Three doctoral students in the Department of Epidemiology received predoctoral fellowships from the American Heart Association (AHA), which began January 2020. The AHA predoctoral fellowship program seeks “to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of promising students who are matriculated in predoctoral or clinical health professional degree training programs and who intend careers as scientists, physician-scientists or other clinician-scientists, or related careers aimed at improving global cardiovascular health.” AHA predoctoral fellowships provide support for student tuition, stipends, and travel to scientific conferences, among other resources.

Najibah Galadanci will explore cardiopulmonary abnormalities in children with sickle cell disease. The aims of the fellowship are to quantify how sickle cell disease impacts cardiopulmonary function in children and determine when dysfunction first manifests. She will use the Dissemination and Implementation of Stroke Prevention Looking at the Care Environment (DISPLACE) study led by Julie Kanter, Associate Professor of Medicine, to answer these questions. Najibah’s mentors are Virginia Howard, Professor of Epidemiology, and Julie Kanter.

Gargya Malla will investigate how the risk of heart failure varies by race, sex, and geographic location among persons with diabetes. She will use the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke cohort study (REGARDS), led by Professor of Biostatistics, Suzanne Judd, to answer these questions. April Carson, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, is Malla’s primary mentor.

Amrita Mukherjee will use UAB’s electronic medical record to study the cardiovascular disease risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients. She will also incorporate data from UAB’s Tumor Registry. Mukherjee’s mentors are Sadeep Shrestha, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, and Beth Lewis, Professor and Chair of Epidemiology.

Dean Paul Erwin shared, “the School of Public Health is committed to developing the next generation of scientists and research methodologists. We are extremely proud to have three AHA predoctoral fellows for 2020, and deeply appreciative of the mentorship they are receiving from faculty. Please join us in celebrating this achievement.”

All SOPH doctoral students are encouraged to enroll in “Public Health Grant Writing” and participate in the Office of Research’s summer grant writing workshop. Contact sophresearch@uab.edu for information on both the course and workshop.