Lauren A. Graybill, PhD, MSc
Lauren A. Graybill, PhD, MSc, is a postdoctoral trainee in the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research uses causal inference methods to evaluate the impact of different interventions on the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent girls and women of reproductive age in southern and eastern Africa. Dr. Graybill is currently engaged in several studies related to pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention, primarily among pregnant and lactating women, and serves as a technical advisor on UNICEF’s Last Mile to EMTCT initiative.
Tapiwa Tembo, MSc
Tapiwa Tembo, MSc, is a PhD student in the faculty of health sciences at the University of Cape Town. She is a scientist and public health expert with a background in clinical research, implementation science, research ethics, and public health programming. Her research is aimed at improving uptake and implementation of evidence-based interventions in low resource settings. Tapiwa has overseen implementation of studies on HIV testing, treatment, and prevention among adults and malaria vaccine trials for children under 5 years. She is currently working on a study focusing on capacity-building for health care workers using a blended learning training approaches to improve health service delivery in resource-constrained settings.
Meredith Wang, MPH/MPA
Meredith is a doctoral student in Health Behavior with expertise in epidemiology, intervention development, and global health. Her research focuses on identifying determinants of poor health outcomes for adolescents, children, and mothers, and developing interventions to improve their health in the context of HIV/AIDS and mental health in low- and middle-income countries. Meredith obtained her MPH/MPA from the University of Washington and a Bachelor in Labor and Social Security from Zhejiang University. Her experience includes working on NIH-funded HIV studies, disease modeling and quantitative analysis, and conducting fieldwork in Kenya, Myanmar, and China in the field of pediatric HIV and maternal and child health. Before her doctoral studies at UNC, she contributed to the Global Burden of Disease project at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, modeling neonatal health burdens.
Milenka Jean-Baptiste, MPH
Milenka is a doctoral candidate in Health Behavior at the Gillings School of Public Health. Whether working domestically or globally, she has experience as a public health practitioner, implementing community-based public health programs / interventions and engaging communities while doing so. She also has experience managing qualitative and mixed methods studies from inception to completion. She values the interplay between research and practice and seeks to carry out transformative research that can inform public health programming by understanding communities and addressing underlying determinants of health inequity. She has previous technical experiences with HIV, TB, malnutrition, community health worker, maternal health, patient-reported outcomes, and patient-provider interactions. Her current work focuses on HIV stigma reduction. Milenka holds a Master of Public Health from Emory University in Atlanta, GA.