PPH Graduation 2009

Ruth Magowoa Abaya came to Northwestern from Bluffton University in Ohio where she earned a degree in Biology. Her interest in her native Nigeria is evidenced in her field experience which focused on educating HIV-positive women in Jos, Nigeria and her culminating experience which used qualitative research methods to examine motivations for further child-bearing among HIV-positive mothers in Jos, Nigeria. Ruth’s long standing interest in children is reflected in her decision to pursue a career in pediatrics and next month she will begin a residency at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Eleanor Grace Bly earned a degree in Molecular Biology at Princeton University and matriculated at Northwestern after teaching high school students in Haiti. Her work with high school students continue with her field experience at the Roberto Clemente Community Academy in Chicago. For her field experience project Ellie analyzed playground injury data from the Chicago Parks Department. Ellie will begin a career in family practice with a residency at the University of Washington affiliated hospitals in the Seattle area.

Joshua David Evans recently reflected back his work as a cowhand in Kansas noting that vaccinating cattle in the spring round-up gives new meaning to the term “herd immunity.” He earned a bachelor’s degree in Communications at Wheaton College and completed his pre-med requirements at Northwestern. For his field experience, Josh surveyed senior citizens at the Lawndale Christian Health Center and learned of their experiences with the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program. His interest in medical education lead him to a culminating experience project examining the public health related learning issues in small group teaching sessions within the medical school curriculum. Josh is headed west to Loyola University Medical Center in suburban Maywood for a residency in internal medicine.

Jared Wilson Klein has crisscrossed the country from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where he earned an undergraduate degree in public health to the Seattle area where he coordinated pre-clinical trials of new pharmaceutical products before arriving at Northwestern. He immersed himself medicine and public health at the national policy level in a field experience at the American Medical Association. His culminating experience examined chronic disease in light of acculturation among a large variety of Asian and Hispanic subgroups within the US population. Jared is returning to Seattle where he will begin a residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington affiliated hospitals.

Michelle Ping Lin is a native of Newport Beach, California who matriculated at Northwestern University in the Honors Program in Medical Education. Not interested solely in the natural sciences, she earned her undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature. Her field experience was a public health education project at a local outpatient clinic called “Community Health”. Michelle’s culminating experience was a comparison of emergency department use at Children’s Memorial Hospital in 1975 and 2005. Her 2005 sample included over 35,000 emergency department admissions! Michelle has chosen to specialize in emergency medicine and will do her residency training at New York University and the well-known Bellevue, America’s oldest public hospital.

Rebekah Elizabeth Osgood

Rebekah Elizabeth Osgood became interested in health services as an undergraduate at the University of California Berkeley where she earned a degree in molecular and cell biology. Her interest in other languages and cultures led her to a year abroad at the University of Chile and this was extended to her field experience which she completed in Mumbai, India. Rebekah has since turned her attention on the health and knowledge disparities of women seeking care at Northwestern affiliated outpatient facilities and next month she will begin her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology here at Northwestern.  Rebekah is also one of our two Delta Omega Student Inductee. Delta Omega is the Honorary Society in Public Health and student membership is limited to not more than 10% of the graduating class.

Joel Ou

Joel Ou is a Californian who earned his undergraduate degree in bioengineering from U C Berkeley. His interest in health policy was explored in a field experience at the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group. Over time he developed an interest in pain relief and chose as his culminating experience a study of the relationship between physical activity and knee pain from osteoarthritis. Joel is returning to the San Francisco area where he will begin a residency in Anesthesiology at the University of California San Francisco.

Brian William Patterson

Brian William Patterson is the second of our two Delta Omega Student Inductees this year. Working hard and playing hard, fellow students and the faculty may remember his role as Timmy O’Toole in several In Vivo comedy shows. He is a graduate of Penn State where he majored in Bioengineering and served volunteer emergency medical technician. His field experience looked at the health care safety net and in his culminating experience he used analytical modeling techniques to predict the cost effectiveness of an influenza vaccine program in the emergency department. Brian is staying on at Northwestern where he will soon begin a residency in emergency medicine.

Usha Periyanayagam

Usha Periyanayagam came to Northwestern as part of the Honors Program in Medical Education where she earned an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering. Her field experience was a study of health care delivery in South Africa. She took a leave of absence from the MD/MPH program to earn a master’s degree in engineering design and innovation from the Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering where she focused on the exciting field of cardiovascular surgery. Her interest in emergency medicine led her to examine risk factors for, and outcomes of, trauma in pregnant women in Illinois. She will begin her ninth year here at Northwestern when she begins her residency next month in emergency medicine.

Jennifer Michelle Sharkey

Jennifer Michelle Sharkey is a Southern Californian who received a bachelor’s degree in psychobiology from the UCLA. Her Spanish language skills led her to a field experience with Salud Latina/Latino Health an agency established to respond to the AIDS crisis among Latinos. For her culminating experience, Jennifer evaluated the program aimed at providing health education and counseling by lay leaders in the Hispanic community in the outlying area of Aurora, Illinois. The next stop for Jennifer is the University of Maryland for an internal medicine residency.

David Louis Eisenberg is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Alabama School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern and will complete a Family Planning fellowship at the end of the month. He did a field experience in Rwanda and focused his culminating experience on barriers to providing contraception to women on medications that can cause birth defects. David is headed to St. Louis where he has been appointed to the faculty of Washington University.

Robroy Henry Maciver

Robroy Henry Maciver has a bachelor’s degree from Gurstavus Adolphus College in St. Peter Minnesota and earned his medical degree from the University of Minnesota. He completed his Master of Public Health during his general surgery residency here at Northwestern. His field and culminating experiences focused on the etiology of abdominal pain in school aged children. Rob has been accepted into a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Washington. For those of you keeping score, that is three alumni headed to Seattle!

Parag Kirit Shah came to Chicago from the East Coast having received a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University and his medical degree from Albert Einstein College o f Medicine. He completed his pediatric residency at Children’s Memorial Hospital and a fellowship in health services research at Northwestern . His culminating experience addressed the perspectives of pediatricians on the care of children and youth with special health care needs. He is a hospitalist at Children’s Memorial Hospital and a member of the faculty in the Department of Pediatrics.

Chelsea Olivia McKinney is a graduate of Swarthmore College where she majored in sociology and anthropology. She came to Northwestern as a graduate student in human development and social policy and applied to become a combined MPH/PhD student. The goal of her field experience was to promote the use of biomarkers among social science investigators. Her culminating experience examined factors associated with childhood obesity in multi-generational homes.

Keran Li was born in China where she received an undergraduate degree in Biotechnology and Microbiology from Shandong University. She received a doctorate in microbiology from Indiana University in 2007 and came to Northwestern to learn to solve real life problems in drug discovery and clinical trials.

Beta Eta Chapter of Delta Omega 2009 Inductees

The Beta Eta Chapter of Delta Omega, honorary society in public health, inducted outstanding graduating students, alumni and faculty to its chapter this year.

This is a wonderful recognition and we congratulate the honorees!

Program Director Dr. Rowland Chang

Additional Graduation Photos