2022-2023 Fellows
Sofie Momin
Sofie is a 2023 MPH grad who studied Sociomedical Sciences with a certificate in Sexuality, Sexual and Reproductive Health. In the summer of 2022, she worked with the CUIMC HIV Center on qualitative coding for interviews conducted with South African women for a follow-up study on PrEP adherence. She also began survey distribution at the NYC Family Justice Centers for clients to learn more about their interests in sexual and reproductive health referrals and PrEP information at the FJCs. Sofie also recruited some clients for an in-depth interview about their interests in PrEP and HIV prevention. During her 2nd year at Mailman, she worked on a thesis about sexual assault and prevention in Muslim-American communities. She was also one of the Organizational Managers for CIPHER, which works on connecting Mailman students with community organizations to participate in improving health literacy and promoting volunteering and networking opportunities. Sofie was initially interested in applying to the FORWARD Fellowship so that she would be more informed and better equipped to apply anti-racist values to public health practice. Through the fellowship, she also learned much about community engagement in Washington Heights.
Antony Nguyen
Antony is a 2023 MPH grad who concentrated in Epidemiology and with a certificate in Child, Youth, and Family Health. He was born and raised in Savannah, GA and is a son of Vietnamese refugees. He eventually made the long trek from the east to west coast to attend UC Berkeley, where he studied Integrative Biology and Global Public Health. Inspired by his public health courses, he spent two years in AmeriCorps—one year serving elementary school students under a nonprofit organization focused on breaking the cycle of poverty through educational initiatives, and one year tending to COVID-19 response and cancer prevention programs under the San Francisco Department of Public Health. In addition, he assisted on research projects focused on health-related social needs and chronic disease self-management within the UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine and volunteered with various organizations focused on underserved youth. Through his own personal experiences as a Vietnamese American and professional experiences, he has seen the pervasiveness of racism and the mechanisms in which it acts to reinforce systems of privilege and oppression. He was drawn to the FORWARD Fellows program as he saw it as an opportunity to work on projects related to anti-racism and to engage with peers in regard to anti-racism discourse. As a FORWARD Fellow, he was placed within the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, in which he worked with faculty to examine how anti-racism is integrated into research methods courses and synthesizing anti-racism pedagogical resources.
Jeffannie O’Garro
Jeffannie O’Garro is an MPH grad who studied Epidemiology with a certificate in Infectious Disease Epidemiology. As a 2nd year student, she was a teacher’s assistant for the Research Methods and Applications (REMA) Qualitative methods core course. In her spare time, she gives back to her undergraduate college, Medgar Evers, by helping to coordinate the Trio Student Support Services program and serving as a mentor. Over the past few years, Jeffannie has gained public health experience working as an intern for Brooklyn Communities Collaborative (BCC) at Maimonides Medical Center. The majority of her work entailed doing Participatory Action Research (PAR) in underserved communities to solve issues surrounding health equity and social determinants of health. A research project conducted more recently focused on documenting the needs and assets of underrepresented entrepreneurs in East and Central Brooklyn and involved a collaboration between BCC and Hunter College. For this project, she did both a qualitative and quantitative analysis over the summer of 2022 and worked on data analysis for the final report throughout the fall. She was drawn to the FORWARD Fellows program because it aligns with her interests in anti- racism and solution strategies to advance racial equity. She was partnered with ICAP for her FORWARD Fellowship project, working on the creation of an ICAP guide to anti-racist practice. The project focused on promoting open dialogue around topics of racism and inequality and developing an internal organizational plan to address structural inequities and implicit bias in the workplace and overall public health work. As her MPH certificate is in infectious diseases, she is interested in doing future work in underserved communities focusing on infectious diseases, particularly HIV and COVID-19, as it relates to discrepancies in Black mortality rates.
Crystal Sanchez
Crystal Sanchez is a Master of Health Administration grad who studied Health Policy and Management. She received her bachelor’s degree from UCLA and worked as an Audit and Compliance Intern at the Mount Sinai Health System during her time at Mailman. In this role she assisted the team and senior leadership with various projects related to internal audit and corporate compliance to help identify and mitigate risks across all entities in the health system. Crystal now works as a healthcare consultant in strategy and operations. While at Mailman, she also served as the Community Relations Chair for the Black and Latinx Student Caucus where she worked along other E-Board members to create academic and professional opportunities for students as well as social events to foster community and belonging among Black and Latinx students at Mailman. Crystal was drawn to the FORWARD Fellows Program because of her own experiences as a first-generation Latina student navigating higher education and trying to find spaces that empower students from all backgrounds to succeed. She strongly believes that representation matters and FORWARD offered the opportunity to help strategize opportunities to recruit more diverse faculty. Finding ways to recruit more faculty from traditionally excluded groups would allow for more students like herself to see themselves at places like Columbia.
Jordan Williams
Jordan Williams is a Master of Public Health grad who studied Population and Family Health, with a certificate in Social Determinants of Health. Growing up in a predominately Black neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago, IL, she witnessed the effects of racism and systemic disinvestment manifest in poor health outcomes for her community. After studying Health and Human Sciences and Psychology at the University of Southern California, she chose to attend the Mailman School of Public Health to better understand the systems that hinder institutionally oppressed groups’ chances at a healthy life and get foundational training to dismantle those systems and influence programming and policy that advances health in those communities. While at Mailman, she served as a Choosing Healthy and Active Lifestyles for Kids program assistant, International Parent Advocacy Network monitoring & assessment intern, Integration of Science and Practice teaching assistant, Black & Latinx Student Caucus co-president, R.I.S.E. (Resilience, Inclusion, Solidarity, and Empowerment) peer mentor, and Department of Environmental Health Sciences FORWARD fellow. As a FORWARD Fellow, Jordan hoped to help faculty center the voices of marginalized groups in the curriculum and shift the power dynamics of the student-teacher experience in the department for years to come. Her favorite quote is by a fellow member of her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Dr. Maya Angelou -- "When you learn, teach. When you get, give." In the future, Jordan sees herself serving in a variety of roles that support health equity for racial and ethnic minority groups, and teaching others to do the same.
Jessica Yuen
Jessica Yuen (she/her) is an MPH grad of the Health Policy Management department with a certificate in Comparative Effectiveness Outcomes Research. She is interested in topics related to population health and health equity, developmental lifecourse and aging, and digital health. Jessica recently worked at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Public Health Laboratory as a COVID data analyst and was part of the Race to Justice team. She collaborated with other lab members to develop a checklist for an equitable and anti-racist approach to the lab data lifecycle and to present at the Association of Public Health Laboratories 2022 Conference on gaps in demographic data collection associated with COVID tests and other lab tests. As a fellow, she was excited to continue this work at her school and being an active participant in FORWARD. Jessica was first exposed to Mailman's DEI initiatives during the Anti-Racism Workshop Series, Face Forward. This mandatory first-year experience showed her Mailman's commitment to engaging in anti-racist practice as an institution – not just waiting for actions from passionate individuals– to students, educators, and community members; and to educating students who were entering the public health field of how to go beyond theory to practice for increasing equity in their work. Jessica was excited to participate in this dialogue and collaborate with her preceptor (team) to better understand the opportunities to increase equity and disrupt systemic racism among her peers and for future students to have a diverse, inclusive, and equitable classroom and public health workforce. Jessica is also a recipient of the 2021 Healthcare Leaders of New York Leonard Achan Sr Health Equity Scholarship and a former member of the student organization Perspectives on Aging.