About Me

A bit about me personally...

I'm a first generation American, born and raised in Atlanta to West African immigrant parents. I have two awesome siblings (I'm in the middle) and an amazingly smart dog.

How did I get into public health?

I attended college on a full volleyball scholarship and worked three jobs to get through school. One of those positions was as an NIH MBRS-RISE Fellow. I was afforded opportunities to travel for summer research experiences, and worked as a lab assistant during the academic year. I first became interested in public health at this internship at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California. There, I learned about health disparities and knew I found my niche. I held another internship as a NIH MHIRT Fellow at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha, South Africa the following summer, graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and pursued public health, specifically epidemiology, after graduation.

What about my public health work?

My work has always been driven by the exploration of health disparities, even before I moved to epidemiology from biochemistry. My Masters Thesis focused on geospatial disparities in sexually transmitted infection(STI) rates in the Southeastern United States and their associated community characteristics.

My dissertation worked focused on racial and geospatial disparities in triple-negative breast cancer using the United States Cancer Statistics Database. I worked as a 2nd Century Initiative(2CI) fellow for the first two years of my program and received a Ruth L. Kirschtein National Research Service Award for Diversity(1F31MD012752) from the NIH in my final year to support my dissertation. The analysis included over 1 million cases of breast cancer from 2010-2014.

My general research interests include combining spatial analysis and advanced statistical modeling methods to address social and physical environmental impacts on cancer health outcomes to address burden of disease and disparities further advancing the field of prevention research.

I hope to explore the role that social policy, discrimination, and generational trauma play in various cancer outcomes that disproportionately affect the black population in the US. I primarily use biostatistical and epidemiologic methods, mixed modeling, and geospatial modeling in my research.