I'm deeply committed to advancing health equity for populations historically oppressed and therefore vulnerable to negative health outcomes."
STEPHANIE LYN CREASY
Behavioral and Community Health Sciences
Stephanie Lyn Creasy, a PhD student in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, has been awarded a competitive predoctoral fellowship through the Collaborative Justice-Involved Research and Training Program funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse via Brown University. The program provides mentorship, training and funding to researchers studying substance use and HIV outcomes among populations affected by the criminal legal system.
Creasy's dissertation adapts post-release interventions to improve health outcomes for trans and gender-diverse adults who have been incarcerated. Her work addresses HIV prevention alongside broader social needs, including housing, employment and access to care.
"I'm deeply committed to advancing health equity for populations historically oppressed and therefore vulnerable to negative health outcomes," Creasy says. "This fellowship offers mentorship, resources and connections with other researchers working in this space."
Her research also intersects with Pitt's Just Health Collaborative, which was founded and directed by BCHS Assistant Professor Emily Dauria, PhD, MPH, and focuses on health justice for those involved in the criminal legal system. Through these efforts, Creasy is advancing research and interventions that center marginalized communities, promoting equity and systemic change.
Biostatistics and Health Data Science
Chen Liu (PhD '27) received the Health Policy Statistics Section Student Paper Award from the American Statistical
Association in August. His winning work uses artificial intelligence (AI), specifically machine-learning Bayesian additive regression trees, to investigate the differing effects of genes and treatments from person to person.
By training AI models to detect complex, non-linear patterns, Liu's method goes beyond traditional population averages to uncover individual-level mediation effects. In Alzheimer's studies, it has illuminated how disease pathology may affect the influence of the APOE gene on cognitive decline, paving the way for more targeted and effective interventions.
Liu's advisor, Assistant Professor Jiebiao Wang, PhD, is also advancing AI-powered research. Recently awarded an R21 grant from the National Institute on Aging, Wang is developing innovative statistical and machine-learning tools to explore heterogeneous genetic effects and mediation mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease. Working with Victor 
Talisa, PhD, assistant professor of critical care medicine, School of Medicine, and Xu Qin, PhD, associate professor of research methodology, School of Education, Wang's team aims to unlock the genetic diversity underlying the disease, offering new strategies for prevention and treatment.
Together, Wang and Liu are using AI not just to crunch numbers, but to open new frontiers in precision medicine for Alzheimer's.
Environmental and Occupational Health
The University of Pittsburgh has received $440,000 as part of a $10 million National Institutes of Health-funded initiative to study long-term health effects following the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Pitt joins the University of Kentucky and Yale University in a research consortium aiming to assess health needs and monitor outcomes for affected communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Led by Pitt's School of Public Health, the study will focus on liver and thyroid health using advanced, noninvasive tools like FibroScan, which helps detect early signs of liver damage.
Dean Maureen Lichtveld, MD, MPH emphasized Pitt's early partnership with the community to address concerns about children's health, air and water safety, and chemical exposure. This new grant builds on six previous NIH-funded studies and will support ongoing research.
Epidemiology
With K01 funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Alexander Sundermann (DrPH, EPI '22, MPH, IDM '14) assistant professor of epidemiology, and colleagues will develop a methodology to improve detection and control of health care-associated infection outbreaks, K01 training grants provide support and protected time for an intensive, supervised career-development experience in the biomedical, behavioral, or clinical sciences leading to research independence.
With approximately $643,000 over the next five years, Sundermann's project will explore combining real-time whole-genome sequencing surveillance with targeted environmental sampling to better detect and interrupt infection transmission in health care settings.
"A key part of this work is focused on training," said Sundermann, who will be building skills in bacterial pathogen genomics, bioinformatics, machine learning and applied epidemiology.
"The ultimate goal is to help advance genomic epidemiology as a practical, scalable infection-prevention strategy in health care."
ALEX SUNDERMANN
Typical infection-control interventions like frequent handwashing and thorough cleaning of high-touch areas and medical equipment are included among project parameters. But the combination of genomic surveillance and targeted environmental sampling should provide information to identify potentially dangerous infectious agents more accurately and intervene before transmission can take place.
Health Policy and Management
A team of PhD candidates, including Sarah Aviña, Heather Mentch, Sonia Persaud and Victoria Wyant, won third place in the Elevating Voices case competition hosted by the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) Foundation earlier this year.
The competition focused on the negative impact of Medicaid Estate Recovery on generational wealth and racial inequities and proposed solutions to the problem. 
Under federal law, state Medicaid programs must seek to recover certain benefits paid to enrollees 55 or older or those of any age who are permanently institutionalized upon the enroller's death, even if the state would prefer not to. Medicaid enrollees many unknowingly lose access to assets such as their homes due to Medicaid Estate Recovery, which disproportionately affects the poorest and most marginalized Americans.
The competition's judges included elder law attorneys and policy experts at several U.S. firms and universities.
"The work our students are doing for case competitions like these can have real and lasting impacts in the real world,"
said Julie Donohue, PhD, professor and chair, Department of Health Policy and Management. "Their research draws on the work and expertise of many of our faculty and staff working in areas like aging and long-term care as well as Medicare and Medicaid policy."
The NAELA Foundation says the work submitted will help its advocates raise awareness of the impacts of Medicaid Estate Recovery at the state and federal levels.
Human Genetics
The School of Public Health will host the 2026 National Bioethics Bowl, an intercollegiate academic competition that brings together teams from across the country to debate pressing ethical issues in health and the biological sciences. Unlike broader ethics competitions, the Bioethics Bowl focuses exclusively on dilemmas in medicine, genetics, public health and related fields. 
The event will take place on April 11, 2026, at the University of Pittsburgh and be organized by Cindy S. McCarthy, DHCE, MA, associate professor of human genetics, and her team. The event offers a unique platform for students to sharpen their critical thinking and ethical reasoning skills in a rigorous, real-world context. Pitt Public Health is thrilled to welcome future leaders in bioethics to campus for this important international event.
Infectious Diseases and Microbiology
A University of Pittsburgh team led by Cynthia McMillen, PhD, reported in Nature Communications that insect-spread Oropouche virus (OROV) can evade antiviral defenses in the placenta and infect the vital organ that connects mother and baby during fetal development.
Generally known to spread a flu-like tropical illness, OROV has been endemic in parts of South and Central America since the 1950s. During a major outbreak in 2023-24, however, doctors began seeing more cases and severe disease, including miscarriage, stillbirth and birth defects. Infection prior to birth raised concerns that OROV could be passed from mother to fetus—a process called vertical transmission.
In this new study, McMillen, research assistant professor of infectious diseases and microbiology, and colleagues exposed lab-cultured human placenta tissue and cells to OROV. They determined that the virus could infect and replicate in the placenta, particularly in cytotrophoblasts and the syncytiotrophoblast, cells that form the organ's outermost layer. This is the first study to provide direct evidence that OROV can infect human placental tissue.
These new study findings underscore the need for greater awareness, better diagnostic tools and more research into how emerging viruses like OROV might affect pregnancy. With climate change and increased travel making mosquito-borne viruses more widespread, understanding these risks is essential to protecting pregnant people and babies worldwide.
Bachelor of Science in Public Health
The School of Public Health is celebrating the rapid success of its Bachelor of Science in Public Health (BSPH) program. Since the launch of BSPH in 2022, enrollment has grown 162% to 499 students. The program graduated its first class in 2024 and will graduate 68 more students this academic year.
Driven by a passion for health equity, student interest continues to soar—from 38 first-years in 2022 to 234 in 2025, the program's largest cohort yet. To sustain this momentum, 23 new Student Admissions Ambassadors have been recruited for the 2026-27 admissions season. These student leaders share their enthusiasm for public health and connect authentically with prospective students, participating in panels and outreach events to engage future public health leaders near and far.