Public Health Magazine - Fall 2008 - Woodruff Health Sciences ...

Penelope Howards
Juan Leon
Saad Omer
of HIV in Africa. Omer comes to
Emory from Johns Hopkins.
Justin Remais, assistant professor
of environmental and
occupational health, studies
the spatial and temporal factors
that propagate environmentally
mediated tropical
diseases. Key to his approach
Justin Remais
Kevin Ward
Zhou Yang
is linking models of environmental
phenomena with
mathematical models of disease
transmission to answer
fundamental questions about
how diseases spread along
environmental pathways.
Jessica Sales is a research
assistant professor and
recent postdoctoral fellow
in behavioral sciences and
health education. She is a coinvestigator
on a randomized
controlled trial to reduce decay
of HIV-preventive behaviors
among African American adolescent
girls, a school-based
flu vaccination program, and
an HIV prevention program to
strengthen family interaction
and support early adolescent
development.
An assistant professor of epidemiology,
Anne Spaulding
is a physician specializing
in infectious and chronic
disease epidemiology in
correctional and drug-using
populations. She has worked
with the Rhode Island Department
of Corrections, CDC’s
National Center for HIV,
STD, and TB Prevention and
National Center for Infectious
Diseases, and Georgia Correctional
Health Care. Spaulding
previously was a research
assistant professor.
Matthew Strickland joined the
RSPH as assistant professor of
environmental and occupational
health after serving
with the CDC’s National Center
on Birth Defects and Developmental
Disabilities. His
interests include the epidemiology
of congenital heart
defects and associations
between ambient air pollution
and adverse pregnancy
outcomes. Strickland also
serves as assistant professor
of epidemiology.
Patrick Sullivan, associate
professor of epidemiology, is
a veterinarian specializing in
infectious diseases and vaccine
development. He spent
most of his career at the CDC,
most recently as chief of the
Behavior and Clinical Surveillance
Branch, and also worked
with the HIV Vaccine Trials
Network at the University of
Washington in Seattle.
Poul Thorsen, research professor
of epidemiology, comes
to Emory from the Institute of
Public Health at the University
of Aarhus in Denmark. His
research encompasses prenatal
risk factors, infectious
causes of preterm delivery,
low birth weight, autism,
fetal neurologic development
and alcohol consumption in
pregnancy, and neurodevelopmental
outcomes.
Kevin Ward, research associate
professor of epidemiology,
is an expert in cancer
surveillance, registration, and
control. He serves as deputy
director of the Georgia Center
for Cancer Statistics and as
co-principal investigator of
the National Cancer Institute’s
Surveillance, Epidemiology,
and End Results Registry
in Metropolitan Atlanta. He
received his MPH and PhD
degrees from the RSPH.
Zhou Yang, assistant professor
of health policy and
management, comes to the
RSPH from the University of
Florida. Her research interests
include the cost and efficacy
of prescription drugs and the
economic burden of chronic
diseases. Her articles have
appeared in the Journal of
Human Resources, Health
Services Research, the Journal
of Gerontology Social Science,
and the American Journal of
Managed Care.
fall 2008 public health magazine 5
In Brief