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Letter from the President

In the 2019-2020 year, the Beta Upsilon Chapter Mentorship Program was developed and launched through the dedication of Past-President Meghan Nodurft-Froman and we matched a total of 5 members as mentees/mentors. Our chapter participated in the Project Makeover annual event, hosted our annual book drive, and member-at-large Brandace Stone spearheaded the creation of a chapter Facebook page.

In May we welcomed new members to Beta Upsilon, despite having to cancel our annual spring induction ceremony. This issue features some of those new members, their current work and a reflection of their time during their public health education. Please take a moment to read through their biographies and congratulate them on their accomplishments.

Finally, the year of 2020 will be one that most of us will never forget. From the COVID-19 pandemic to the reinvigorated fight for racial justice in the U.S. and worldwide, we are constantly reminded of the importance of public health. This field challenges us all to keep the people we serve and the barriers they face to optimal health at the forefront of what we do. While the work being done by members of Delta Omega and other public health professionals may not always be the latest news, it is and will always be important. I am ever grateful for the work being done by you all.

Stay safe out there! 

Warm regards,

Jodian

Jodian Blake
President
Delta Omega Beta Upsilon Chapter
2019-2020

Beta Upsilon Executive Committee

Current Officers

(pictured top to bottom, left to right) President: Jodian Blake, President-Elect: Veronica Richards, Past-President: Meghan Nodurft-Froman, Executive Secretary: Dr. Cindy Prins, and Members-at-Large: Brandace Stone and Krishna Vaddiparti.

Special Points of Interest

Beta Upsilon New Members

This year we added 21 new members to the Beta Upsilon chapter of Delta Omega. These individuals are sure to uphold the Delta Omega ideals of increasing the quality of the public health field and dedication to the protection and advancement of the health of all people. Congratulations to the newest members of Delta Omega!

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Beta Upsilon Annual Chapter Meeting

Call for nominations! Please email Cindy Prins at capfive@ufl.edu with your self-nomination or nomination for President-elect and two members-at-large to serve on the Executive Committee, along with the incoming President (Veronica Richards) and soon-to-be Past President (Jodian Blake). It is an exciting time to serve on the Delta Omega Beta Upsilon Chapter and we look forward to receiving your nominations.

Beta Upsilon will hold its annual chapter meeting on Monday, September 14th at 5:00pm. Executive Committee elections will take place at this time.

The meeting will occur over Zoom.

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Mentorship Program

The Delta Omega Beta Upsilon mentorship program has successfully completed its first year. Applications are open for year two participants. Please complete the 3 minute survey to update your directory information and apply to the program.

Carlye Ellison, a participant in last year's program, shared a testimonial about her experience:

"The Delta Omega Mentorship Program was highly beneficial for me as I gained a trustworthy supporter and confidant. The program provided base topics for us to cover while also allowing time to discuss other matters I wanted further support on. My mentor kept me accountable on my goals, expanded my network, and reviewed a grant proposal I was working on (that I am happy to report was rewarded). Additionally, my mentor inspired and comforted me through sharing both professional and personal struggles (especially important during COVID-19). I highly recommend participating in this program to help you connect with a fellow public health professional eager to help you reach your aspirations!"

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National Delta Omega Annual Meeting

The National Delta Omega Annual Meeting will be held over Zoom on Friday, October 16th from 1:00pm to 4:00pm. Chapter members can register for the meeting online.

Service Projects

Project Makeover

On a weekend in late February, Project Makeover's School Beautification Project was held at C.W. Norton Elementary in Gainesville. On February 22nd, Delta Omega and UF Public Health Student Association members joined over 1,000 volunteers in making over the campus with murals, landscaping, and other projects.

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Children's Book Donation Drive

Delta Omega kicked off the year with a children's book drive. Over 150 books were collected and donated to C.W. Norton Elementary School in Gainesville during Project Makeover. 

Thank you to those who were able to participate in the book drive and those who volunteered for Project Makeover!

Member Highlights

While we couldn't honor Beta Upsilon's 2020 inductees with our traditional luncheon, we still want to celebrate our newest members. We will be featuring the newest faces in our chapter in this space over the coming months. Congratulations to our 2020 inductees!

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Megan Bohan

Megan Bohan, BPH, is currently completing the MPH program at the University of Florida. She's been taking classes while doing contact tracing for the Florida Department of Health and completing a remote internship with the Hawaii Public Health Institute's Farm to School program. "A moment that stood out to me in my Public Health education was my semester long study abroad I did to Vietnam, South Africa, and Argentina," Megan recalled. "It was a comparative health systems trip and showed me just how closely related public health and social justice are."

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Scott Cohen

Scott Cohen, MPH, was immediately hired as an epidemiologist by the Florida Department of Health to assist with COVID-19 after completing the MPH program in April. He has returned to the University of Florida to begin the MD-PhD program, with a plan to complete his graduate studies in epidemiology/public health. Scott's favorite moment of the MPH program was at PHHP Research Day in January 2020, when his poster on air pollution in Alachua County one first place and he got to meet Dr. Sandro Galea. "The day was an amazing experience," he said. "And I owe credit to the mentors [and] faculty in the MPH program who provided me with the education and guidance to complete my research project."

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Jenna Daniel

Jenna Daniel, MPH, spent her time at the University of Florida developing the critical skills needed to succeed in the field of global health through hands-on work. "Some of my favorite moments [...] were experienced while working with my faculty advisor, Dr. Sarah McKune," she recalled. This included spending her internship at Haramaya University in Ethiopia with the CAGED/EXCAM teams. Jenna has moved on to serve as Program Coordinator for the HaSET Maternal and Child Health Research Program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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Shelbi Dupre

Shelbi Dupre, BPH, will be attending Johns Hopkins University in the fall as an MSN Entry into Nursing Student. Her hope is to use public health and nursing to break barriers of health inequity, social injustice, and social determinants. In her senior year at the University of Florida, she completed an internship with the Gainesville Fire Rescue Community Resource Paramedicine program. "It was the patient visits that showed me the value I can give people through public health," Shelbi answered when asked about moments that stood out during her time in the Public Health program.

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Dr. Stefania Mondello

Stefania Mondello, MD, PhD, MPH is a physician scientist and one of the 2020 Alumni Inductees to Beta Upsilon. Prior to her current position as an Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Messina in Italy, Dr. Mondello served as Director of Clinical Research for Banyan Biomarkers in Alachua, Florida. Her experiences in industry and academia have shaped a unique skill set combining the best of two different worlds. She is passionate about making a difference by encouraging the cross-disciplinary talks, creating interdisciplinary collaboration and data sharing network, and enhancing opportunities for young investigators, to promote their full participation, improvement and professional growth.

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Savanah Mueller

Savanah Mueller, MPH, has been staying involved in the Public Health field, despite the scarcity of public health programs and jobs in the rural area of Eastern North Carolina that she calls home. She volunteers at a free medical clinic and a women's shelter. Her recent work on assembling a policy and procedure manual helped the free clinic gain approval for accreditation by the National Association of Free & Charitable Clinics. Her most rewarding work, though, is at the women's shelter. "Our goal is to guide the women to becoming self sufficient and independent, finding employment and housing, and also often juggling various legal battles regarding their history of domestic violence," Savanah said. "It has been incredible to put my educational background into practice."

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Sarah Nguyentran

Sarah Nguyentran, MPH, followed her time at the University of Florida with a fellowship with the CDC Midwest Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Disease, under the mentorship of Dr. Jean Tsao of of Michigan State University, investigating the presence of blacklegged ticks and the pathogens they harbor. "During my MPH education, I vividly remember working on a project for my Spatial Epidemiology course with data from Dr. Sarah McKune's Un Enfant, Un Oeuf, Par Jour research," Sarah recalled. "[...] Through this project, I gleaned knowledge on the massive amounts of international teamwork required and on the difficult process of conducting health interventions, which I think will prepare me for future interests in working in global health."

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Janice Nieves

Janice Nieves, BPH, showed a commitment to Public Health throughout her time at the University of Florida with involvement in on-campus organizations U Matter Ambassadors and the Hispanic Student Association, and off-campus with Reading Pals and Kids Count. She credits her practicum with Kids Count as having the most impact on her time in the BPH program. "I got to learn about the health disparities that exist on the east side of Gainesville with regards to poverty, mental health, academics, and health outcomes," Janice said. "I was able to be a resource in the community and help the kids in the best way that I could in order to promote better outcomes for such young children."

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Lindsey Redding

Lindsey Redding '11, MPH, is one of Beta Epsilon's Alumni Inductees. Lindsey is the Director of Community Initiatives at WellFlorida Council, the health planning council serving 16 north central Florida counties. She also serves as an adjunct professor at UF, teaching Assessment and Surveillance in Public Health. On her time as a student in the MPH program, Lindsey recalled working with the Florida Department of Health and WellFlorida Council to develop an HIV Prevention Needs Assessment. "During the project, I learned the value and importance of working with the community to identify and address community needs," she stated.

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Dr. Chi Tang

"The focus of my work is to engage patients in medical decision making with modern information technology," explained Dr. Tang. "I believe that patient-driven instead of physician-driven decision making is essential for personalized healthcare." Dr. Tang is an endocrinologist with Griffin Faculty Physicians in Connecticut and creator of a decision-making assistant app named "Help My Diabetes". He recently earned his Master of Science degree in Biostatistics from University of Florida and hopes to continue to advocate a cultural shift in empowering patients and equipping them with the necessary tools to better their health. 

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Isabelle Wandenkolk

Isabelle Wandenkolk, MPH, hopes to continue her education in Public Health by earning a Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Science. She aspires to improve health and achieve health equity, particularly that of rural veterans, through enhanced community mobility, increased access to services, and improved options for societal integration. "Rural veterans are a minority group who often lack access to health services and are socially isolated," said Isabelle, who thinks that a project that focuses on them could be critical in reshaping a crucial part of the veterans' life.

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Dr. Ye Yuan

Dr. Yuan graduated with a PhD in pharmaceutical science and a Master's in Biostatistics from the University of Florida in December 2019. He is currently working as an ORISE fellow and will soon join the Division of Pharmacometrics at the Official of Clinical Pharmacology at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research with the FDA. Dr. Yuan's project is to develop a mathematical model to predict the pandemic of Covid-19 in the United States, evaluate the effect of the social interventions on controlling Covid-19, and to potentially incorporate the Covid-19 model into review work.

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Lillian Zeman

Lillian Zeman, BPH, is continuing at the College of Public Health & Health Professions and earning her MPH degree. She also works as a gymnastics coach at Balance 180 Gymnastics & Sports Academy and is part of the team that planned out the logistics for running their summer camp in the midst of a pandemic. Lillian also volunteers in the Cancer Center at North Florida Regional Medical Center. She credits a program paper that she worked on in one of her final classes as an undergrad that sparked an interest in the cancer field. "I decided to discuss the health disparity of lack of access to cancer-related services in Alachua County, specifically focusing on how to bring cancer services [and] treatments to individuals in underserved populations," Lillian explained. "The project showed me my passion for health equity and ensuring that individuals diagnosed with cancer are able to receive the services [and] treatment they need."

Notes and Reminders

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Delta Omega, Beta Upsilon Chapter • http://deltaomega.mph.ufl.edu/

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