PSU-MIRT trainee profiles

Yvonne Ferguson (2002) - Yvonne is completing a Ph.D. degree at the Univ. of North Carolina School of Public Health. For her PSU-MIRT traineeship she worked with Dr. O. Shisana in Cape Town, South Africa, on HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination among Xhosa and Coloured communities. Her abstract on this research received an Honorable Mention award at the 2003 APHA Conference. Following her PSU-MIRT traineeship, Yvonne traveled to Malawi, Africa twice to conduct research with professors there on HIV/AIDS and nutrition. This research will be the basis of her dissertation. Yvonne has received several honors/awards, including a NIH-HICHD Predoctoral NRSA.

DeWitt Webster (2001) - DeWitt received his Ph.D. degree in Biobehavioral Health from the Pennsylvania State Univ. in 2003. For his PSU-MIRT traineeship he worked on data assessing female condom use in Mpumalanga (Pretoria), South Africa. After making a second trip back to Mpumalanga, his research formed the basis for his dissertation. He presented his research at the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain (2002) and at the First Multicultural Caribbean United Agains AIDS Conference in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic (2004). DeWitt is completing a postdoctoral WK Kellogg Community Health Scholar Fellowship at the Univ. of Michigan School of Public Health. He is a co-author of five papers published since the PSU-MIRT traineeship.

Farzad Noubary (2002, 2004) - Farzad graduated with honors with a combined B.S./M.S. degree in Statistics from the Pennsylvania State Univ. in 2004. He was awarded an NIH AIDS training grant that is supporting his work towards a Ph.D. degree in biostatistics at Harvard. Farzad's first PSU-MIRT traineeship was spent in Cape Town, South Africa, utilizing his statistical expertise to assist researchers at the Medical Research Council who were studying the correlation between substance abuse and sexual assult among adolescents. He is a co-author of a published paper about this research. His second PSU-MIRT traineeship was spent in Geneva, Switzerland, assisting researchers at the World Health Organization.