Fellows
Alexis Okoh
Center: BETTER
Dr. Alexis Okoh is a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University.
Oluwabunmi (Bunmi) Ogungbe, PHD, MPH, BNSC, RN
Center: IMPACT
Bunmi Ogungbe is an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is Faculty at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, Associate Faculty at Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research. She is a Nurse and cardiovascular epidemiologist dedicated to advancing health equity through research and community-engaged interventions. She is an emerging leader in community-engaged research working to advance cardiovascular health equity, both locally in the US and globally. Her work encompasses: assessing the impact of individual-level and structural social determinants of health through the use of spatial methods, implementing tailored cardiometabolic interventions, characterizing cardiac post-acute sequela of COVID-19, and implementing novel methods to improve diversity in biomedical research. Her global cardiovascular health work focuses on advancing team-based hypertension care and novel hypertension medication adherence approaches, among others.
Through her research and collaborations such as participation in TRAIN, Dr. Ogungbe aims to 1) lead innovative digital and community-engaged interventions to improve hypertension control and advance cardiovascular health equity, 2) implement novel approaches to address underrepresentation in cardiovascular clinical trials, 3) leverage rich phenotypic epidemiologic datasets to assess multilevel determinants of cardiovascular health inequities, which will inform practical, scalable and sustainable interventions.
Joseph Igwe (2022-2023)
Center: DIVERSE
Dr. Joseph Igwe is a postdoctoral fellow at the Morehouse School of Medicine.
Juliana Garcia, PhD, MA
Center: iDIVERSE
Dr. Juliana Garcia is a postdoctoral research associate at Washington State University. She has received her PhD from the Wichita State University in 2020 in Pyschology, with a focus in Community Psychology and Public Health. She has also received her MA nd BS from Seattle Pacific University in 2014 for Social Sustainable Business Management and in 2013 for Pyschology.
Dr. Garcia's research interests lie in community-based participatory research, diversity in clinical trials- specifically in American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander populations, health disparities and inequities, public health. maternal health and wellbeing, recruitment and engagement in diverse populations, and substance abuse and addiction. She is currently focused on advancing recruitment and retention of American Indians into a clinical trial focused on adherence to obstructive sleep apnea treatment through cultural adaptation and creations of videos, messaging, and support materials.
To Dr. Garcia, TRAIN acts as a great support in networking and providing opportunities to focus on better understanding the development and creation of clinical trials, to engage diverse populations, and to engage in strategies that create a cyclic feedback mechanism to better reflect on one's work. She looks forward to continuing to engage in TRAIN's curriculum and resources to help advance her career development through trainings and hands on activities.
Sanaz Dabiri
Center: ATRIL
Dr. Sanaz Dabiri is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California.
