Two students from the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health received awards for their research posters at GW’s 2016 Research Days. The students were among the 23 members of the EOH community, including alumni, faculty, and staff, linked to 14 of the more than 320 posters presented at the Health and Medicine Research Day.
Environmental Health Science and Policy MPH Student Nathan L. McCray earned the Judges Choice Award – Masters for his poster, “Associations between Body Mass Index and Semen Parameters among men from the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area.” His coauthors include his research advisor, Professor and EOH Chair Melissa Perry, as well as EOH DrPH Student Francesca M. Branch and Global Environmental Health Alumna GiaLinh “Linda” N. Nguyen. Branch won the Collaborative Science Award for her poster, “Urinary Tin, Cadmium and Lead and Associations with Body Mass Index and Waist Circumference: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011-2012.” Perry is one of her coauthors; the other is Zhen Chen, a biostatistician from NIH National Institute of Child Health and Human Development who is on her dissertation committee and reviewed her work for the obesogen analyses.
“The event is a great way to showcase what terrific research we do in our department,” Perry says. “We had very good participation this year.”
The posters reveal a great deal of collaboration among some of the students. For example, both Branch and McCray work in Perry’s lab. Branch, who was a coauthor on four other posters, observes that those in the lab regularly “send our work out to all the other research assistants for feedback/edits to ensure that we provide the best possible draft to Dr. Perry. This affords each of us the opportunity to stay involved in all aspects of the work coming out of the lab, as well as allowing us to see multiple ways to accomplish the same goal, whether the goal is making a poster presentation, doing a literature review, or conducting data analysis.”
Other posters by EOH faculty, staff and students are:
EHS&P MPH Student Alison Chiaramonte presented “Pregnant Women’s Health Consequences following exposure to PBDEs,” which she worked on with the help of her research mentor, Assistant Professor Ami Zota.
EHS&P MPH Student Megan E Christian’s poster was “Quality of Life Improvements for Residential Permanent Relocation Following the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident,” research she worked on with the aid of Professor Lance Price.
EHS&P MPH Student Wendy Fan’s poster, “Effects of Urbanization on Health Status Among China Migrant Workers: A Systematic Review,” discusses work she conducted with Perry as an advisor.
GEH MPH Student Emily Hsu presented “Community Exposure to E-waste Pollutants in Developing Countries and Associated Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review,” which she worked on with Assistant Professor Jay Graham.
GEH MPH Student Yonathan Kefelegn’s “Microbial contamination in household water storage and diarrhea in developing countries” discusses a project advised by Graham and Perry.
EHS&P MPH Student Alex Lan’s “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care: An Examination of State Inpatient Databases in the Utilization of and Outcomes following Total Knee Arthroplasty” explains research conducted with faculty and staff from GW’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics Associate Professor Yan Ma, and Postdoctoral Scientist Wei Zhang.
EHS&P MPH Student Oshane Mcrae presented “A Systematic Review of Coal Fired Power Plant Proximity and Local Socioeconomic Status Trends and Outcomes,” research conducted in collaboration with Associate Professor Peter LaPuma.
EOH Research Associate Susanna Mitro’s “Consumer product chemicals in indoor dust: a quantitative meta-analysis of US studies” presents work she is conducting with Zota. Other coauthors include Gary Adamkiewicz, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Exposure Disparities at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Robin Dodson, ScD, of the Silent Spring Institute; Veena Singla, PhD, of the Natural Resources Defense Council; Angelo Elmi, PhD, a biostatistician at the Milken Institute SPH; and Monica Kaitz, MD, MPH, a fellow in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine program at UCSF.
GEH MPH Alumna Linda Nguyen’s poster, “Semi-Automated Scoring of Triple-Probe FISH in Human Sperm Using Confocal Microscopy,” describes research conducted with Perry and Branch. Her other coauthors include Anastas Popratiloff, MD, PhD, of GW’s Center for Microscopy and Image Analysis, who helped her and her colleagues use the confocal microscope. Glen Deloid, MD, MS, a research associate in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, helped create the semiautomated tool used for analysis of sex chromosome disomy. Other coauthors are ESH&P Alumna Sheena E. Martenies and Heather A. Young, Associate Professor and Vice Chair of the Milken Institute SPH’s Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department.
EHS&P MPH Student Nicholas Porter presented “Investigating Sperm Sex Chromosome Disomy in HIV Positive Men on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART),” research conducted with Perry and coauthored by Nguyen and Young.
Post-doctoral Scientist Deepika Shrestha’s “Increased risk of renal cell carcinoma following exposure to metalworking fluids among autoworkers” discusses work conducted with Assistant Professor Kate Applebaum.
EHS&P MPH Alumnus Lance Thompson presented “Attitudes toward Environmental and Reproductive Health among Men of Color.” In addition to his research advisor, Perry, his coauthors were Branch, Porter, and McCray.