OUR TEAM
Scroll to learn more about Evans' team of highly motivated research fellows, student interns, current students, and previous team members.
RESEARCH TEAM
RITHIKA SENTHILKUMAR
Research Fellow
Rithika earned dual degrees in Public Health and Biochemistry with Honors from UMass Amherst in Spring 2022. She is passionate about addressing health inequity and disparity in the United States through health education and community engagement. She is motivated to learn more about the healthcare delivery system and the challenges it faces in providing adequate and quality care, especially to underserved populations.
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KIEL MCGOWAN
Graduate Student
Kiel is an MPH student in the epidemiology department. He earned a BS in public health with honors in the Spring of 2022. Kiel has a passion for infectious diseases, especially those that tend to affect underserved populations. During his senior year, he completed a thesis on healthcare at the intersection of HIV, hepatitis C, and opioid use disorder among incarcerated populations. Following his MPH studies, Kiel plans to attend medical school and then use his skills to increase wellbeing at both the individual and community levels.
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EMILY MONER
Research Fellow
After completing her M.A. in Linguistic Anthropology at Hunter College, Emily then worked in harm reduction before finally stumbling into the department as an admin temp. She enjoys spending time at the intersection of Anthropology and Public Health and is passionate about how stigma effects the quality of healthcare people receive, particularly in the realm of HIV and substance use. An Amherst local and Mount Holyoke alum, when not working you can typically find her brining, either in the ocean or the float tank, or doting over her quad of guinea pigs.
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EMMA SMALL
Research Intern
Emma is a senior pursuing a dual degree in Public Health and Spanish. She is interested in development and assessment of community-level intervention programs to reduce health disparities. Her Spanish language studies have also fostered an interest in better understanding the role of language in healthcare delivery and how sociolinguistic factors influence people’s interactions with the healthcare system. Emma is motivated to continue learning about public health policy and providing equitable healthcare access for all.
AMRITA ADAK
Research Intern
Amrita is a senior BDIC student with a concentration in Neurobiology, Language, and Trauma. She is passionate about global health policy and minimizing health disparities amongst minority populations in the United States through community engagement programs. Amrita is interested in learning more about the impact of cultural—humility and trauma—informed care in the healthcare system. Her senior year thesis is focused on the compounding impact translating for community members has on refugee children in healthcare settings.
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CURRENT STUDENTS
SOPHIE HERMANN, MD, MAT
Sophie Hermann is a military-trained Family Medicine physician who currently practices medicine part-time in Springfield, MA. She is drawn to child and maternal health, infectious disease, and chronic disease management in her medical practice. Her research focuses on best practices and policies for addressing the social determinants of health in primary care, especially related to maternity and breastfeeding outcomes. She is a doctoral student in the Community Health Education track of the School of Public Health.
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ELIZABETH DELORME
Elizabeth is interested in early intervention and treatment for families with a member who is struggling with substance misuse and understanding the underlying factors that perpetuate generational substance misuse.
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KATE SAUNDERS
Kate is the Manager of Data Analysis at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) in the Bureau of Health Care Safety and Quality. She is an epidemiologist with expertise in cohort studies and disease-based registries. She has extensive experience in chronic disease epidemiology, primarily focusing on cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, substance use disorder. Her work at MDPH includes surveillance and dissemination of aggregate data related to serious reportable events (SREs) and implementing quality improvements programs within health care facilities. Her most recent work has focused on two populations - birth mothers with substance use disorder and their infants as well as nursing home residents with SUD. Kate is currently part of the COVID-19 response team for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and has been deployed since March working closely with nursing homes and rest homes. She created and implemented metrics to identify facilities experiencing severe staffing shortages due to COVID-19 and has coordinated more than 20 clinical staffing support and infection control technical assistance teams.
PREVIOUS STUDENTS
Graduate
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Fall 2019 - present: Gene Garland, Doctoral Candidate
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Fall 2020 - Spring 2022: Amelia Bailey, MPH
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Fall 2021: Tess Jurgensen, MPH, MPA
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Spring 2021: Kelsey Clary
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Fall 2020 - Spring 2021: Shannon Fox, MPH
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Fall 2019 - Spring 2020: Paige Shaffer, MPH
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Fall 2019 - Spring 2020: Devon Goldberg, MPH
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Fall 2019 - Spring 2020: Saloonee Adhikari, MPH
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Summer 2019 - Spring 2020: Monica Pabla, MPH
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Fall 2019 - Spring 2020: Nidhi Malik, MPH
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Fall 2019 - Spring 2020: Susan Lemere, LICSW
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Fall 2018 - Fall 2019: Samantha Moore
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Fall 2017 - Fall 2019: Alice Fiddian-Green, PhD, MPH
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Spring 2019: Marieflor Bauzon
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Spring 2018: Denise Leckenbury
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Fall 2017 - Spring 2018: Hind Aljarahi
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Spring 2018 - Fall 2018: Kirk Sanger
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Undergraduate
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Summer 2022: Taylor Parduhn
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Summer 2022: Hellen Muma
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Fall 2020 - Spring 2022: Samantha Hano
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Fall 2021 - Spring 2022: Kiel McGowan
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Spring 2022: Sophie Johnson
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Fall 2021: Autumn Gagnon
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Summer 2021: Rebecca Chicoye
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Spring 2021: Jessica Hardy
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Fall 2020: Kene Orakwue
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Fall 2019 - Fall 2020: Janie Xu
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Fall 2019 - Fall 2020: Isabella Izidoro
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Spring 2020: Emily Achuck
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Spring 2020: Grace Buckner
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Spring 2020: Grace Coogan
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Fall 2019 - Spring 2020: Makena Caron
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Summer 2019 - Spring 2020: Monica Pabla
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Fall 2019: Sophia Neiman
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Fall 2019: Sam Tarplin