HSOC Alumni News Fall 2009
Sabrina Aggarwal '08 is at Johns Hopkins for a masters in health policy and management.
Emily Buzzell '07 spent a year in Americorps ("one of the best experiences of my life") and is now getting an MPH at UC Berkeley.
Nikita Dabas '08 is living in Miami and applying to medical school.
Nancy Ejuma '07 works at the International Monetary Fund as a Research Assistant. "I am grateful to HSOC because the research I did in undergrad is what encouraged me expand my focus and extend my investigation to two years." Nancy and eight other Penn alums started a market research firm, based on the work she did in HSOC, called Africa, Inc. [www.theAfricaInc.com] which has since expanded to other (non-health) sectors. In addition, Nancy is also a graduate student in economics and finance at Johns Hopkins in DC.
Shira Epstein '07 is at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government studying health care policy, and chairs the Health Policy Professional Council at Harvard.
Rogette Esteve '06 worked as a research assistant after graduation, and is in a post-bac program in Boston and applying to medical school.
Markley Foreman '09 is working at HUP doing clinical research in Women's health through the Reproductive Research Unit/ Women's Health Clinical Research Center. Her study is entitled "Predicting Preterm Birth and Adverse Neonatal Outcomes Using Novel Biomarkers: Identifying those at greatest risk to allow for future therapeutic trials," to determine if pre-term birth, and its associated poor neonatal outcomes, can be predicted using biomarkers in the serum of the mother's blood. Markley is planning to apply to JD/MPH programs.
Christine Frauenhoffer '04 has been working since graduation at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston as a Clinical Research Coordinator for Gastrointestinal Oncology.
Bianca Grecu '07 is in her second year at Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia. "I'm involved in an international health group called JeffHEALTH. We work in Rwanda with Rwandan medical students (who monitor our projects throughout the year) in 2 different villages to teach teachers, start income generating projects, and and work to increase the health and well being of the villagers. I spend 4 weeks there this past summer, continuing old projects, and setting up new ones. During my trip, I also got to visit the Rwinkwavu hospital which is run by PIH, and a few of the other hospitals in Kigali. I was also lucky enough to run into Paul Farmer at a restaurant."
Maryellen Guinan '05 worked in the Department of Health Policy at Jefferson after graduation, and in May 2009 completed a JD in Health Law at the Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law.
Dara Holder '08 is at Columbia Medical School.
Alan Hsu '09 is a Philly Fellow at the Philadelphia Eagles Youth Partnership and just got into medical school!
Milenka Jean-Baptiste '05 has been in NYC doing HIV work in many capacities, and is currently serving as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in SA.
Kim Krowne '06 has been in Tanzaniafor much of the last 3 years, doing community development work. Kim and four others have started a non-profit organization called Knock Foundation, website at www.knockfoundation.org
Johanna Lauer '06 is getting her MPH at the University of Michigan in health policy, and previously worked at the Advisory Board Company in DC (hospital consulting firm), and then at the Center for Studying Health System Change (health policy think tank in DC).
Christopher Lee '03 completed a Masters of Science in Traditional Chinese Medicine and is now a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac) in California.
Ashley LeMaire '09 is in NYC conducting clinical trials research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Sha Ling '06 works for GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, working out of the Parsippany NJ Consumer Healthcare office, and managing the entire Canadian 3rd Party Contract Manufacturers. She has worked extensively in China as well.
Alexandra Malabranche '08 is in her second year at Columbia dental school.
Julie Nusbaum '06 is a third year medical (MD) student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
Laura Pang '09 is a law student at Loyola New Orleans on a three-year scholarship.
Mara Pillinger '07 completed her MPH in Global Health works as a Technical Assistance Coordinator in the HIV Testing Unit, Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control at the NYC Dept of Health and Mental Hygiene, working with hospitals, health centers and CBOs that receive funding through the DOHMH to improve their HIV testing programs.
Tasneem Rangwala '05 graduated from dental school and is currently doing a residency in Orthodontics in NYC.
Andrew Rosenthal '06 is in Philadelphia and has co-founded happier.com
(more info: http://bit.ly/happierLaunch) and is president of the Penn Alumni Club of Philadelphia and on the executive committee for the Penn Alumni overseers group.
Collin Weinberger '06 spent "a little bit over a year working as a volunteer in Lima, Peru for Partners in Health (Socios en Salud in Peru), where my main project was to work with their children's health/education program in the slum community of Carabayllo to develop a interactive chilren's museum on a resource limited model. The idea was to develop an educational, fun place where the local families could go together and also to develop a platform through which health information could be taught. I also worked a little bit with their TB/HIV programs, helping out with the organization of several activities for the patients. After Peru, I worked for a small consulting firm in NYC called Global Health Strategies that specialized in communications, strategy, advocacy and fundraising for organizations and companies working on diseases of the developing word. The firm's main focus was using local and international media in donor and developing countries (mostly africa, southeast asia, and latin america) as a vehicle to raise public (and hopefully political) support for global health causes. Most of what I worked on there with dealt with HIV/AIDs prevention (vaccine and microbicides development), tuberculosis, raising awareness of the GSK malaria vaccine that is in development, promoting Hib and HPV vaccination rollout in developing countries, and also raising awareness about the global lymphatic filariasis elimiation efforts. I left Global Health Strategies in February because I wanted to do some more global health policy type work, so I've moved back to DC (my hometown) and in April I started working as a Research Associate at the Institute of Medicine on the Board on Global Health. I'm currently working on a committee study on preventing cardiovascular disease in developing countries."
Katie Wolff '08 is working as a Project Manager for a QA project evaluating end-of-life care given to veterans in the VA for the Penn/VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, and is also in the MS Health Policy Research program part-time.
