Department of Public and Community Health

Name: Jessica Bunting, bunting.jessica@gmail.com
Year in Program: 2nd
Jessica earned her Bachelors degree in Psychology from the George Washington University's Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. At the masters level her research interests pertain to mental health, minority health, health disparities and sexual/reproductive health. Her Masters project will be in one of these interest areas.

Name: Anastasia Buyanova, abuyanova@gmail.com
Year in Program: 2nd (part-time)
Anastasia is a part time masters student in the department. She holds a Bachelors degree in International Affairs from The George Washington University. At the masters level she is interested in pursuing further research in international health.

Name: Talya Frelick
Year in Program: 1st
Talya received her Bachelors degree in biology from Oberlin College. She is also a certified health education specialist. Her research interests include community health education and outreach with a focus on issues relating to Latino health, child and maternal health, women's health and nutrition.

Name: Megan Gregory, megankgregory@gmail.com
Year in Program: 1st
Megan has a B.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Maryland College Park. Megan has a particular interest in the exercise patterns of women across various SES levels, and hopes to develop her Master's project around this topic. For Megan, this is the ideal mix of Kinesiology and Public & Community Health. She is also interested in risky sexual behaviors of college-aged women, and looks forward to participating in this type of research on campus.

Name: Ranwa Hammamy, rhammamy@umd.edu
Year in Program: 1st
Ranwa holds a B.A. in Psychology and Music from St. Mary's College of Maryland. Her research interests include college students' health behaviors, adolescent drug use, and mental health. She has an assistantship in the Undergraduate Student Legal Aid Office, where she supervises the Student Defender Program.

Name: Erinn Hurley
Year in Program: 2nd
Erinn has a BA in Psychology from Kenyon College. Erinn is interested in studying "daily" health behaviors (exercise, nutrition, sleep, sunscreen use, seatbelt use, to name a few) - and wants to explore why people engage in the unhealthy behaviors that they do and develop education/interventions to alter them. In the future, Erinn hopes to work at both the community level as well as in policy development.

Name: Jane Jakubczak
Year in Program: 2nd
Jane earned her Bachelor of Science in Dietetics and is now a part time masters student in the department of Public and Community Health. She has a special interest in nutrition in the college population and will likely pursue this topic for her masters research project.

Name: Aisha Martin, ainimartin@gmail.com
Year in Program: 1st
Aisha earned her B.S. in Health Education and Promotion from East Carolina University. She has an interest in working with underserved populations, especially the women and children in these populations to reduce health disparities.

Name: Julia Matute-Kumbalasiri, matute@health.umd.edu
Year in Program: 3rd (part-time)
Julia is a part time student in the department of Public and Community Health and she holds a Bachelor's degree in community Health Education from the University of Maryland. Her research interests include minority health, health disparities, social marketing and health communications. For her masters project Julia is interested in identifying the health care needs of the Latino/Latina undergraduate student population at the University of Maryland, to help bridge the gap in health disparities.

Name: Jenna Miller, jennakatherine@gmail.com
Year in Program: 2nd
Jenna received her BA in Psychology from The University of Maryland, College Park. Her research interests include promoting wellness in children with the hope of fostering more balanced and healthy adults in the future. She is currently working as a graduate assistant with the Office of Extended Studies. She works primarily with the Young Scholar's Program, which brings high school students from around the country to the UMD campus for three weeks during the summer to take a college level class and to experience UMD. Her responsibilities include preparing for the program and processing applications, implementing the program, and evaluating the program and making improvements for the following year.

Name: Stephanie Selmer, Smmorr77@gmail.com
Year in Program: 1st
Stephanie holds a B.S. in Biology from the College of William and Mary. Her research interests and background are in human genetics. She currently works as a science writer for a consumer health web site at the National Institutes of Health.

Name: Jody Sheely, jodys@alumni.virginia.edu
Year in Program:1st
Jody has a BA in English from the University of Virginia. She is interested in physical activity and its role in quality of life. She is also interested in health promotion in the college population.

Name: Isabel To, ito@umd.edu
Year in Program:1st
Isabel earned a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration from Houghton College. She is interested in promoting health prevention, specifically physical activity among the older adult population. Her interests are in physical fitness, older adults, and older adults in low income areas.

Name: Rajiv Ulpe, rajivoolpe@gmail.com
Year in Program: 2nd
Rajiv holds a BS in Dentistry from the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in India. He also has a MS in Oral Surgery from I P Pavlov State Medical University in Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation. His research interests include Oral Cancer and Tobacco Control. His masters project will focus on Oral Cancer Knowledge among Dentists in Maryland. Rajiv is currently working with Dr Olivia Carter-Pokras and Dr Sunmin Lee on a study involving minority population tobacco use in the state of Maryland. The study involves focus groups among Asian Americans and intends to study for environmental, psychological and cultural aspects of tobacco use among 4 sub-groups in the Asian American population. He also teaches BSCI 441 (Mammalian Physiology).