Students
Dr. Jean Damascene Makuza is a medical doctor with a masters’ degree in Epidemiology and he is currently doing PhD studies in Population and Public Health at the UBC School of Population and Public Health and is also a fellow at BCCDC. He has Expertise in infectious diseases prevention and control especially in HIV, STIs and OBBI management, manuscript writing, health projects management, and capacity building. He has extensive experience in clinical practice as well as the design, development, and implementation of health programming. In his 13 years of experience in different domain of public health, he has led programs in HIV, STIs, Viral hepatitis and cervical cancer prevention and control. He has also led different consultancy on development, review different policies related to HIV, STIs and Viral hepatitis. During that time, he has numerous publications and presentations for international audiences, particularly in the area of Viral Hepatitis. He is also a reviewer of different articles for international journals. His career goal is to prevent and control infectious diseases such as HIV, viral hepatitis, STIs, HPV, etc. in low limited resource setting through early screening, vaccinating and treating.
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Emilia Clementi is Master of Science student at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. She received her bachelor’s degree in Cellular/Molecular Biology and Italian Studies from Connecticut College. Her main interests are identifying the ways that socioeconomic and cultural barriers can prevent marginalized groups from accessing health care and infectious disease surveillance. She is currently working on a thesis project that aims to describe the patient and provider level characteristics associated with HCV treatment initiation in order to identify potential strategies to further enhance HCV treatment uptake. Unveiling any structural disparities in the British Columbian health care system that may be disabling HCV treatment access for marginalized groups may also assist in improving their access to health care overall.
Email: Emilia.clementi@bccdc.ca
Aidan Nikiforuk is a doctoral student and public scholar at the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health. He previously attended the University of Manitoba to study microbiology/virology and worked at the National Microbiology Laboratory. Aidan’s current research interests include the application of whole-genome sequencing to delineate outcomes of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and point- of-care testing for HCV or other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections in rural settings or those with health care inequity.
Email: Aidan.Nikiforuk@bccdc.ca
UBC Campus Community - Meet our Students
Dahn Jeong is a doctoral student at the school of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. Dahn has a BSc in biomedical science and health science with honours, and a MSc in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa. During her Master's, Dahn worked with Dr. Yoko Schreiber and Dr. Mark Tyndall to look at the epidemiology of skin and soft tissue infections and antibiotic use in the First Nations communities in Canada. As a doctoral student and trainee at the BC Centre for Disease Control and UBC, under the supervision of Dr. Naveed Janjua, Dahn is interested in looking at the synergistic effects of viral infections including HCV, HBV and HIV on chronic diseases and disparities in accessing healthcare services with a focus on immigrants and marginalized populations.
Email: Dahn.Jeong@bccdc.ca
Kelly Li-- MHS Student
Kelly Li is a master of Health Scie
nce student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a concentration in General Epidemiology and Methodology. She received her Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from the Johns Hopkins University. Her previous work as an intern at World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, focused on antimicrobial resistance and Global Surveillance and Monitoring System of substandard and falsified medical products. Her current research at BCCDC involves assessing the impact of opioid substitution therapy on hepatitis C incidence among people who inject drugs. The outcome of this project is expected to inform the importance of harm reduction programs in preventing and reducing hepatitis infection in high-risk populations.
Email: Kelly.Li@bccdc.ca
Abdool Yasseen -- Student
Abdool Yasseen is a doctoral candidate in epidemiology at the University of Toronto, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and a senior Lupina fellow at the Munk school of global affairs. He worked as an statistician for the Public Health Agency of Canada, and a methodologist for the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. Abdool has developed expertise in environmental, perinatal, and infectious disease epidemiology, and became interested in hepatitis research through collaborative work focused on universal hepatitis screening during pregnancy. Abdool's current research (and dissertation topic) investigates the burden of viral hepatitis B and C among recent immigrants to Canada. This work is geared towards the development of novel public health policies for screening and surveillance of viral hepatitis at the time of immigration.
Email: Abdool.Yasseen@bccdc.ca
Nazrul Islam -- MSc Student
Nazrul Islam is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of British Columbia. A Physician-turned-Epidemiologist, Nazrul was trained in Medicine, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics. He taught Research Design at UBC's MD Undergraduate Program, and researched and published in the areas of Maternal and Child Health, Mental Health, and infectious disease e.g. Malaria, and HIV/AIDS. His Doctoral Dissertation examines the natural history of Hepatitis C infection in British Columbia.
Harriet Ho -- MSc Student
Harriet Ho is a Master of Science student at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, pursuing a concentration in Health Economics. Previously, she graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Sauder School of Business at UBC, and she hopes to integrate her interests in health care, business, and policy through her work. For her thesis, she is examining adherence to two newer hepatitis C therapies, sofosbuvir (Sovaldi) and ledipasvir-sofosbuvir (Harvoni), and the impact of PharmaCare coverage on adherence in British Columbia.
Kristi Papamihali -- MPH Student
Kristi Papamihali is a master in Public Health student in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, with a concentration in Population Health. She received her bachelor of Science in Human Biology and Psychology from the University of Toronto. Her primary interests are infectious disease epidemiology and understanding how the social determinants of health can increase risk and act as a barrier to health care access. She is currently working on a project that aims to develop methods for assessing linkage with liver-related care among people living with hepatitis B and C infection in BC. Outcomes of this project will allow for recognition of disparities in access to healthcare and can be used to inform provincial- decision making on hepatitis- related public health initiatives.
Email: Kristi.Papamihali@bccdc.ca