Sindana Ilango was a student in San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego’s Joint Doctoral Program (JDP) in the epidemiology track, graduating in 2020. Currently, she is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington Department of Epidemiology. Prior to starting the JDP program, she completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley followed by a Master’s of Public Health degree with a concentration in Epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Sindana became interested in the field of epidemiology after realizing that she could employ creative and critical thinking skills to understand and improve public health. As she became more immersed in public health through her schoolwork and through a position with the California Department of Public Health, she immersed herself in her research to understand how neighborhood environments impact health outcomes.
Sindana is currently interested in studying how the outdoor environment, particularly air pollution, affects dementia and other outcomes common among older adults. She is also interested in epidemiological methods and causal inference. She is currently working on a research project that analyzes how the built environment and social interactions impact dementia risk. She is also studying topics of environmental justice and health disparities.
Sindana is a San Diego native. In her free time, Sindana enjoys cooking, reading, and running.
