Student Accomplishments

Community Health and Health Behavior program doctoral student Michelle Goulette began studying drug-related health policy after seeing the toll of the opioid epidemic on the people she cared about. Her passion and determination to tackle the issue took her all the way to the White House, where she interned in the Executive Office of the President’s Office of National Drug Control Policy studying policies that impact communities at the national level.

During the culminating event of UB’s Social Impact Fellows program, MPH student Diana Sieracki joined Pratiksha Biswal, MBA ’25; Nana Afia Owusu-Ansah, MSW ’26; and Shuyang Sun, PhD ’28, in earning the award for best implementation for their project with Partnership for the Public Good. The program brings together students from the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Management, School of Social Work and—for the first time—the School of Public Health and Health Professions. Working in interdisciplinary teams, the students used different perspectives and skills to make an impact at local nonprofit organizations. The award recognized the immediate and future impact of the team’s project to meet the organization’s needs with meaningful, practical applications that included a proposal to bring a community responder team to East Buffalo.

Yohane Phiri, PhD, postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, won first place at UB’s 14th Annual Postdoctoral Scholars Research Symposium, which showcases the research done by postdoctoral scholars through a research abstract/poster competition. Phiri won for his project "Pre-conception health and ambient air pollution associated with preterm birth and low-birth weight among US singletons." The project was one of 23 posters from 15 departments across UB that competed at the symposium this past fall. Phiri is pictured with Kristen M. Coakley Ashare, director of UB's Office of Postdoctoral Scholars.