What brought you to the UAB School of Public Health?

The collaborative nature of the School of Public Health and the Department of Biostatistics is what drew me here to UAB. From my first interview, I could tell that the School promotes the kind of collaborative and supportive environment that I was really excited to be a part of. I could see that there would be unique opportunities to collaborate with other faculty who have similar interests and to expand my research interests in new and exciting ways. The School and the Department’s focus on teaching excellence was another factor that really made me excited to join the faculty, and the opportunity to teach and engage students in my research is very exciting to me.

What is the broad focus of your research?

My applied research mostly focuses on sickle cell disease and COVID-19, and my methodological research mainly focuses on novel clustering methods for complex data with nested or grouped structure.

Where did you receive your training and degrees?

I received my BS in Economics from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and I received my MPH and my PhD from the University of Memphis.

What is the most exciting project you are currently working on?

I’m currently working on a dry eye study, and I am really excited about being involved in it because it is a new research direction for me and the data is very complex and interesting to work with.

What is your favorite self-authored manuscript?

For sentimental reasons, my favorite self-authored manuscript is my first one: Real-World Association Between mRNA Vaccination and Infection from the Omicron Strain of SARS-CoV2: A Population-Level Analysis. I developed the idea as a course project for my Epi 3 course when I was in my PhD program. I really enjoyed working on the project, and I learned a lot in the process.

What professional accomplishment are you most proud of so far in your career?

I am still in the early stage of my career. At this point, the professional accomplishment that I am most proud of is joining the School of Public Health and the Department of Biostatistics at UAB.

What is the coolest training or program you've been a part of, or your favorite conference you've attended?

During my PhD, I was a graduate research assistant to Tennessee’s Sickle Cell Data Collection program, which is a multi-state initiative that aims to quantify how many people are living with sickle cell disease in the US and to learn more about their demographics, access to healthcare, and utilization patterns. It was a great experience for me to learn about data management and organization, conduct analyses, and present findings from our work in various settings. The experience also introduced me to sickle cell disease as a research topic, which is still a major research interest of mine. As far as conferences, APHA is one of my favorite conferences to attend.

What kind of research would you like to be doing that you haven’t yet had the opportunity to do?

I would like to expand my methodological research into other novel clustering methods for various complex data types. For applied research, I think it would be interesting to get involved in research into impacts of urban heat and topics related to nutrition.

If you weren't in academia, what would your career be?

If I wasn’t in academia, I would be working in local public health. Before working in academia, I had the opportunity to work as a Biostatistician at the Shelby County Health Department in Memphis, Tennessee. The department was very collaborative, and I loved the work I was involved in there. I enjoyed being engaged in community health work like local disease surveillance and reporting.