Welcoming New Fellows

CIRA bids a fond farewell and our warmest congratulations to the departing cohort of NIMH fellows who recently completed their training. Additionally, we welcome six new scholars to our NIMH Interdisciplinary HIV Prevention Training Program, directed by Dr. Trace Kershaw. 

Of the fellows leaving the program:

• Dr. Sarah Calabrese has been appointed as an Associate Research Scientist in Epidemiology (Chronic Diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health;
• Dr. Nicole Overstreet has been appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University;
• Dr. Valerie Earnshaw has been appointed as Instructor in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, and Associate Research Scientist, HIV, social/behavioral sciences, at Boston Children's Hospital;
• Dr. Tashuna Albritton continues to pursue her interests HIV/AIDS prevention among minorities in rural communities in North Carolina;
• Jeannia Fu and Alex Bazazi continue their dissertation research at Yale.

We look forward to retaining strong connections to parting fellows and to hearing more about their future research. Joining continuing CIRA fellows, Dr. Amy Smoyer and Ms. Isabel Martinez, are our new fellows:

Erika Montanaro earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Colorado Boulder. She has three primary research goals: (1) to use theory to understand health behavior change in service of intervention development, (2) to use advanced statistical techniques to understand the mechanisms contributing to behavior maintenance and change, and (3) to utilize technology in order to broadly disseminate behavior change interventions. Her CIRA mentor is Dr. Lynn Fiellin.

Courtney Peasant earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at The University of Memphis. During graduate school, Courtney worked in the Departments of Psychology and Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as a Research Assistant. She also co-led community-based initiatives to improve mental health services received by individuals living with HIV in the Greater Memphis Area. Her research investigates the correlates of sexual behavior, including sexual communication. Her mentor is Dr. Tami Sullivan.

Adeya Powell earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology/Quantitative Psychology at the University of Georgia. Her dissertation focused on identifying possible mediators explaining the relationship bullying and suicidal ideology for teens, and determining sample size requirement for non-normal multilevel structural equation models. Alongside mentor Dr. Trace Kershaw, Dr. Powell will combine her background in behavioral research with her interest in public health research, investigating interpersonal violence, health disparities among African American women, and understanding social networks using cell phone data.

Katie Wang earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Yale University. Katie is interested in understanding the experience of stigmatization from the targets’ perspective. During her postdoc at CIRA, Katie is exploring various psychological factors that moderate the relationship between stigma-related stress and HIV risk behaviors among gay and bisexual men. Working in collaboration with her faculty mentor, Dr. John Pachankis, Katie is combining insights from both psychology and public health to inform the development of effective HIV prevention interventions geared toward this vulnerable population.

Jaclyn M. White, MPH is a predoctoral fellow in CIRA's HIV Prevention Training Program and in Chronic Disease Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. Ms. White also serves as a Research Analyst at The Fenway Institute in Boston. Prior to attending Yale, she was the Co-Investigator of a statewide needs assessment of transgender adults in Massachusetts (PI: Reisner) and Director of Epidemiology Projects at The Fenway Institute. Ms. White’s research interests include HIV/AIDS epidemiology and prevention, substance abuse, LGBT health and mental health. Her advisor is Dr. John Pachankis.

Tiara C. Willie is also a new predoctoral fellow at CIRA and is currently working on her Ph.D. in Chronic Disease Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. She earned her B.S. in Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her M.A. in Women's Studies at Southern Connecticut State University. Her research focuses on building knowledge on gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS from an intersectionality framework. Her mentors are Dr. Trace Kershaw and Dr. Jhumka Gupta.

Over the coming weeks, the fellows will be engaging with individual CIRA cores with a view to participating fully in the CIRA community. Please join us in welcoming our new colleagues and making them feel at home!