Written By: Ashtyn Nichols
Six School of Public Health Joint Doctoral students have been awarded the Presidential Graduate Research Fellowship. The Presidential Graduate Research Fellowship is a university-wide competition designed to recruit nonresident graduate students who demonstrate outstanding potential for achievement in research or creative activity and provides tuition waivers for a year of graduate studies.
SPH Awardees in the academic year 2022-2023 include Doreen Tuhebwe Jegede Oluwatosin, Samantha Shinder , Kristina Brandveen, Jyotsna Negi, and Jocelyn Burridge . The multistep selection process is highly competitive. Recipients are selected based on baccalaureate and other academic accolades and additional awards, achievements, and departmental recommendations.
The School of Public Health would like to highlight two of the recipients, Doreen Tuhewbe and Jyotsna Negi.
Doreen Tuhebwe is pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Health with a concentration in Global Health in the San Diego State and UC San Diego joint doctoral program. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Health Sciences and a Master of Public Health Degree from Makerere University School of Public Health in Kampala, Uganda. She also has experience in the implementation of research and service projects, writing research protocols, monitoring field work/ experiments, and conducting ethnography studies with over 20 publications in peer-reviewed journals.
At Makerere University, Doreen excelled in teaching, examination, research, and community service. From the years 2015 to 2020 she steered the Makerere School of Public Health graduate student mentorship program aimed at supporting students as they journey through their training. Doreen has written grants and led her own research through small grant programs. She is a founder member of Women in Global Health- Uganda Chapter and the MakSPH (Makerere School of Public Health)-Master of Public Health Alumni Association. Doreen has an interest in adolescent reproductive health and autonomy, disease control including HIV/AIDS and neglected tropical diseases, and models of service delivery for vulnerable populations in urban poor settings, cross-border, and fishing communities.
Jyotsna Negi is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Health- Global Health within the San Diego State and UC San Diego joint doctoral program. Jyotsna earned her Bachelor of Science in Statistics from Kirori Mal College and a Master of Science in Statistics from Hindu College. She is passionate about health equity research and her work focuses on examining inequality and disparity in health financing, non-communicable diseases, and maternal/child health. Specifically, Jyotsna focuses on the intersectionality of gender and other social dimensions of inequality that adversely affect the health of poor-served and underserved populations.
Over the past decade, she has worked in the aforementioned domains with regional, national, and global healthcare organizations with diverse data sets such as national sample surveys, demographic health surveys, and Health Income and Expenditure surveys of India, Sri Lanka, and Timor-Leste. Her current academic area of interest is in using social networks and social norms theories as an equity lens in health promotion and behavior research.
The School of Public Health congratulates all of the Presidential Graduate Research Fellows!
