The mission of the SER-Student & Post-Doc Committee (SER-SPC) is to facilitate the educational experiences and professional development of students in epidemiology-related disciplines by providing information, resources, and networking opportunities; facilitating student exchange of research ideas; and providing service to the SER and advancing and promoting the SER-SPC.
Anthony J. Nixon, Jr.
President (Student & Post-Doc Committee)
Anthony J. Nixon, Jr. is a doctoral student in the PhD Public Health Sciences program at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a perinatal epidemiologist who focuses on family health and well-being. His research interests focus on fatherhood and complex social issues during the perinatal period, with a particular emphasis on understanding the impact of fathers’ contribution to maternal, infant, and family health outcomes. He is also interested in exploring the intersection of race, gender, and socioeconomic status in shaping fatherhood experiences and health disparities. His work has included exploratory and descriptive studies in maternal and infant mortality, spatial epidemiology, social epidemiology, social networks, public health surveillance, and access to perinatal & healthcare services. Read more
- BS, Biology, Morehouse College, 2012
- MPH, Epidemiology, The Ohio State University, 2017
Contact
Anthony J. Nixon, Jr.
Washington University in
St. Louis, Missouri
Public Health Science Program
Email: nixonanthonyj@wustl.edu
Tendai Gwanzura
President Elect
Tendai Gwanzura is a PhD candidate in Epidemiology at Florida International University and a passionate leader committed to advancing equity in public health research and practice. A former medical laboratory scientist in Zimbabwe, her early experiences with health system inequities now drive her work as an NIH F31 predoctoral fellow, where she leads a multi-aim spatial epidemiology study examining disparities in COVID-19 outcomes among people with HIV across Florida. Read more
Contact
Tendai Gwanzura
Florida International University
Department of Epidemiology
Email: tgwanzur@fiu.edu
Alvin Thomas
Past President
Alvin is a post-doctoral fellow at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Alvin leverages multi-omic, psychometric, and brain imaging data to understand the biology of cognitive resilience to Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. The long-term goal of this line of work is to improve the health of aging populations. Alvin’s other interests include causal inference and deep learning. Alvin earned a BS with honors in Chemistry and Engineering from Washington and Lee University, a MSPH in Global Disease Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University, and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served in the AmeriCorps program and remains committed to diminishing poverty through research and service.
Contact
Alvin Thomas
Washington University in St. Louis
School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry NeuroGenomics and Informatics Center
email: alvint@wustl.edu
Xuexin Yu
Education Co-Chair
Xuexin (she/her) is a social epidemiologist and Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Her research examines life-course economic and psychosocial factors in relation to cognitive aging among older adults across global settings. Xuexin completed her PhD in Epidemiological Science from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and she received her BS in Biology and MSc in Health Policy from Sichuan University, China.
Contact
Contact
Xuexin Yu
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
xy2677@cumc.columbia.edu
Megan Cupp Buxton
Education Co-Chair
Meg Buxton (she/her) is a postdoctoral research fellow at CAUSALab at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research focuses on generalizability and transportability, with a particular interest in using diverse data sources to examine the safety of pharmaceutical treatments for chronic diseases. Meg earned her PhD in Epidemiology from Brown University, supported by an F31 fellowship from the National Institute on Aging, where she studied opioid safety among Medicare-insured older adults with autoimmune conditions. She also holds an MPH from Imperial College London and a BSc in Nutrition and Biochemistry from McGill University.
Contact
Megan Buxton
Education Co-Chair
Harvard University mbuxton@hsph.harvard.edu
Ariadne Rivera-Aguirre
Internal Affairs Chair
Ariadne Rivera-Aguirre is a doctoral candidate in the Division of Epidemiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Ariadne’s work focuses on evaluating the effect of drug and social policies on substance use and related harms, employing causal inference methods. Prior to joining the doctoral program, Ariadne worked as a Data Analyst at the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and at the Violence Prevention Research Program at University of California, Davis. She received a Master’s in Public Policy from Duke University and her BA in Economics from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.
Contact
Ariadne Rivera-Aguirre
PhD Candidate
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Ariadne.Rivera@nyulangone.org
Meghana Shamsunder
Diversity and Inclusion Chair
Meghana is a doctoral candidate at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy and a Senior Analytic Consultant for RWD/RWE research at Panalgo. Meghana’s research focuses on developing, applying, and teaching advanced epidemiological methods for time-varying exposures. She is currently evaluating the impact of staggered policy adoption on population health outcomes using g-estimation within a quasi-experimental framework. As a methodologist, her previous work spans topics including breast cancer, surgery-related patient reported outcomes, COVID-19, mental health research, among other areas. She also holds an MPH from Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and a BSPH from UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Contact
Meghana Shamsunder, MPH, BSPH
Doctoral Candidate
CUNY Graduate School
mgshamsunder1@gmail.com
Jessica Beetch
Media Co-Chair
Jessee (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the T32 Cancer Disparities Training Program at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on addressing viral exposure disparities, spanning from rural HPV care to HIV harm reduction. Her previous work examined COVID-19 outcomes across different pandemic waves and explored the pandemic’s indirect impact on routine childhood healthcare. Jessee holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences.
Contact
Jessica Beetch
University of Minnesota
beetc005@umn.edu
Amy Zheng
Media Co-Chair
Amy Zheng is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. Her research area is focused on HIV and tuberculosis and understanding how to improve treatment outcomes for vulnerable populations.
Contact
Amy Zheng
Boston University
School of Public Health
amyzheng@bu.edu
Anlan Cao
Program Co-Chair
Anlan Cao, PhD, MBBS, is a translational research postdoctoral fellow at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research. Her research focuses on energy balance and cancer survivorship, with particular interests in cachexia, chemotoxicity, exercise interventions, and clinical informatics. Prior to joining Kaiser, Dr. Cao received her doctorate in epidemiology from Yale University.
Contact
Anlan Cao
Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research
anlan.cao@kp.org
Gina Nam
Program Co-Chair
Gina recently defended her PhD in Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Her research uses a causal inference approach to examine the association between cancer and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in racially and ethnically diverse populations, addressing the competing risk bias. Her long-term goal is to improve the understanding of chronic diseases in aging populations, particularly in underrepresented communities across the United States. Gina also holds an MPH in Epidemiology from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.