Group Members

Daniel M. Parker, PhD

Associate Professor CV

Daniel M. Parker is an Associate Professor in Public Health at the University of California in Irvine. His research focuses on spatial epidemiology (especially of infectious diseases), spatial demography and global health. He earned a BA in Anthropology (certificate in Medical Anthropology and Global Health) from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2009 and a dual PhD in Anthropology and Demography from The Pennsylvania State University in 2014. He was a postdoctoral researcher at Shoklo Malaria Research Unit, a field station of the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, from 2014 – 2017.

Natasha Glendening, MSc

PhD Candidate

Natasha Glendening has an MSc from The London School of Economics in African Development. In her masters work she researched the international response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and its influence on health behavior. Natasha is mainly interested in infectious disease epidemiology and the dynamics of disease outbreaks in low resource settings, as well as the use of GIS for analysis. She is currently working on a project concerning malaria knowledge and attitudes among migrants in a mining village in Ethiopia.

Gaëlle T. Sehi, MPH

PhD Candidate

As an Ivorian Ph.D. student at the University of California in Irvine, I am passionate about raising awareness and educating populations about infectious diseases. My research interests lie in understanding the ecology of vector-borne diseases, remote sensing, and healthcare accessibility, with a focus on spatial epidemiology, infectious diseases, and maternal & child health in West Africa. I have extensive training in statistical and epidemiological approaches, as well as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial data science. Additionally, my background as a first-generation student and an Ivorian woman adds a unique perspective to my work.

Maia Tarnas, BA

PhD Candidate

Maia is doctoral student in Global Health at UC Irvine, where she researches the impact of conflict on health. Her work focuses primarily on the protracted conflicts in Syria and Yemen and ways in which the politicization of health and attacks on infrastructure during these conflicts have impacted the countries’ infectious disease burdens. She uses syndromic surveillance, remote sensing, infectious disease epidemiology, and spatial analysis heavily in her work. She is also passionate about working in close collaboration with local scholars and NGOS, in addition to mentoring global health students. She earned a BA in Community Health and Middle Eastern Studies from Tufts University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa.

Chel Baker, BsN, MAS (in spatial analysis)

PhD Candidate

Chel has a background in public health nursing and is currently a PhD student at the UCI Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing under the mentorship of Dr. Sanghyuk Shin. Her research interests include infectious disease transmission, global health, and spatial epidemiology. She is currently working on a project examining geographic variation in the burden of tuberculosis in Botswana, and the role of physical and social environments in sustained transmission.

Jose Villalvazo, MS

PhD Student

Jose Villalvazo holds a Master of Science degree (Spring 2023) in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of California, Irvine. During his graduate studies, he conducted research on the potential risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 test positivity in children from Orange County. With a focus on infectious disease epidemiology and global health, Jose is passionate about exploring ways to prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases worldwide.

Marcela Lopez, BA

PhD Student

Marcela is a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at UC Irvine. Her research interests include infectious disease epidemiology, maternal & child health, and health equity. She has previously conducted research on COVID-19 transmission within household and school settings, vaccine hesitancy among pregnant populations, and biomarkers of stress and wellness. She is co-mentored by Dr Tetyana Vasylyeva. She earned a BA in Anthropology, with a concentration in Biological Anthropology, from Yale University in 2019.

Adriana Urrutia, MA

PhD Student

I am a Peruvian political scientist with a Master’s Degree in Comparative Politics (Sciences Po Paris). I am interested in linking social sciences to health sciences and politics to health to understand and to help solve health disparities. I have worked for 6 years as a public servant in Peru as an advisor for the Ministery of Development and Social Inclusion and the Ministery of Education. For 4 and a half years I was the chair of the Political Science School at Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University and had to manage the COVID-19 crisis as an education services provider. Since 2017, I have participated in some research projects focused on the linkages between rural and urban environments with a focus on rural youth. I am now interested in analyzing the way social determinants and processes interacts with environmental determinants and how this affects health, especially infectious diseases such as dengue fever.

Shemms Najjar, MPH

MPH Student

Shemms Najjar conducted research on the historical and present-day transmission/presence of cholera across the Middle East and North Africa region. Her interests broadly lie in the fields of global health, refugee/immigrant health, and historical epidemiology.

Hector Manuel Jr. Garcia

BS Honors

Hector was a Senior Honors Student in the BS Program in Public Health and he did his honors thesis on how student living arrangements (i.e. whether they live on campus versus off campus) influences uptake of the flu vaccine.

Sayambhu Saita, PhD

Visiting Scholar

Sayambhu visited us in 2018, returned to finish his PhD in Tropical Medicine at Mahidol University, Thailand in June 2019 and is now a faculty member at Thamassat University in Lampang, Thailand.