Meet our Fellows

Nerea Jiménez Téllez, MSc, PhD (2022-2023)
Stanford University
Project title: Toxicoepigenetic Effects of E-cigarette Exposure Using human iPSC-derived Organoids

Anand Ramalingam, PhD (2021-2013)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Nicotine Forms & Cardiovascular Effects of E-cigarettes

Dr. Ramalingam is a Postdoctoral Research fellow at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He received his PhD in Biomedical Science from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia in 2019 after completing his doctoral research on understanding mechanism by which nicotine promoted cardiovascular diseases. He is currently continuing his interest in nicotine and tobacco product toxicity by investigating the influence of various nicotine formulations in the cardiovascular effects of e-cigarettes.

Lynsie Ranker, PhD, MPH (2021-2023)
Boston University
Project Title: The role of social media use, social media promotions, and purchasing age restrictions on e-cigarette use among youth 

Dr. Ranker is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health. She received her PhD in epidemiology and her MPH from Boston University School of Public Health. She is a social epidemiologist who is passionate about exploring the connections between contextual factors in lived (e.g., state policies) and online (e.g., social media) environments and substance use among youth. Her current project includes assessing longitudinal associations of social media use frequency and branded account engagement with e-cigarette and polytobacco initiation among youth. In addition, she is examining e-cigarette discussions on popular social media platforms (both their content and their sentiment). She is passionate about harm reduction within marginalized communities, and advocating against the predatory marketing practices of tobacco manufacturers.

Tariq Jamal Siddiqi, MD (2022-2023)
University of Mississippi Medical Center
Project Title: Biomarkers Of Renal Harm Due To Electronic Cigarette Use

Dr Siddiqi is a post-doctoral research fellow in the department of medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He earned his medical degree from Dow University of Health Sciences, Pakistan. His primary research interests are in the field of cardiovascular disease and their interplay with renal functions. Dr Siddiqi’s work involves identification of high-risk population using physiological and blood markers. 

He was inducted into the scientific research honor society, Sigma Xi, serves on the editorial board of PLOS ONE and is a member of the Global Burden Disease Network (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington). His current project entails assessing the effects of electronic cigarette use on renal blood flow, renal tissue oxygenation and aortic function in healthy individuals using a novel functional magnetic resonance strategy.

Noah Siegel, MD Candidate (2022-2023)
Boston University
Project Title: Cluster analysis of urinary tobacco biomarkers and health outcomes among U.S. adult smokers and nonsmokers

Noah Siegel is a medical student at Boston University School of Medicine. He received his Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin with a minor in Studio Art in 2021. His interests include patient-provider relationship, tobacco and other substance use research with an eye towards harm reduction. His previous research involved work with novel agents for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer. His current research involves using a machine learning approach to classify data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study and examine longitudinal health outcomes. 

Briana Trifiro, MA PhD in Progress (2022-2023)
Boston University
Project Title: Association of FDA Health Warning Label Compliance in Instagram Advertisements of Synthetic Nicotine E-Liquids and E-Cigarettes with Post Engagement

Ms. Trifiro is a PhD student in the Division of Emerging Media Studies at Boston University’s College of Communication. She received her master’s degree in Communication from Bryant University. Her research interests focus on the intersection of political communication and media psychology, with a particular focus on the societal impacts of social media use. Through her research endeavors, Ms. Trifiro seeks to work on projects that can enact meaningful change, particularly to legislation and regulatory policies. Her current research examines how synthetic nicotine products are promoted via social media advertising and how these marketing campaigns can target and influence health behaviors among vulnerable populations, particularly youths.

Muhammad Shariq Usman, MD (2022-2023)
University of Mississippi Medical Center
Project Title: The Effect of Menthol Versus Non-Menthol Cigarettes on Urinary Volatile Organic Compounds and Cardiovascular Risk Markers in African Americans

Dr. Usman is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He earned his MBBS from Dow University of Health Sciences in Pakistan. His research focuses on cardiovascular disease outcomes, particularly heart failure. He is interested in studying how non-traditional forms of smoking, including menthol cigarettes and vaping, are affecting cardiovascular health at a population level. Additionally, he wishes to study whether the cardiovascular effects of non-traditional smoking vary by age, sex and race. 

Johnathan Berlowitz, MD in progress (2021-2022)
Boston University
Project Title: Association of Cigarette-to-E-Cigarette Transitions with Respiratory Symptom Development and Remission: A Longitudinal Analysis of the PATH
Study, 2013-2019

Mr. Berlowitz is a medical student at the Boston University School of Medicine. His research interest focuses on evaluating the population-level health implications of e-cigarette use.. His recent work has involved using Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study data to model the longitudinal association between e-cigarette use and clinical cardiovascular and pulmonary outcomes. He has also examined the association of cigarette-e-cigarette transitions with respiratory symptom development and resolution.

Ellen Boakye, MD, MPH (2020-2022)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: The impact of E-cigarette or Vaping product use Associated Lung Injury (EVALI) and Covid-19 outbreaks on the interest in Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) and brand preference among persons in the United States

Dr. Boakye is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases. She earned her MD degree from the University of Ghana Medical School. Subsequently, she has earned her MPH degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she concentrated in epidemiological and statistical methods in clinical and population research. Her interests are in cardiovascular disease prevention, novel tobacco product use among vulnerable populations, and the use of novel data such as Google Trends in tobacco regulatory science. For example, one of her current projects uses Google data to assess the impact of the FDA’s cartridge-based flavored e-cigarette enforcement policy on the online popularity of disposable e-cigarettes such as Puff Bar. This project and others that use novel data sources like Google Trends will add to our understanding and application of infodemiology for real-time evaluation of the impact of policy changes on population behavior.

John Erhabor, MD, MPH (2021-2023)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: E-cigarette prevalence, usage patterns, and behavioral correlates among adolescents: Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Study (YRBSS), 2019

Dr. Erhabor is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at Johns Hopkins Medicine. He received his medical degree from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria and subsequently pursued an MPH, with a concentration in epidemiological and biostatistical methods, at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has special interests in preventive cardiovascular research and novel tobacco products. His current research explores prevalence, usage patterns, and behavioral correlates of e-cigarette use among adolescents using one of the most extensive data sets, the YRBSS.
 
Lexiao Jin, MD (2020-2022)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Cardiopulmonary Toxicity of JUUL

Dr. Jin is a Postdoctoral Fellow of the American Heart Association-Tobacco Regulation and Addiction Center in the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute at the University of Louisville. She received her M.D. and M.S. in anesthesiology from the Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China, where she was a fulltime clinical anesthesiologist from 2003-2016. She completed her Ph.D. in 2020 in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. Her research portfolio covers the pharmacology and toxicology of anesthetics including effects on the cardiovascular system. Currently, her funded project is to study the cardiopulmonary toxicity of electronic cigarette-derived aerosols using murine models. She is a first author/co-author of over 20 publications. She is a member of the Society of Toxicology.
 
Denise Kuo, PhD, MSc (2021-2022)
Stanford University
Project Title: High-Fidelity and High-Throughput Toxicity Screening using Human iPSC-Derived Pulmonary Organoids for E-cigarettes Components Implicated in EVALI
 
Dr. Kuo is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine, Cardiovascular Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from National Taiwan University. Her research has been dedicated to evaluating the pathology of cardiopulmonary disease and developing measures to help the patients via bridging her expertise in chromatin dynamics, pharmacology, and drug discovery with iPSC disease modeling. In her current project, she focuses on using patient iPSC-derived pulmonary organoids to elucidate how environmental factors like vaping contribute to severe cardiopulmonary disease.

Lynsie Ranker, PhD, MPH (2021-2023)
Boston University
Project Title: The role of social media use, social media promotions, and purchasing age restrictions on e-cigarette use among youth 

Dr. Ranker is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health. She received her PhD in epidemiology and her MPH from Boston University School of Public Health. She is a social epidemiologist who is passionate about exploring the connections between contextual factors in lived (e.g., state policies) and online (e.g., social media) environments and substance use among youth. Her current project includes assessing longitudinal associations of social media use frequency and branded account engagement with e-cigarette and polytobacco initiation among youth. In addition, she is examining e-cigarette discussions on popular social media platforms (both their content and their sentiment). She is passionate about harm reduction within marginalized communities, and advocating against the predatory marketing practices of tobacco manufacturers.

Anand Ramalingam, PhD (2021-2023)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Nicotine Forms & Cardiovascular Effects of E-cigarettes

Dr. Ramalingam is a Postdoctoral Research fellow at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He received his PhD in Biomedical Science from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia in 2019 after completing his doctoral research on understanding mechanism by which nicotine promoted cardiovascular diseases. He is currently continuing his interest in nicotine and tobacco product toxicity by investigating the influence of various nicotine formulations in the cardiovascular effects of e-cigarettes.

Jiaxi Wu, MA, PhD in Progress (2020-2022)
Boston University
Project Title: The Appeal of Flavored Cigars on Social Media for Youths and Vulnerable Populations

Ms. Wu is a PhD candidate in the Division of Emerging Media Studies at Boston University’s College of Communication. She received her master’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests focus on using social media analytics and big data to evaluate tobacco promotions. She is primarily interested in how tobacco promotions on emerging social media impact attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors related to tobacco use among youths and vulnerable populations. Her current research involves assessing how flavored cigars are promoted on social media and how such promotions may disproportionately target and influence health perceptions among vulnerable populations.

Alyssa Harlow, MPH, PhD in progress (2019-2021)
Boston University
Project Title: Novel longitudinal measures of e-cigarette exposure and cardiovascular disease risk

Ms. Harlow is a PhD candidate in Epidemiology and graduate research fellow at Boston University School of Public Health. She received her MPH degree at Boston University with a concentration in Epidemiology and Social & Behavioral Sciences. Her long-standing interests are in tobacco and other substance use research, particularly as it applies to issues related to measurement of health effects and health disparities. Her current project focus will be using four waves of data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study to find novel longitudinal measures of e-cigarette exposure and test the association of these exposures with cardiovascular disease.

Olufunmilayo Obisesan, MD, MPH (2019-2021)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: Pod-based e-cigarette use among US young adults: a survey on perception of health effects, sociodemographic correlates, and interplay with other tobacco products

Dr. Obisesan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at Johns Hopkins Medicine. She received her MD from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria before going on to earn her MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her interests lie in the fields of preventive cardiovascular research and novel tobacco products- identifying risk factors for cardiovascular disease, exploring the burden of use of novel tobacco products and their potential health implications, and providing evidence to inform clinical practice and regulatory policy. In her current project, she is collecting primary survey data on pod-based e-cigarette use among young adults in the US to examine the sociodemographic correlates associated with their use, and the interplay with other tobacco products, as well as the perception of their health effects among users.

S. M. Iftekhar Uddin, MD, MPH (2017-2021)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: Poly-substance vaping and e-cigarette use prevalence Estimates : The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) 2016

Dr. Uddin is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease. He earned his MBBS from the Bangladesh Medical College at the University of Dhaka and completed his medical internship at the Bangladesh Medical College Hospital. His subsequent MSPH at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health provided him with intensive training in epidemiology, including cardiovascular epidemiology, biostatistics, and data analysis, as well as research ethics, project management, data management, and disease control programs and policies. His current research involves examining the association between e-cigarette (including JUUL) use and cardiovascular risk assessed by endothelial function, and examining changes in e-cigarette use patterns and prevalences using population-based health surveys.

Alok Amraotkar MD, MPH, MHA (2019-2021)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Effect of Smoking on Platelet Activation and Aggregation in Acute Myocardial Infarction

Dr. Amraotkar is a Postdoctoral Research fellow at the University of Louisville’s School of Medicine. He is an early stage physician-scientist interested in translational research with a specific interest in atherosclerosis, atherothrombosis, translational clinical research, and cardiovascular epidemiology. He attained his MD degree at Tver State Medical Academy, Tver, Russia before going on to earn his MPH & MHA degrees at the Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky. He has served under several committees with the American Heart Association. His current research project focuses on delineating the effect of smoking on in-vivo markers of platelet activation and platelet aggregation during an acute myocardial infarction.

Ugochukwu Owolabi, MD MPH (2020-2022)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Effect of E-cigarettes on Vascular function and Remodeling After Acute Use

Dr. Owolabi joined the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 2017. He is a graduate of University of Ilorin, College of Health Sciences, Ilorin, Nigeria MBBS and University of Louisville, MPH. His work focuses on sustainable environment and cardiovascular health. Technical skills include statistical analysis and modeling in parametric and nonparametric methods, survival analysis, geospatial modeling, person-time data. Current research focuses on the effect of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDs) on vascular remodeling and function.

Cory Kucera, MSc, PhD in progress (2020-2021)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Arrhythmogenic effects of ENDS

Mr. Kucera is a Ph.D. candidate in Physiology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. His primary research interest is determining how emerging tobacco products influence cardiac electrophysiology. He is currently investigating the role of device characteristics in the arrhythmogenic effects of electronic nicotine delivery systems.

Omar El Shahawy, MD, PhD (2017-2020)
New York University
Project Title: Patterns of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Product Use among People with Mental Disorders and the Joint Associations with Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors

Dr. El Shahawy is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Section of Tobacco, Alcohol and Drug Use at the Department of Population Health in New York University School of Medicine. He attained his MBBCh degree at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt before going on to earn his MPH at the Vrije University & the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His doctoral work was completed at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has been involved with the Global Youth Tobacco Survey co-coordinated by the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Humphrey Fellowship in Substance Abuse Education, Treatment, and Prevention by the United States Department of State and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. His current research involves providing a comprehensive assessment of the correlates of e-cigarette use patterns among people with mental health disorders to inform regulatory actions and intervention development e-cigarette use targeting these vulnerable populations.

Albert Osei, MD, MPH (2018-2020)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: United States county-level e-cigarette use patterns & correlation with county-level social determinants of cardiovascular health: The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) 2016 & 2017

Dr. Osei is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at Johns Hopkins Medicine. He received his MD from the University of Ghana School of Medicine and Dentistry in Accra and his MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), his work aims to estimate county-level prevalence and distribution of e-cigarette use among US adults on a scale not previously studied and compare the findings to health factors in the novel US News/Aetna Foundation Healthiest Communities rankings. Importantly, this examination of associations between e-cigarette use and county level domain-specific health factors will enhance the value of both the BRFSS and US News/Aetna Foundation Healthiest Communities rankings by creating the first ever linkage of these datasets.

Andrew Stokes, PhD (2016-2019)
Boston University
Project Title: Electronic Cigarette Prevalence and Patterns of Use in Adults with a History of Cardiovascular Disease in the United States

Dr. Stokes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health and affiliate of the Center for Global Health & Development at the Boston University School of Public Health. He received his PhD in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania. His work is focused on investigating the causes and consequences of global non-communicable disease and developing novel approaches to combating chronic diseases at the population level through interventions that target aspects of the social and physical environment. His current work involves modeling the cross-sectional association between e-cigarette use and biomarker-assessed CV risk, examining the longitudinal association between e-cigarette use and incident CVD, investigate the role of e-cigarette use in cigarette and complete product cessation, and examining the association of a new CVD diagnosis with tobacco product transitions using data from a nationally representative longitudinal study, the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study, Waves 1-3 (2013-2016).

Kaitlyn Berry, MPH (2017-2019)
Boston University
Project Title: Trajectories of tobacco product use across the life course and their net effects on population health

Ms. Berry is a Research Fellow at Boston University School of Public Health, where she earned her MPH degree in 2017. Her prior research involved working with large population databases, including the South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (SANHANES, n=26,806), which is modeled after the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Her current work involves modeling trajectories of product use across the life course and their net effects on population health using data from a large, nationally-representative longitudinal study, the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study, Waves 1-3 (2013-2016).

Rodney Kipchumba, MD Candidate (2019-2020)
University of Mississippi Medical Center
Project Title: Urinary Volatile Organic Carbon Levels and Subclinical Cardiovascular Disease in Cigarette Smoking African Americans

Mr. Kipchumba is a medical student at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He was awarded the Don Mitchell, MD, School of Medicine Scholarship in 2017 based on his distinguished academic achievements at the Mississippi State University where he earned a B.S in Biological Engineering. His current research involves examining the effects of volatile organic carbon (VOC) compounds on the development of subclinical and clinical cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Cigarette Smoking African Americans.

Sana Majid, MD (2018-2020)
Boston University
Project Title: The Effects of E-Cigarette Flavorings on Measures of Endothelial Function

Dr. Majid is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Cardiology at Boston University School of Medicine. She received her BS in Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics from UCLA and her MD from St. George’s University, Grenada. She also has experience working in the biotech industry. Her current research involves assessing the effects of common e-cigarette flavorings and their resultant derivatives on vascular endothelial cells.

Hassan Mirbolouk, MD (2017-2019)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: Prevalence of E-Cigarette Use Among U.S. Adolescents: Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) 2017

Dr. Mirbolouk is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in preventative cardiology in the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease at Johns Hopkins Medicine. He earned his MD and completed his internship in medical practice at Shahid Beheshti Medical University in Tehran, Iran, and went on to complete a postdoctoral research fellowship in preventive cardiology at Tehran’s Research Institute of Endocrine Sciences (RIES). His current research involves reporting the prevalence of e-cigarette use among US adolescents, using one of the largest health surveys, The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS).

Olusola Orimoloye, MD, MPH (2017-2019)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: Associations between e-cigarette use and oxidative and inflammatory proatherosclerotic markers of cardiovascular risk – The Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study 2013 – 2014

Dr. Orimoloye is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease. He earned his medical degree at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and received a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His current research explores relationships between e-cigarette use and proatherosclerotic inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers using data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study.

Adebamike Oshunbade, MD, MPH (2018-2020) 
University of Mississippi Medical Center
Project Title: Biomarkers of renal harm due to electronic cigarette use

Dr. Oshunbade is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He received his MBBS degree from the University of Lagos, Nigeria and his MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He also had further training in clinical trials, pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety, and environmental and occupational health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He works on smoking-related projects in the Jackson Heart Study, the largest prospective cohort study assessing cardiovascular risk in African Americans and the Genetic Epidemiology Network of Arteriopathy (GENOA) which is one of the networks in the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Family Blood Pressure Programs. His current project examines biomarkers of renal harm due to electronic cigarette use via novel imaging techniques.

S. M. Iftekhar Uddin, MBBS, MSPH (2017-2021)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: E-cigarettes as a Mode of Delivery for Other Addictive Substances and Nicotine Replacement Therapy Among US Adults: The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)

Dr. Uddin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease. He earned his MBBS from the Bangladesh Medical College at the University of Dhaka and completed his medical internship at the Bangladesh Medical College Hospital. His subsequent MSPH at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health provided him with intensive training in epidemiology, including cardiovascular epidemiology, biostatistics, and data analysis, as well as research ethics, project management, data management, and disease control programs and policies. His current research involves reporting the prevalence of substance abuse associated with vaping and describing the sociodemographic associations of using vaping devices as a mode of delivery of a variety of other substances, including any use as a method of nicotine replacement therapy. To do this, he is utilizing nationally representative data from the 2016 and 2017 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to obtain contemporary national estimates of other substances used in vaping devices.

Angela Aherrera, MPH (2015-2017)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: Metal Exposure in E-cigarette Users in Baltimore, MD

Angela Aherrera’s graduate work from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) involved evaluating factors that influence support and enforcement behavior towards the Turkey smoke-free legislation. As a JHSPH research associate and pre-doctoral student conducting environmental epidemiologic research, she is currently investigating and analyzing the level of metal concentrations among electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) users compared to non-users as well as cigarette smokers. In the past, she conducted studies investigating the effects of secondhand smoke exposure on respiratory outcomes in infants and children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Such studies, which included evaluating the effects of e-cigarette vapor on postnatal lung development and neurocognitive behavior, have prompted her to further investigate the safety and efficacy of e-cigarettes on cardiovascular health.

Adejare Atanda, BDS, MPH Candidate (2014-2015)
Johns Hopkins University

Adejare Atanda holds a Bachelor of Dental Surgery from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and will soon complete his MPH at Johns Hopkins. His present work evaluates the efficacy of an LGBT-directed quit smoking intervention at Chase Brexton’s Health Services addiction treatment center. Additionally, he is using 2011/2012 NHANES data to examine the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors in LGBT populations as compared to the general US population and how these translate into increased cardiovascular disease risk. He hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Epidemiology with a focus on tobacco use and non-communicable diseases (cardiovascular diseases) in hidden & underserved populations.

Mahmoud Al Rifai, MD, MPH (2014-2015)
Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Mahmoud Al Rifai completed his medical education at the American University of Beirut. He received a Master’s of Public Health Degree with a focus in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and was inducted into the Delta Omega Alpha Chapter Society. He is currently the AHA Tobacco Regulation and Addiction Center (ATRAC) fellow at Johns Hopkins and hopes to pursue a career in preventive cardiology with strong research interests in the effects of novel forms of tobacco exposure on CVD, subclinical atherosclerosis, and CVD risk assessment.

Alex Carll, PhD, MSPH (2017-2018)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Cardiovascular Toxicity of Tobacco Products, including ENDS, to Reveal the Relative Contributions of Constituents in Tobacco’s Cardiovascular Health Effects

Dr. Alex Carll is an Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville. He earned His Ph.D. and MSPH at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, before going on to complete a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Over the past twelve years, he has investigated the adverse cardiovascular effects of inhaled environmental agents in animals to add biological plausibility to epidemiologic research and inform public health policy. His research has focused especially on how autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction mediates the adverse cardiovascular effects of pollutant inhalation, including decreased baroreflex sensitivity, diminished cardiac mechanical performance, impaired ventricular conduction and repolarization, and increased arrhythmia. He has also investigated the influence of irritant and sympathetic receptor activation over cell signal transduction toward cardiac remodeling and heart failure. More recently, he has segued into epidemiological research, examining associations between exposure to volatile organic compounds (including carbonyls in tobacco smoke) and electrophysiological and mechanical dysfunction in the heart.

Jessica Fetterman, PhD (2014-2016)
Boston University
Project Title: Mitochondrial Biomarkers for Assessing Tobacco and Tobacco-related Product Induced Cardiovascular Injury

Jessica Fetterman’s graduate work at the University of Alabama in Birmingham investigated the role of mitochondrial genetics and function in cardiovascular disease susceptibility and progression. As a postdoctoral fellow at Boston University Medical School, she applies her basic science training in cardiovascular and mitochondrial physiology to translational clinical research. In past, she has conducted studies investigating the role of impaired autophagy and altered mitochondrial turnover in vascular dysfunction in diabetic patients, which has provided the basis for one of her current research projects applying her knowledge about the life cycle of mitochondria to an additional cardiovascular risk factor, cigarette smoking.

Rana Jaber, PhD, MPH (2016-2018)
Florida International University
Project Title: Evaluating the Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Health Effects of Electronic Cigarettes Among Adults from Miami Heart study

Dr. Rana Jaber is a Research Associate at Florida International University, where she earned her Ph.D. in Epidemiology. She also holds an MPH from Jordan University of Science and Technology and a nursing degree from the University of Jordan. Rana Jaber obtained her Ph.D. in epidemiology from Florida International University. She has substantial experience in tobacco control research in developing countries. She is the founder of the dichotomous grouped-time survival analysis and the first to use this approach to analyze repeated measures with interval-censored binary outcome using SAS. Her work has demonstrated that waterpipe smoking can provide a gateway to initiate cigarette smoking among adolescents. She has also shown how social determinants of waterpipe and cigarette smoking progression delineate gender differences in smoking among youth in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Recently, she has extended her efforts in tobacco research to investigate the discontinuation of smoking, nicotine dependence, and nicotine withdrawal symptoms among adolescents. Currently, she is examining the cardiovascular biomarkers associated with electronic cigarette use, thus continuing her work on nicotine dependence.

Bekir Kaplan, MD (2017-2018)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: Waterpipe Tobacco Smoke: Characterization of Toxicants and Biomarkers in a Multi-country Study

Dr. Bekir Kaplan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Science. He holds an MD from the University of Cukurova, in Adana, Turkey. He has experience working for the Turkish Ministry of Health, where he conducted several national surveys regarding tobacco control. He was also responsible for a national, cross-sectional study assessing compliance levels to Turkey’s 2009 smoke-free legislation, a project which resulted in directly affecting regulations in Turkish hospitals. In October 2015, he was elected as a grantee by the Turkish Government to commence postdoctoral research work in the United States.

Rachel Keith, PhD, NP (2014-2016)
University of Louisville
Project Title: CITU Study

Rachel Keith started her career as a classically trained bench researcher in physiology and biophysics investigating proteins associated with protection from deleterious effects of cardiovascular and metabolic dysregulation. Upon completion of her studies and a postdoctoral position, she pursued a degree as a nurse practitioner in order to facilitate a career focused on translational research. This led her to a junior faculty position that will allow her to look at environmental and lifestyle factors associated with both cardiovascular disease and diabetes. She is especially interested in how modifications to exposures (i.e. air pollution, smoke, and particulate matter) or lifestyle changes (i.e. diet, exercise and smoking) can prevent either the complications or development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Sina Kianoush, MD, MPH (2015-2017)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: Evaluating the Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Health Effects of Electronic Cigarettes in Humans

Sina Kianoush is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease. His research interest lies in the study of traditional and novel cardiovascular risk factors and lifestyle modification regarding preventive cardiology. His current working projects include potential health effects of electronic and combustible cigarettes, mobile health technology (e.g. mActive-SMOKE), and biomarkers of subclinical cardiovascular injury. He has earned his MPH degree from Yale School of Public Health in Applied Biostatistics and Epidemiology, where his research focus was on obesity prevention and novel anticoagulants.

Stacey Konkle, MPH, CPH (2015-2017)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Analysis of Urinary Tobacco Smoke Metabolites and Cardiovascular Harm Indices

Stacey Konkle is a doctoral student researcher at the University of Louisville Institute of Molecular Cardiology. Her research interests lie in the study of environmental air pollutant exposures as a link to increased cardiovascular risk. Her current working projects focus on investigating the association of urinary volatile organic compound metabolites with measures of increased cardiovascular risk, among a large complex survey study population, such as NHANES. She has earned her MPH degree from the University of Louisville School of Public Health in Applied Biostatistics and Epidemiology, where her research focus was on identifying and remediating healthcare-acquired infection outbreaks.

Hoda Magid, MHS (2014-2016)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: Alternate Tobacco Product Use in Patients Admitted with Myocardial Infarction

Hoda Magid is an MHS candidate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health studying Epidemiology. Her research interests lie at the intersection between Environmental Epidemiology and Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology. Among other projects, she is currently a research assistant with JHU’s Institute for Global Tobacco Control working on two tobacco control projects in Russia, Turkey, and Egypt. She is excited to be working on Project 2 as an A-TRAC fellow.

Marina Malovichko, PhD (2015-2017)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Biomarkers of Cardiovascular Toxicity of Tobacco Products

Marina Malovichko obtained her graduate degree at the Department of Chemistry, University of Louisville, where she studied the activation and regulation of thrombin. As a postdoctoral fellow, at the Institute of Molecular Cardiology, University of Louisville, she is studying the cardiovascular effects of tobacco products, such as electronic cigarettes, oral tobacco and mainstream cigarette smoke. She is examining the early, sensitive and robust biomarkers of cardiovascular toxicity and biomarkers of exposure.

Matthew Marshall, MS (2016-2017)
New York University
Project Title: Cardiovascular Effects of Conventional and Electronic Hookah Charcoals

Matthew Marshall is a pre-doctoral student in the Department of Environmental Medicine at New York University School of Medicine. He earned his Master’s degree from NYU School of Medicine in May 2016, and for his M.S. thesis, Matthew investigated the mechanisms for how World Trade Center dust worsened injury with time in First Responders. Currently, Matthew seeks to identify the molecular and functional changes that cause cardiovascular disease (CVD) as a result of hookah smoke. This investigation is important from a cardiovascular standpoint because hookah smoke has been associated with an increased risk of CVD; however, no studies have been performed to investigate the mechanisms by which hookah smoke causes CVD.

Lindsay Reynolds, PhD (2015-2017)
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Project Title: Investigation of Epigenomic and Transcriptomic Mechanisms Potentially Mediating the Cardiovascular Consequences of Smoking

Lindsay Reynolds is a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Yongmei Liu at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, where she utilizes functional genomic data sets, including genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) to investigate the molecular features of cardiovascular disease, and related risk factors: aging, smoking, and obesity. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, San Francisco in 2012. Dr. Reynolds’ research goals are to identify early biomarkers of smoking-associated disease to improve disease risk prediction and to identify potential targets for early disease intervention strategies. This could be useful for the evaluation and comparison of the disease risks associated with the use of different tobacco products.

Martin Tibuakuu, MD, MPH (2015-2017)
Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: Smoking, CRP and Subclinical Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease

Martin Tibuakuu is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and a fellow at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease. His research interests focus on environmental exposures such as air pollution and tobacco exposure to cardiovascular health. His current working projects include the identification of sensitive biomarkers of subclinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease secondary to tobacco exposure. He holds an MD degree from the University of Algiers and an MPH degree in Epidemiologic and Statistical Methods in Clinical and Public Health Research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Wendy White, PhD, MPH (2015-2017)
Jackson Heart Study
Project Title: Renal Decline in Menthol vs Non-Menthol Cigarette Smokers

Wendy White currently serves as Deputy Director of the Jackson Heart Study Undergraduate Training and Education Center at Tougaloo College. She became interested in health disparities and smoking while completing her Ph.D. in Environmental Science at Jackson State University. Her research interests include smoking, menthol cigarette use and health effects, and lung function.

Iris Zeller, MD, PhD (2014-2015)
University of Louisville
Project Title: Endothelial Toxicity of Tobacco Constituents

Iris Zeller studied Medicine at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria, where she also obtained her Ph.D. in cardiovascular toxicology. She then moved to the U.S. to study the effects of cigarette smoking on the periodontal pathogen, Porphyromonas gingivalis, during a postdoctoral position at the University of Louisville, Kentucky. Currently, she is studying animal models of tobacco regulatory science at the University of Louisville in the lab of Dr. Sanjay Srivastava as an A-TRAC trainee.