2021-2022 Fellows
Yanaira Alonso-Caraballo
Dr. Mark Thomas, PPFP Mentor
Emmanuel Bonney
Emmanuel Bonney received his Ph.D. in Physical Therapy at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in 2019. After graduation, he was awarded a grant from the Fogarty International Center to conduct early mental health research in Uganda, where he further explored his interest in a career in developmental psychopathology. His research focuses on understanding cross-cultural differences in neurobehavioral health and developing new technological screening and interventions to improve the lives of children with atypical trajectories such as autism and developmental coordination disorder.
Dr. Kathleen Thomas, Department Chair
Dr. Jed Elison, PPFP Mentor
Hannah Cory
Hannah Cory is a registered dietitian and public health nutrition researcher. Her work uses social epidemiologic, mixed, and participatory methods as a means to better understand and dismantle the systemic barriers young people face in building healthy relationships with food and their bodies. At the University of Minnesota, her research will explore how young people's experiences of racism and other forms of discrimination and stigma intersect and impact inequities in chronic disease risk. She received her Ph.D. in Population Health Sciences from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and is also an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Research Scholar program.
Dr. Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Department Chair
Dr. Susan Mason, PPFP Mentor
Katerina Gonzales
Dr. Carl Rosen, Department Chair
Dr. Heidi Roop, PPFP Mentor
Maria Gutierrez De Jesus
Maria Gutierrez De Jesus received her Ph.D. in Native American Studies from the University of California at Davis. Her research interests include indigenous-based pedagogies, community-based education, community media, and indigenous cultural and language revitalization. Her research incorporates discussions of culture, language, community-based and land-based education, indigenous epistemologies, and indigenous identities. Through her previous postdoctoral studies at ENES UNAM Morelia (Mexico)-University of California and at UNC-Chapel Hill, she has extended her fieldwork research for her current book manuscript on P’urhépecha indigenous cultural and language revitalization and has taught about indigenous women in contemporary times. She is P’urhépecha and works in collaboration with P’urhépecha-based indigenous radios in Michoacán, Mexico.
Hima Hassenruck-Guidipati
HyeJin Hwang
HyeJin Hwang received her Ph.D. in Educational Studies at the University of Michigan in 2018. Her dissertation studies were supported by the American Educational Research Association Dissertation Grant. She previously worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Florida Center for Reading Research in Florida State University where she was affiliated with a federal grant from the Institute of Educational Sciences. Her research interests focus on reading comprehension and content learning in K-12 settings, especially for multilingual students. At the University of Minnesota, her research projects will investigate potential factors to explain reading comprehension and content learning, as well as design and test interventions to support reading comprehension and content learning in K-12 settings.
Dr. Kristen McMaster, Department Chair
Dr. Panayota Kendeou, PPFP Mentor
Magdala Lissa Jeudy
Magdala Lissa Jeudy earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University in Romance Studies in 2021. Her research focuses on the ways that French Naturalist narratives complicate our notions of what is “normal,” which define modern medical practices and philosophies from the nineteenth century to our present day. Her work is built on philological, historical, and intersectional approaches that aim to disrupt medical constructs of disability, gender, and race, to advance conversations about health care disparities and equity. As an educator, she is committed to a pedagogy that is a process of inquiry, which allows students to question their deeply entrenched assumptions, reconfigure concepts of normalcy, and accept the unique circumstances of others leading a recognition and celebration of diversity.
Dr. Susan Noakes, Department Chair
Drs. Jennifer Row & Erin Durban, PPFP Mentors
Juan Fernando Maestre
Dr. Lana Yarosh, PPFP Mentor
M. Patrice Quipse
Dr. Kathryn Quick, Department Chair
Dr. Kathryn Quick, PPFP Mentor
Aditi Rajendran
Dr. Peter Demerath, PPFP Mentor
Alayo Tripp
Dr. Benjamin Munson, PPFP Mentor
Shahrin Upoma
She holds a Ph.D. in Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Dallas. She holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Dhaka and a master's degree in Economics from the University of North Texas. Her agenda is to produce work that can be used by professionals, industry experts, and others trusted with the decision-making process.
Dr. Kathryn Quick, Department Chair & PPFP Mentor
Continuing 2020-2021 Fellows
Wu Yarn Daphne Chan
Daphne Chan received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2019. Her research interests are in polymer science and sustainable materials. During graduate school, she developed engineering plastics from underutilized protein feedstock, and explored methods to devulcanize and recycle used tire rubber. At the University of Minnesota, she is developing nanoporous block polymer ultrafiltration membranes, with a particular focus on anti-fouling and functional membranes for challenging separation processes.
Dr. David Blank, Department Chair
Dr. Marc Hillmyer, PPFP Mentor
A. Kelly Lane
Biology Teaching and Learning (CBS)
Kelly Lane earned her Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Georgia in 2018 and previously worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Now a member of the Department of Biology Teaching and Learning, Kelly researches the impacts of social interaction such as mentorship, discussions with peers, and instructors’ classroom narratives on both undergraduate and graduate students’ skill development and sense of belonging in science. Her current projects include 1) identifying the gender narratives biology instructors imply through their teaching and the impact these narratives have on trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming students 2) the explicit and implicit expectations for degree completion experienced by biology graduate students, and 3) the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the mentorship experiences of biology graduate students.
Dr. David Kirpatrick, Department Chair
Jessica Horvath Williams
Jessica Horvath Williams earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from UCLA in 2020, and is the co-chair of the Critical Disability Studies Collective at the University of Minnesota. She researches at the intersection of feminist disability studies and nineteenth-century U.S. history and literature, with particular emphasis on domestic and slave labor and early eugenicist discourse. Her current project investigates how female ideality served as a precursor for the development of three ideologies commonly critiqued by critical disability studies: the individual responsibility for health, the absence of futurity for disabled people, and the role of wage labor in the construction of (dis)ability.
Drs. Andrew Elfenbein and Zenzele Isoke, Department Chairs
Drs. Doug Kearney & Jigna Desai, PPFP Mentors