophobia.

Yueming Liu

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Biostatistics (BIOSTAT)

Advisor: Denise Scholtens, PhD

Bio: Yueming is a PhD student in the biostatistics track of HSIP program. She holds her Bachelor degree from University of Waterloo and her MS in biostatistics from Northwestern University. Intrigued by the field of biostatistics during previous study and research experiences, Yueming is developing broad interests in clinical trial, causal inference, survival analysis, and longitudinal analysis. For her PhD study, she hopes to explore more in the intersection of methodology and applications, such as disease prevention and precision medicine with the recent tools of high dimensional data analysis and interpretable machine learning.

Roberto Lopez-Rosado

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR)

Advisor: Lucy Bilaver, PhD

Bio: Roberto earned a Masters degree in Anatomy from Universidad Central del Caribe, in his native Puerto Rico, and a Doctorate in Physical Therapy from The Sage Colleges, New York. He teaches gross anatomy and neuroanatomy at Northwestern University. His PhD interests include rehabilitation service utilization for individuals following stroke.

Zhidi Luo

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor:  Richard Epstein, PhD, MPH

Bio: Zhidi received a B.S. in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics from Sun Yet-Sen University and a M.S. in Financial Mathematics from the University of Chicago. Zhidi has experience working as a quantitative analyst in the financial trading industry, a researcher at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, and as a biostatistician in the Mental Health Services and Policy Program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He has designed data warehouses, developed statistical plans, implemented research designs, and built predictive analytic and machine learning models. As a PhD student in Health and Biomedical Informatics track, Zhidi will focus on applying machine learning methods to child health services and outcomes research.

Jake Mackie

Entry year: 2024

Program:  Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR)

Advisor: Lucy Bilaver, PhD

Bio: Jake received his MS in Data Science from the University of Kentucky, where he studied applications of machine learning in the prediction of healthcare utilization. Prior to joining HSIP, Jake was health policy and health services researcher in a joint position between the University of Kentucky's Institute for Biomedical Informatics and the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. At Northwestern, he intends to further explore methodologies to better understand geographic disparities in health services utilization and health risk factors.

Chuanfen Ni

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety (HQPS)

Advisor: Donna M Woods, PhD

Bio: Chuanfen received her Bachelor of Laws in Economic Laws from East China University of Political Science and Law and her Master of Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining the PhD program, Chuanfen studied policy analysis at Harris School of Public Policy at The University of Chicago. Chuanfen also has worked as a reporter and editor in China, a public health services intern at St. Louis Health Department, and a social worker in rural Missouri. She has leveraged her coaching and management skills to help hundreds of patients access care, improve direct service quality, tackle crises, outreach and engage patients in service. As a PhD student, she hopes to design patient-centered techniques to develop solutions that make healthcare service delivery a more efficient, equitable, and ethical practice.

Emmanuel Okpetu

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR)

Advisor: Lisa R Hirschhorn, MD, MPH

Bio: Emmanuel Iroboudu Okpetu served as the district level Director of the Primary Health Care Department, Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria from February 2021 to August 2022. He has an MPH (2013) degree from the Royal Tropical Institute/VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands and an MBBS degree (2006) from the University of Jos, Nigeria. He has 14 years public health experience with expertise in implementing Primary Health Care (PHC) interventions in resource constrained settings both locally and internationally,. He was a volunteer stop transmission of polio consultant for the CDC/WHO global polio eradication initiative, serving in Ethiopia for 2 years (2016 – 2018). Since 2019, he has been an affiliate researcher  with the transforming hypertension treatment in Nigeria implementation research anchored by the University of Abuja Cardiovascular Research Unit in collaboration with Northwestern University. Emmanuel participated in the global alliance for chronic diseases 4th implementation science school 2021. He is interested in projects that will mitigate the growing burden of Non-Communicable Disease (NCDs) among economically vulnerable populations. He is particularly interested in exploring integration and task shifting options for surveillance and response to NCDs within a PHC system that seems focused on infectious diseases.

Sarah Philbin

Entry year: 2020

Program:  Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR)

Advisor: Lucy Bilaver, PhD

Bio: Prior to joining HSIP, Sarah was a Senior Program Associate at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). In this role, she monitored and evaluated a diverse portfolio, including several multi-site pragmatic clinical trials that investigated a range of clinical conditions, including pediatric rare diseases and opioid use disorder. She also supported the development and launch of several targeted funding announcements. Sarah earned a BA in History and International Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. Broadly, her research interests include health system innovation and policy, and during her PhD, Sarah plans to explore how health systems can address social determinants of health within a clinical setting in order to facilitate successful transitions from pediatric to adult care for individuals with chronic conditions.

Yishu Qu

Entry year: 2019

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Lifang Hou, MD, PhD

Bio: Yishu received her Bachelor of Medicine in Laboratory Medicine from Peking University Health Science Center in China and her MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of Southern California. After graduation, she continued to work on biomarkers for papillary thyroid cancer in women of reproductive age among White and Filipino population and conducted data analysis. During her PhD studies, she will be focused on genetic, epigenetic biomarkers that may predict cancer or chronic diseases. She is also is interested in other aging biomarkers like telomere length and mitochondrial DNA.

Musa, J, Kim, K,  Zheng, Y., Qu, Y, et al. Abstract 71: Accelerated Epigenetic Age among HIV-infected Nigerian Women with Invasive Cervical Cancer. 2021; p 71-71.

Zheng, Y, Musa, J, Kim, K, Qu, Y, et al. Abstract 76: Global LINE-1 Hypomethylation as Novel Biomarker for Cervical Cancer in Nigerian Women Living with HIV. 2021; p 76-76.

Zheng, Y, Hawkins, C, Okeke, E. Duguru, M, Odeghe, E, Lesi, O, Qu, Y.;  et al, Abstract 83: Blood-Based Circulating Cell-Free DNA Epigenetic Age Is Accelerated Among HIV-Infected Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Nigeria. 2021; p 83-83.

Zheng, Y, Hawkins, C, Okeke, E, Lesi, O.;  Qu, Y.; et al. Acceleration of blood-based circulating cell-free DNA epigenetic age among HIV-infected patients with hepatocellular carcinoma in Nigeria. Journal of Clinical Oncology 2021, 39, e16137-e16137.

Sinha, A, Zheng, Y, Nannini, D, Qu, Y et al. Association of the V122I Transthyretin Amyloidosis Genetic Variant With Cardiac Structure and Function in Middle-aged Black Adults: Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. JAMA Cardiology 2020, 6.

Sinha, A, Zheng, Y, Qu, Y.;  et al. Abstract 24: Amyloidogenic V122I Transthyretin Variant is Associated With Progression of Adverse Cardiac Mechanics in Middle-aged African American Adults: The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. Circulation 2020, 141.

Tim Schwirtlich

Entry year: 2023

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Theresa Walunas, PhD

Bio: Tim has a background in healthcare industry, including integrated B.Sc. Computer Science and M.Sc. Data Science degrees. In his previous role as a R&D Software Engineer at Roche he was developing medical software applications and leading innovation initiatives in the area of Digital Health & Clinical Decision support. Based on his experience with the emerging health data standard HL7 FHIR, he intends to focus his research on the intersection of medical interoperability and Clinical Decision Support. Leveraging cutting-edge AI capabilities his goal is to make an impact in advancing personalized care for patients and providing relief to care providers. In his free time, Tim is a big sports fan, playing soccer & tennis himself but also loves trying out any new kinds of sports.

Lamkur Gabriel Shedul

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR)

Advisor: Lisa R Hirschhorn, MD, MPH

Bio: Lamkur had MBBS from the University of Jos in Nigeria before pursuing his Fellowship program with the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria in the Faculty of Family Medicine. As a practicing Family Physician with the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, he became a member of the Cardiovascular Research Unit of the same institution where he was involved in several research works involving local and international collaborators like Northwestern University. To buttress his research work, he obtained a Masters in Public Health in the University of Abuja. His research interest is in preventive cardiology and task shifting where he train non-physician health workers at primary health care level using a simplified national protocol to diagnose, treat and refer patients with hypertension.

Mindy Szeto

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Donald M Lloyd-Jones, MD, ScM

Bio: Mindy trained at the University of Washington, University of Colorado, and Johns Hopkins University in math modeling, protein engineering, and bioinformatics before joining HSIP's Health and Biomedical Informatics Track. She has experience leading genetic epidemiology studies of complex traits in understudied populations in conjunction with the Jackson Heart Study, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, and the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine program. Most recently, she conducted multi-omics and machine learning analyses of rare diseases with patient data, and hopes to integrate novel approaches with EHR information to reduce health disparities and improve precision medicine.

Masayuki Teramoto

Entry year: 2024

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Theresa Walunas, PhD

Steven Tran

Entry year: 2020

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Theresa Walunas, PhD

Bio: Steven is a current NU MSTP student joining HSIP's Health and Biomedical Informatics track. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018, and his research interests have since pivoted quite a ways from his background in synthetic biology. In his PhD, Steven wants to explore how data is derived from medical practice and transformed into a state that is usable for clinical research. He hopes to create tools to optimize this process so that we can obtain clinical data quicker, cheaper, and in larger scales. Outside of school and lab, Steven enjoys cooking (but mostly eating) and making, with his 3D printer and small armory of tools.

Jacob S, Rahbari K, Tegtmeyer K, et al. Lung Cancer Survival in Patients With Autoimmune Disease. JAMA network open: NLM (Medline); 2020. p. e2029917.

Tubanji Walubita

Entry year: 2021

Program:  Social Sciences and Health (SSH)

Advisor: Christine Rini, PhD

Bio: Tubanji earned a BA in Biology and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies from Lake Forest College. Upon graduating, Tubanji participated in the NIH Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She researched sexual orientation-based disparities in allostatic load among Black women. Following her time in PREP, Tubanji worked as a clinical research assistant at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where she investigated racial and ethnic differences in exposure and susceptibility to COVID-19. As a PhD student in the Social Sciences and Health track of HSIP, Tubanji is further expanding her work in health equity, social epidemiology, and health promotion.

Ping (Stella) Wang

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Social Sciences and Health (SSH)

Advisor: Richard C Gershon, PhD

Bio: Ping (Stella) Wang holds a BS from Fudan University, major in Pharmaceutical Science and a MS in Pharmacy Administration from St. John’s University School of Pharmacy. She also studied Epidemiology, Global Health Policy & Management with a Master of Public Health at New York University Global Institute of Public Health. Before joining the PhD program, Stella worked as the Head of Medical Projects and Data Analytics at a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in NYC. Stella has over 10 years working experience in pharmaceutical industry in various business, operational, and research functions. Her current research focuses on clinical outcome evaluation in both qualitative and quantitative projects. As a PhD student, Stella is interested in developing innovative health assessments using the latest scientific knowledge. She hopes to use her knowledge to influence health policies and improve population health at a higher level.

Xicheng Xie

Entry year: 2024

Program:  Biostatistics (BIOSTAT)

Advisor: Lihui Zuo, PhD

Bio: Xicheng earned his bachelor's degree in Environmental Science from Shanghai Jiaotong University and subsequently pursued a master’s degree in Biostatistics from Columbia University. His prior research pursuits encompass environmental epidemiology, Bayesian statistics, longitudinal analysis, unsupervised learning, and multi-omics data integration. He contributed as a research assistant to various projects, including building Bayesian spatial-temporal models for monitoring heat stress variation at the census tract level across New York State and developing clustering methods for disease subtyping via multi-omics data integration. In his doctoral studies, he aims to delve deeper into methodological advancements and their applications within data science, statistics, and precision medicine.

Jingzhi (Kevin) Yu

Entry year: 2020

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor:  Norrina Bai Allen, PhD

Bio: Kevin received his B.A. from Northwestern University in Economics and Biology. After graduation, he has been working as a data analyst focusing on health informatics studies on cardiovascular disease outcomes and supporting large research networks such as CAPriCORN, PCORnet, eMERGE, and the All of Us Research Program. He also has industry experience from working as a strategy intern at DaVita Inc. His current research interests include integrating external data sources (sensor data, claims data, patient-reported outcomes, etc.) with Electronic Health Records (EHR) and designing next generation of EHR-based tools and applications for physicians and patients to improve cardiovascular outcomes.

Yuanzhi (Fisher) Yu

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Biostatistics (BIOSTAT)

Advisor: Denise Scholtens, PhD

Bio: Yuanzhi completed his undergraduate degree in Life Science and Biotechnology at Wuhan University and his master’s degree in Biostatistics at the Columbia University. His previous works include proposing new imputation method to correct exposure mixture measurement errors in environmental health data and investigating association between chronic disease and metabolomics by Bayesian approaches and machine leaning methods. His research interests are in missing data, machine learning and precision medicine, and he aims to create innovative statistical methods that can extract meaningful insights into complex human diseases and environmental health.

Jiaqi Zhou

Entry year: 2024

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Theresa Walunas, PhD

Bio: Jiaqi Zhou holds a B.S. in Biology from Wuhan University and an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Tsinghua University. Jiaqi is interested in developing computational methods for biomedical applications, including machine learning, integrative genomic analysis, and natural language processing. Her works aim to derive insights from increasingly complex biological datasets, meet the needs of deeper disease interpretation, and improve clinical practice.

Xinyu Zhou

Entry year: 2024

Program:  Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI)

Advisor: Theresa Walunas, PhD

Bio: Xinyu obtained his bachelor's degree from Fudan University and his master's degree from Yale University. His research focuses on natural language processing (NLP), public health informatics, and clinical NLP.

Jiafeng (Jay) Zhu

Entry year: 2022

Program:  Biostatistics (BIOSTAT)

Advisor: Lihui Zhao, PhD

Bio: Jiafeng (Jay) Zhu is currently a research associate at Johns Hopkin School of Public Health joining the new Biostatistics track of HSIP in Fall 2022. Jay got his B.S. degree at Zhejiang University, China. He got two M.S. degree at Virginia Tech and has been working as research associate for three years at JHU. His research includes study in longitudinal data and aging.  In his PhD study, Jay would like to explore new statistical/biostatistical methods as well as cooperate with students in the HSIP and people over the university in different disciplines. 

Scott Zuo

Entry year: 2024

Program:  Biostatistics (BIOSTAT)

Advisor: Lihui Zuo, PhD

Bio: Scott is a current student joining HSIP's Biostatistics track. He earned his BS in Statistics and Operations Research from Southern Methodist University (SMU) and his Master's in Biostatistics from Yale. His research focuses on causal inference and the application of statistical methodologies in clinical trials to enhance the precision of treatment effect estimates and decision-making in healthcare.