Injury Prevention Center Interns

Sarah Boeke

BA Candidate, 2024, Community and Global Public Health, U-M School of Public Health

Mentors: Dr. Stella Resko

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioids

Summer Project: This summer, Sarah will contribute to ongoing projects within the Substance Use Research Team in the School of Social Work at Wayne State. This includes conducting qualitative data analysis on interviews with peer recovery coaches in Michigan to identify trends in experiences and attitudes, administering surveys at methadone clinics in Detroit, and assisting in the evaluation of mobile methadone clinic services.

Lisa Koh

MPH Candidate, 2025, Epidemiology, U-M School of Public Health

Mentors: Dr. Carina Gronlund

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Older Adult Falls

Summer Project: This summer, Lisa will assist in summarizing literature, analyzing data, and contributing to a paper on vulnerabilities to falls and violence-related injuries among residents 65 and older in homes and neighborhoods particularly vulnerable to extreme heat and flooding. This research will help in understanding the range of climate change vulnerabilities and funding priorities to increase resilience of these communities to climate change.

Lily Tiefel

MPH Candidate, 2025, Health Behavior and Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentors: Dr. Melissa Tinney

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Concussion

Summer Project: This summer, Lily is working with the Concussion Center to create the first college-level concussion baseline testing using C3 Logix for the University of Michigan Adaptive Sports and Fitness Program. Some of her responsibilities will include screening athletes and conducting concussion awareness surveys. The ultimate goal is that this testing can become a standard practice for U-M adaptive sports programs and potentially for other universities’ adaptive sports programs.

Hailey Weiss

MPH Candidate, 2025, Health Behavior and Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentors: Dr. Ishaka Oche and Dr. Lindsey Barranco

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Violence

Summer Project: This summer, Hailey will be working in the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) within CDC’s National Center of Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC). She will be working on implementation sciences, assisting the transition of research into practice. She will also be working on the evaluation of a five-year study on a rape prevention and education program.

Karli Monahan

MPH Candidate, 2024, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentors: Dr. Gina Dahlem

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioids

Summer Project: Karli will be working on a project under the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP) grant from the Department of Justice. She will primarily be working on analyzing interviews with community partners and evaluating opioid education and post-overdose interventions.

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Qingyi Cai

MPH Candidate, 2024, General Epidemiology, U-M School of Public Health

Mentors: Dr. Briana Mezuk

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Suicide

Summer Project: Qingyi will be working on the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) Pregnancy Transitions Project, which aims to use a mixed method to examine contextual and individual risk factors associated with current and recent pregnancy among female decedents.

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Alexa Jones

MPH Candidate, 2024, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentors: Mr. Danny Wade & Ms. Pauline Hunter

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Cross-cutting

Summer Project: Alexa will be working with the CDC to help develop fully conversational experiences utilizing Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI).  She will learn to utilize an accessible conversational AI that can possibly provide interactive exploration of data visualization techniques opportunities that will not only assist in providing real-time data to users but allow users to interact with the AI chatbots in real-time conversations concerning any questions they may have.

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Sierra Perez

MPH Candidate, 2024, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentors: Ms. Kathleen Howe

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Violence, Opioids

Summer Project: Sierra will be working on the Detroit Vacant Lot Reuse & Firearms Violence Prevention Study, where she will collect data by interviewing residents engaged in these projects. Sierra will also work on an analysis of opioid legislation in the state of Michigan and develop a translational output.

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Mary Dwan

BA Candidate, 2023, International Studies with Sub-Plan in Global Environment and Health, U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Mentors: Dr. Gina Dahlem and Ms. Marie Snodgrass

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioids & Overdose

Ms. Dwan’s Summer Project: Improving, evaluating, and relaunching Facts Over Fear Opioid Awareness Curriculum for middle and high school students to optimize the program’s reach and provide in-person educational experiences within the community; on a separate project, evaluating the Recovery Opioid Overdose Team (ROOT+), a quick response team linking survivors to treatment and recovery support services in Washtenaw County.

Kamara Gardner

MPH Candidate, 2023, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: CDC, Ms. Akadia Kacha-Ochana

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Suicide, Overdose

Ms. Gardner’s Summer Project: Working at the Office of Strategy and Innovation (OSI) within CDC’s National Center of Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) to support projects on injury and violence prevention through data science application.

Avery Moje

MPH Candidate, 2023, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. Lisa Wexler

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Firearm Injury

Ms. Moje’s Summer Project: Working with the Family Safety Net Project, which seeks to increase the safety of youth in Northwest Alaska by providing information and resources to support families in storing firearms safely; tasks involve cleaning and analyzing survey data, writing reports and publications for the project’s stakeholders, and developing materials for community partners.

Alejandro Rivas

MPH Candidate, 2023, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. Sarah Peitzmeier

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Intimate Partner Violence

Mr. Rivas’s Summer Project: Analyzing and reviewing the CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System data on intimate partner homicides; also assisting in writing up a formal report on barriers to sexual assault prevention.

Brandon Bond

MPH Candidate, 2022, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health
MSW Candidate, 2022, Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse, U-M School of Social Work

Mentor: CDC, Dr. Greta Massetti and Dr. Gwendolyn Cattledge

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Child Maltreatment, Youth Violence, ACEs, & Global Injury Prvention

Mr. Bond’s Summer Project: Assist in conducting literature reviews of the experiences of violence among vulnerable populations and in high-risk settings, such as children in conflict settings and refugee populations. Also, help analyze complex survey data on violence against children and youth for reports and publications, including assessing the health impacts of exposure to violence in childhood and assessing the risk factors and health impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences in diverse global settings.

Meredith Eis

MPH Candidate, 2022, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health; MPP Candidate, 2022, U-M Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Mentor: Dr. Cindy Ewell Foster

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Violence Prevention (firearms/suicide)

Ms. Eis’ Summer Project: Working with the FACTS project data to develop papers from the data on pilot messaging around suicide and firearm safety in rural communities

Vishaka Kalra

MPH Candidate, 2022, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. Sarah Stoddard

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioid Overdose

Ms. Kalra’s Summer Project: Assist in research on opioid overdose, in implementation and expansion of a musical outreach program to educate middle and high school students in Michigan on opioids and their risks, and in evaluating Changing Lives and Staying Sober (CLASS) Agency’s substance use and opioid overdose prevention and response activities.

Mohammed Saqib

MPH Candidate, 2022, Health Behavior Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. JT Eckner

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Concussion

Mr. Saqib’s Summer Project: Working with the Michigan Medicine Neurosport team on identifying predictors of slow recovery from concussion injury.

Areli Ariana Balderrama

MPH Candidate 2022, Health Behavior & Health Education, U-M School of Public Health; MURP Candidate, 2022; U-M Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning

Mentor: Dr. Sarah Stoddard

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Substance Abuse

Mx. Balderrama’s Summer Project: Assist with research on a summer program for at-promise youth and the impact of COVID-19 on a Peer Recovery Coach (PRC) program.

Ferhana Begum

Masters of Public Health (MPH) in Epidemiology, 2021, University of Michigan School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. Lisa Wexler

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Suicide Prevention

Ms. Begum’s Summer Project: Work on suicide prevention by means of safe firearm storage among indigenous and native peoples in rural and remote Alaska.

Miranda Gali

MPH & MSW Dual Degree Candidate, Health Behavior & Health Education, U-M School of Public Health, U-M School of Social Work

Mentor: Dr. Patrick Carter & Dr. Gina Dahlem

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Violence Prevention, Opioid Overdose Prevention

Ms. Gali’s Summer Project: Work on Project IntERact (Dr. Carter), which aims to implement health coaching and smartphone app technology to help promote gun safety and mitigate violence among 16-24 year-olds in Flint, MI. Also work on Project A.C.T.I.O.N (Dr. Dahlem), which is a tool used to help educate community laypersons, first responders, and more on naloxone and opioid overdose reversal.

Eskira Kahsay

MPH Candidate 2021, Epidemiology, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Laura Thomas, LMSW, MPH, CCRP

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioid Overdose

Ms. Kahsay’s Summer Project: Work on the Prescription Opioid Wellness and Engagement Research in the Emergency Department (PowerED) study led by Dr. Amy Bohnert, a randomized control trial on the efficacy of an adaptive mobile health intervention to reduce non-medical opioid use following emergency room discharge.

Valerie Micol

MPH, MS, PhD Candidate, 2022, Clinical Science, U of M Department of Psychology

Mentor: Dr. Ewa Czyz

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Youth Suicide Prevention

Ms. Micol’s Summer Project: Development of Motivational Interviewing-enhanced text-based support for parents of teens who have visited the emergency department for suicidal ideation or attempt.

Dalia Saif

MPH & MPP Dual Degree Candidate 2022, Health Behavior & Health Education (U-M School of Public Health) and International Policy (U-M Ford School of Public Policy)

Mentor: Susan Franzen, MS & Dr.Justin Heinze

Injury Prevention Focus Area: ACEs & Suicide Prevention

Ms. Saif’s Summer Project: Work on the Flint Youth Injury Study-3, which aims to understand how the intergenerational transmission of substance use is affected by Cannabis legalization. Assist with literature reviews, codebooks, online surveys, conducting and analyzing interviews.

Keara Sullivan

Master of Public Health, 2021, School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. Jason Goldstick

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioid Overdose

Ms. Sullivan’s Summer Project: Work with the System for Opioid Overdose Surveillance (SOS), a system providing near real-time overdose data to community stakeholders to assist in their timely response and tracking of potential overdose hot spots.

Charlotte Burnett

MPH & MSW Dual Degree Candidate 2020, Health Behavior & Health Education, U-M School of Public Health and U-M School of Social Work

Mentor: Laura Thomas, MPH

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioid Overdose

Ms. Burnett’s Work: Work on the Opt-In Project, that aims to test an opioid intervention with the distribution of naloxone. Assist with recruitment, conducting quantitative and qualitative research methods with participants and site staff, tracking data, and evaluating the program to measure for impact.

Christine Callahan

MS 2019, Movement Science, U-M School of Kinesiology

Mentor: Dr. Steven Broglio

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Concussion

Ms. Callahan’s Work: Assist with research on assessment diagnoses, long-term effects, and treatment of sport-related concussion. 

Janie Felton

MPH Candidate 2020, Health Behavior & Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. Quyen Ngo

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Youth Violence

Ms. Felton’s Work: Lead a qualitative study about hope, mindfulness, and gainful activity among people who report partner and non-partner violence. Also, recruitment for the Mind and Voice Project in Flint, and help with other studies about sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and firearm injury.

Ashley Rapp

MPH Candidate 2020, Epidemiology, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. Christopher Harper

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Violence

Ms. Rapp’s Work: Onsite at the National Injury Prevention Center at the CDC, to help conduct a discourse analysis of media narratives regarding violence against women.

Jane Smith

MPH Candidate 2020, Health Behavior and Health Education, U-M School of Public Health, Certificate in Injury Science

Mentor: Jenna Kirschenman

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Multiple

Ms. Smith’s Summer Project: Onsite at CDC to assist in setting up a grant program, identifying grantee needs, providing technical assistance, doing strategic planning for coalition activities, and helping prepare manuscripts.

Pnina Tranen

MPH Candidate 2020, Health Behavior and Health Education, U-M School of Public Health; and MSW Candidate 2020, Interpersonal Practice Mental Health, U-M School of Social Work

Mentor: Dr. Justin Heinze

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioid Overdose and Youth Violence

Ms. Tranen’s Summer Project: Work on program evaluation of community partners, including evaluation of an opioid overdose prevention program. I will also be working on projects through Michigan’s Core State Violence and Injury prevention Program and activities may include assisting in grant writing and creation of materials for community partners.

Meghna Tummala

Joint BS MD student – BS 2021, Public Health, School of Public Health; MD 2025, School of Medicine, Brown University

Mentor: Dr. Jason Goldstick

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioid Overdose

Ms. Tummala’s Summer Project: Work on the System for Opioid Overdose Surveillance (S.O.S) Project, collaborating with EMS, Emergency Departments, and Medical Examiner offices to collect data on nonfatal and fatal opioid overdoses across the state of Michigan. Worked on visualization and heat maps for the data collected. This project will result in a functional model system that can be implemented nationwide.

Cate Vreede

MPH Candidate 2020, Health Behavior and Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. Jason Goldstick

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioid Overdose

Ms. Vreede’s Summer Project: Work with Dr. Goldstick and the Washtenaw County Health Department on the SOS Washtenaw County Project, which utilizes SOS data to create real-time hot spot maps of opioid overdoses. The project team works with community stakeholders to determine how they can best utilize the SOS data to adjust their service delivery for people with opioid use disorders. Ms. Vreede assisted in the collection and analysis of qualitative interviews and focus groups with community stakeholders to inform the development of a toolkit on how community stakeholders can create a coordinated response to opioid overdoses based on the SOS data. 

Brianne Brenneman, BA

MPH Candidate 2019, Health Behavior & Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Erin Bonar, PhD (U-M Psychiatry)

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Sexual Violence

Ms. Brenneman’s main focus was a project where college students were asked what they want in a sexual violence prevention program. Another project she worked on was hot-spot mapping where she mapped areas in Ann Arbor that students had heard about sexual assaults happening or areas they thought were risky.

Laura Hollander, BA

MPH Candidate 2019, Health Behavior & Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Sarah Stoddard (U-M School of Nursing)

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Youth Violence, Substance abuse

Ms. Hollander worked with Dr. Sarah Stoddard on the Youth Empowerment Solutions for Positive Futures (YES-PF) Program. She assisted Dr. Stoddard with authoring a curriculum to increase the empowerment and future orientations of middle school students identified for being at risk for school dropout and drug use. Along with developing curricula, she planned and implemented orientation sessions for the teachers selected for this school-based intervention, and helped Dr. Stoddard gather baseline data from student participants.

Lauren Leslie, BA

MPH Candidate 2019, Health Behavior & Health Education, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Dr. Ashley D’Inverno (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Division of Violence Prevention, Surveillance Branch)

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence

Ms. Leslie assisted in developing a syndromic definition for intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence (SV) by reviewing chief complaint data from IPV/SV emergency department visits from the CDC’s Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE). Additionally, literature and other data sources were reviewed to identify ICD-10-CM codes that are used for IPV/SV medical visits. Syndromic surveillance provides trends of IPV/SV which be tracked over time and overlaid with social health determinants to inform best practice prevention and control efforts. Additionally, she supported the development of a paper examining the link between a state-level gender inequality index and state rates of sexual violence and intimate partner violence.

Amanda Mauri, MPH

PhD Student, Health Services Organization and policy; AHRQ Pre-Doctoral Fellow, U-M School of Public Health

Mentor: Rebecca Haffajee (U-M School of Public Health)

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioid Overdose

Ms. Mauri worked on multiple projects related to policy approaches to address opioid misuse and firearm violence. Along with her collaborators Dr. Rebecca Haffajee and Ms. Tarlise Townsend, she completed a scoping review of quantitative evaluations of state opioid misuse prevention policies. Dr. Haffajee and Ms. Mauri are also co-authoring a project that maps state-level adoption of opioid laws overtime. Ms. Mauri also participated in the FACTS policy workgroup and looks forward to continuing her involvement in the task force.

Tarlise Townsend, MPP

Joint PhD Student, Health Services Organization and Policy (U-M School of Public Health) & Sociology (U-M LSA)

Mentor: Rebecca Haffajee (U-M SPH)

Injury Prevention Focus Area: Opioid Overdose

National efforts to reduce prescription opioid dependence and misuse, an important element of the current opioid epidemic, have included the 2010 reformulation of OxyContin into an abuse-deterrent form and the 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, among others. Research has shown that OxyContin reformulation contributed to declines in OxyContin prescribing, and initial evidence suggests that the 2016 guidelines accelerated the ongoing decline in opioid prescribing for chronic pain. However, it is unclear whether these reductions have targeted the patients at greatest risk of misuse, addiction, and/or overdose, while preserving appropriate pain management for patients who need it. The study examines whether prescribing changes attributed to these two interventions varied by race/ethnicity and, if so, how this influenced racial/ethnic disparities in opioid prescribing. With Dr. Haffajee’s mentorship, Ms. Townsend spent the summer conceptualizing the study idea, design, and statistical analyses, conducting a literature review, learning SAS, and learning to work with medical claims data.