Dr. Fuster’s work examines the contextual factors influencing food practices and the policies and interventions implemented to improve them, with a focus on Latin American communities, as presented in her book, Caribeños at the Table: How Migration, Health, and Race Intersect in New York City. Expanding on this work, she is currently focused on food environment policy implementation research and evaluation.
Kim Wu is a dedicated community health professional from New York City. Kim has over 10 years of experience in education, community centered health programs management, grassroots development, social justice, and capacity building to foster cross-sector collaboration in projects of health promotion, sexual health education, and mental health.
Shokufeh Mojgani Ramirez is the Associate Director of the Tulane Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health (CEMCH), a training grant funded by the HRSA Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB). In this role, she mentors and provides leadership development experiences for maternal and child health graduate students, helping them prepare to enter the public health workforce. She has been affiliated with the training grant for fifteen years, in various staff roles.
Naomi’s hometown is Hilton Head, SC but her childhood was spent abroad, moving from country to country. After living in El Salvador, Zimbabwe, and Nepal, with annual trips home to South Carolina, she developed a desire to address the health disparities she saw during her travels. She completed her undergraduate studies at Williams College in Massachusetts as a double major in Biology and Anthropology. At Williams, she conducted research in a microbiology lab focused on an infectious disease that affects plants.
Tejal (she/her) is an applied researcher utilizing an interdisciplinary approach to address emerging issues in maternal and child health. As a former preschool teacher and current public health professional, Tejal seeks to create a collaborative sector of community-informed health and well-being research, practice, and policy. Her specific research interests include examining how parental mental health literacy impacts children's mental health outcomes.
Miguel Ángel López is a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) trained in epidemiology. He received his Bachelor of Science (BS) in Nutritional Science from Texas Christian University (TCU) and completed his Master of Public Health (MPH) in Epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, where he recently successfully defended his PhD dissertation in the department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences.
NhuNgoc’s research interests include population dynamics, mental health, and social and structural determinants of health, as well as major emergency incidents impacts and resilience variations among different racial/ethnic populations. In addition to her domestic interests, NhuNgoc’s international interests include migration and aging trends within East and Southeast Asia. She has provided technical and analytical support to studies centered on post-disaster recovery and resiliency among the Vietnamese immigrant population in New Orleans and Houston.
Dr. Dovile Vilda is an interdisciplinary social scientist and public health researcher with advanced training and experience in mixed methods and policy research.
Keelia O’Malley is the Associate Director for Tulane’s HRSA funded MCH Nutrition Leadership Training Program in which she mentors and provides leadership development experiences for public health nutrition graduate students. Prior to this, Keelia worked as the Assistant Director of the Tulane Prevention Research Center, where she managed community-based research, policy advocacy, evaluation, and training activities related to food access in New Orleans.
