Caroline Attardo Genco, Provost and Senior Vice President 

As provost and senior vice president, Dr. Caroline Attardo Genco serves as Tufts University’s chief academic officer and is responsible for setting and guiding institutional priorities that advance the university’s mission as a student-centered, R1 institution. As provost, Genco oversees Tufts’ eight schools as well as multiple cross-school programs, centers, and institutes, and works to champion and integrate educational and research activities across the university. The university’s education; research; faculty; innovation; and diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice operations report up through her office.

Genco previously served as the vice provost for research (VPR) from 2019 to 2021 and as chair of the Immunology Department at Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) from 2015 to 2019. She currently holds the Arthur E. Spiller M.D. Endowed Professorship in Genetics at TUSM and has a distinguished history of excellence in biomedical research. She has fostered numerous collaborations across disciplines, including immunology, infectious diseases, epidemiology, biomedical engineering, and public health. Her research and translational work focus on chronic inflammation and the role of the microbiome in systemic inflammatory disorders, sexually transmitted infections, and oral infectious diseases. She has authored more than 130 scientific articles, and her research program has been continuously supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She has served on numerous NIH scientific advisory committees and has worked closely with several pharmaceutical companies in an advisory capacity.

Kendra Field, Associate Professor of History, and Associate Professor of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora, School of Arts and Sciences 

Dr. Kendra Taira Field is associate professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University. Field is the author of Growing Up with the Country: Family, Race, and Nation after the Civil War (Yale University Press, 2018). Her current book project, The Stories We Tell (W.W. Norton & Company) is a history of African American genealogy and storytelling from the Middle Passage to the present. Field abridged David Levering Lewis' W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography 1868–1963 (Holt Paperbacks, 2009), and her scholarly articles have appeared in the Journal of American History, the Journal of African American History, Southern Cultures, and the American Historical Review. Field has been awarded fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Huntington Library, and Harvard University's Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. She is the recipient of the Western Writers of America's 2017 Spur Award for Best Western Short Nonfiction, the 2016 Boahen-Wilks Prize, and the 2022 NAACP W.E.B. Du Bois Award. Field has advised and appeared in historical documentaries, including Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (2013), Roots: A History Revealed (2016), and Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre (2021).

As a public historian, Field co-founded the African American Trail Project and the Du Bois Forum, a retreat center for writers, scholars, and artists of color; served as project historian for the Du Bois Freedom Center, the first museum in North America dedicated to the life and work of W.E.B. Du Bois; co-curated We Who Believe In Freedom: Black Feminist DC, the inaugural exhibition (2023) of the National Women's History Museum; and serves as chief historian for the 10 Million Names Project. Field received her doctoral degree in American history from New York University. She also holds a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree from Williams College. Before entering the academy, she worked in education, organizing, and the nonprofit sector in Boston and New York.

Kerri Greenidge, Mellon Associate Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora 

Kerri Greenidge is Mellon Associate Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University, where she also co-directs the African American Trail Project. She is co-director of Tufts' Slavery, Colonialism, and Their Legacies Project. Greenidge is the author of Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter (Liveright, 2019). Listed by the New York Times as one of its top picks of 2019, the book is the first biography of Boston editor William Monroe Trotter to be written in nearly 50 years. The book received the Mark Lynton History Prize, the Massachusetts Book Award, the J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Award, the Sperber Award from Fordham University, and the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize from the Massachusetts Historical Society. Black Radical was also short-listed for the Stone Book Award from the Museum of African American History, Boston, the Cundill History Prize, and the Plutarch Award for best biography. Her most recent book, The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family (Liveright, 2022) was recently listed as a best book of the year by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Boston Globe, among other publications. It was the 2023 semi-finalist for the Stone Book Award from the Museum of African American History in Boston, and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award from Phi Beta Kappa. The Grimkes was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, in addition to the J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Award. Her writings have appeared in the Massachusetts Historical Review, the Radical History Review, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the Guardian.

Moderator:

Monroe France, Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice (DEIJ) 

Monroe France is the inaugural vice provost for diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) at Tufts University and a professor of practice at the Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life. Previously, Monroe served as the senior associate vice president for global engagement and inclusive leadership in the Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation at New York University (NYU). Monroe’s career at NYU spanned nearly 20 years, and he has 25 years of progressive experience in higher education, nonprofits, corporate sectors, and arts and creative industries, as well as in social responsibility, humanitarian, and philanthropy initiatives, as an educator, professor, professional trainer, consultant, strategist, and keynote presenter.

As the inaugural vice provost for DEIJ, France will work with university leaders to expand and look holistically at Tufts’ strategy to advance institutional inclusive excellence to include the full spectrum of ethnicities, national origins, ages, sexual orientations, gender identities, beliefs, religions and faiths, cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, neurotypes, and abilities

Panelists:

Bree Aldridge, Professor of Molecular Biology & Microbiology, School of Medicine and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering 

Bree Aldridge is a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University. She is the associate director of the Stuart B. Levy Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance, the associate director of the Tufts Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and a member of the Tuberculosis Drug Accelerator Program. She specializes in combining quantitative experiments and mathematical modeling to create intuitive descriptions of complex cell biology. Her lab develops quantitative tools to interrogate and interpret the tuberculosis drug response and heterogeneity with an emphasis on single-cell behaviors and design of combination therapies. She is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and is the recipient of an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. Her lab website is sites.tufts.edu/aldridgelab.

Harry Selker, Dean, Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (Tufts CTSI)

Harry P. Selker, M.D., MSPH is dean of Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). As dean, he provides leadership for programs and infrastructure that support clinical and translational research at Tufts University schools and affiliated hospitals, and other academic, community-based, and industry CTSI partners. He is also executive director of the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies (ICRHPS) at Tufts Medical Center, where he leads one of its 10 research centers, the Center for Cardiovascular Health Services Research. He is the chief of the Division of Clinical Care Research of the Department of Medicine at Tufts Medical Center, where he also practices medicine.
 
Dr. Selker’s research focuses on the development of treatment strategies aimed at improving medical care, including the development of “clinical predictive instruments,” mathematical models that are used as decision aids. He has run large national clinical trials that have featured full inclusion of all eligible patients so that results will be generalizable and will apply to all populations, not just to the majority and those who have resources that facilitate trial participation. He developed the concept of broadly engaged team science, by which all stakeholders are engaged in the design and execution of studies to ensure that the results will be relevant to all populations. He has done research to advance clinical study design and execution, and the repurposing of nonpatented drugs for major public needs. 
 
Selker has provided advice about health-care delivery and medical research to policymakers, including the House and Senate authors of the Affordable Care Act. Selker has served as president of the Society of General Internal Medicine, the Society for Clinical and Translational Science, the Association for Clinical Research Training, and the Association for Clinical and Translational Science, and is currently chair of the Clinical Research Forum.

Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha, Julia A. Okoro Professor of Black Maternal Health, School of Medicine

Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha is the Julia A. Okoro Professor of Black Maternal Health in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Amutah-Onukagha is the founder and director of the Center of Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice (CBMHRJ), and of the Maternal Outcomes of Translational Health Equity Research (MOTHER) Lab. In addition, she is the founder of the largest conference on Black maternal health in the United States, held annually in April during Black maternal health week. In its seventh year, the conference attracts participants from over 46 states and 10 countries. An active scholar, Amutah-Onukagha’s research investigates maternal health disparities, infant mortality, reproductive health and social justice, and HIV/AIDS as experienced by Black women. She also serves as the inaugural assistant dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for the university’s public health and professional degree programs.

A well-published author, Amutah-Onukagha’s research has been presented in over 80 manuscripts, six book chapters, a best-selling book on Amazon, and a textbook on culturally responsive evaluation. Her research has also been featured across a series of platforms, including The Lancet, TedX, USA Today, MSNBC, and most recently the New York Times. She serves on the editorial board for the journal Women’s Health Issues. Currently, Amutah-Onukagha is the principal investigator of two multiyear studies on maternal mortality and morbidity, an R01 funded by National Institutes of Health and an interdisciplinary grant on maternal health equity funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Amutah-Onukagha serves as the DEI training director for the KL2 and BIRCWH fellowship programs at the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). She is an active co-investigator on several other research studies, with collaborators at Tufts Medical Center, Brandeis University, the State University of Buffalo, and Harvard University School of Medicine.

In 2022, she received the John MacQueen Lecture Award from the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs. Amutah-Onukagha was an honoree of the 2020 Top 40 under 40 Leaders in Minority Health, presented by the National Minority Quality Forum. She is a founding member of Birth Equity Justice MA, a board member for the Neighborhood Birth Center in Boston, and a board member for Dr. Shalon’s Maternal Action Project (DSMAP). In 2019, she was honored with the American Public Health Association’s Maternal and Child Health Section’s Young Professional of the Year Award. She currently serves as co-chair of the section’s Perinatal and Women's Health Committee.

Amutah-Onukagha received her master of public health from The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services before completing her doctor of philosophy in public health from the University of Maryland. She also completed a Kellogg Health Scholars postdoctoral fellowship, with an emphasis on community-based participatory research and health disparities.

Qiaobing Xu, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering

Dr. Qiaobing Xu is currently a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University. He also holds an adjunct position in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and School of Medicine at Tufts University. He obtained his B.S. from Jilin University, China, and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He did postdoctoral training at MIT before joining Tufts as an assistant professor in September 2010. He was promoted to full professor in 2021. His current research interests lie at the intersection of material science engineering, specifically micro/nanoscience, and biomedical application. His work involves using combinatorial methods to develop novel materials for the delivery of therapeutic biomacromolecules and using nanotechnology to develop novel biomaterials for tissue engineering. He received the Charlton Award from Tufts University School of Medicine and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. He was named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences from Pew Charitable Trusts and was elected as a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), class of 2020.

Sara Folta, Associate Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy

Sara C. Folta, Ph.D., is an associate professor and dean for faculty affairs at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Her research interests focus on community-based strategies for improving dietary intake, physical activity, and body composition. She has extensive experience working in communities affected by poor health outcomes resulting from inequitable systems. Dr. Folta received a B.A. in biology from Middlebury College, an M.S. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Vermont, and a Ph.D. in nutrition from Tufts University.

Moderator:

Bernard Arulanandam, Vice Provost for Research

Dr. Bernard Arulanandam, Ph.D., M.B.A., is Tufts University vice provost for research. He oversees the Tufts research enterprise. As the chief research officer, Arulanandam sets the strategic vision and oversees key regulatory areas for research at Tufts. He oversees research compliance and safety, central pre-award research administration, technology transfer, research integrity, and research development. He also spearheads strategic partnerships with key institutions that complement Tufts’ strengths, and partners with school and university leadership to advance Tufts’ research goals and reputation as a research-intensive institution. Arulanandam is a strong advocate for multidisciplinary research efforts, building strategic external partnerships, promoting innovation and technology transfer, cultivating faculty and staff professional development opportunities, and enhancing research and scholarly activities for students, all of which will ensure Tufts’ status as a midsized, student-centered, research-intensive institution. 

Panelists:

Helen Suh, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Adjunct Professor of Community Health, School of Arts and Sciences

Helen Suh is an environmental epidemiologist whose research examines the complex interplay between environmental exposures, human health, and community resilience. Her research focuses primarily on the effects of exposure to airborne pollutants and extreme weather events on human health outcomes. Her studies encompass a range of topics, including the association between airborne metal exposures and dementia-related neuropathology and diagnoses, the identification of vulnerable populations and communities affected by environmental exposures, and the examination of the effects of measurement error on health risk estimation. 

In addition to her research, Dr. Suh performs advisory work related to environmental health for various local, national, and international organizations. She has previously held positions as a member of the charter U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and participated in numerous National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine committees.  

Suh holds a Bachelor of Science in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Science and a Doctor of Science in environmental health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Jonathan A. Runstadler, Professor of Infectious Disease & Global Health, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

Dr. Runstadler joined the Department of Infectious Disease & Global Health in 2017. Working at the host-pathogen-environmental interface, the Runstadler Lab studies how an emerging virus, specifically influenza, is maintained, is transmitted, and evolves in reservoir or intermediate animal hosts. A major part of this work is directed at understanding how both host and viral factors may influence the risk of viral spillover into new hosts, including humans. Runstadler is working with collaborators to bridge the gap between studies of disease surveillance and disease ecology with a molecular and comparative understanding of pathogenesis, immune response, and evolution. His current research is particularly focused on understanding genotype-phenotype relationships of the influenza virus, the role of diverse hosts and environments, and the interspecies movement of virus to the emergence of disease in new populations.

Prior to joining the faculty at Cummings School, Runstadler was a faculty member at both the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Institute of Arctic Biology and the MIT Division of Comparative Medicine. Runstadler received an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his D.V.M. and Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California, Davis. Prior to beginning his own lab at UAF, Runstadler was a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Companion Animal Health under Dr. Niels Pederson at the University of California, Davis.

Maulik Jagnani, Assistant Professor of Economics, The Fletcher School

Maulik Jagnani is an assistant professor of environmental economics at The Fletcher School at Tufts University. His research lies at the intersection of environmental sustainability, human capital development, and poverty alleviation. One area of his work delves into how households and firms anticipate and adapt to extreme environmental health conditions such as heat, polluted air, and floods. Another explores the consequences of poor environmental and economic conditions on human capital formation, such as education and health. Jagnani also investigates the impacts, both intended and unintended, of government policies on environmental health and human capital outcomes. Jagnani earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2019, was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University until 2020, and served as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado Denver from 2020 to 2023.

Penn Loh, Distinguished Senior Lecturer of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, School of Arts and Sciences, and Senior Lecturer, Tisch College

Penn Loh is a distinguished lecturer and the director of the Master of Public Policy Program and Community Practice at the Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. From 1996 to 2009, Loh served in various roles, including as executive director, at Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE), a Roxbury-based environmental justice group. He holds an M.S. in environmental science and policy from the Energy and Resources Group program of the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from MIT. He partners with various community organizations working on environmental justice, community development, and civic empowerment. His recent work focuses on community pandemic response, mutual aid, and climate resilience and grassroots efforts to build just and sustainable solidarity economies. He also chairs the board of directors at the Center for Economic Democracy and at the Hyams Foundation.

Moderator:

Cigdem Talgar, Vice Provost for Education

Dr. Cigdem Talgar’s experience includes over twenty years of progressive leadership as a creative and strategic innovator. Prior to joining Tufts University in December 2022, she served as the associate vice chancellor in the educational innovation division at Northeastern University. During this time, she has drawn on her background in the cognitive and learning sciences and her depth of experience in experiential learning to lead the collaborative design, development, implementation, and assessment of transformative institution-wide programs and initiatives that have yielded impactful and inclusive learning environments for students.

A cognitive psychologist by training, Talgar’s areas of expertise include attentional processes mediating cognition, memory, and learning, and experiential learning and educational innovation to support robust and equitable learning environments. Talgar’s passion for her work has driven her beyond Tufts to advance evidence-based, high-impact practices internationally. She has actively collaborated with numerous institutions to advance their strategic direction through educational innovations that integrate experiential learning, inquiry-based education, assessment, and holistic learning pathways into curricula.

Talgar received her M.A. and Ph.D. in experimental psychology from New York University. She received her B.Sc. in psychology from the University of Toronto.

Panelists:

Athanasios Zavras, Delta Dental of Massachusetts Professor of Public Health and Community Service, School of Dental Medicine

Athanasios “Thanos” Zavras, DG93, is the Delta Dental of Massachusetts Professor of Public Health and Community Service, department chair, and assistant dean for faculty advancement at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. Dr. Zavras is a practicing dentist, public health practitioner, and epidemiologist. His research interests include oral epidemiology and health services research. He has authored more than 80 publications on topics including developing methods to study the efficiency of primary health clinics, evaluating China’s dental delivery system, the economics of the age 1 dental visit in the United States, the detection of rare dental phenotypes within large insurance datasets, and multiplex genome-wide bioinformatics to uncover gene-environment interactions. For his discoveries he has been awarded two patents, both on novel molecular diagnostic methods for head and neck cancer and bisphosphonate-induced osteonecrosis of the jaw. He has lectured extensively nationally and internationally.

Dr. Zavras is a diplomat and a past officer and president of the American Board of Dental Public Health. He served at the World Health Organization during the establishment of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. He has also served as member, advisor, or consultant in several state and national committees at the National Institutes of Health, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Office of the Inspector General of the Commonwealth, and internationally at the European Commission, and various European agencies of education and health.

Ian Johnstone, Professor of International Law, The Fletcher School

Ian Johnstone is a professor of international law at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, and co-director of the Center for International Law and Governance. A faculty member since 2000, he served as interim dean from 2018–2019 and academic dean from 2013–15. Prior to joining Fletcher, Johnstone spent close to 10 years at the United Nations, working in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and Office of Legal Affairs. He continues to serve as a regular consultant to the United Nations. His most recent books include Building an International Cybersecurity Regime: Multistakeholder Diplomacy (co-editor, Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming 2023); Talking International Law: Legal Argumentation Outside the Courtroom (co-editor, Oxford University Press, 2021); The Oxford Handbook on International Organizations (co-editor, Oxford University Press, 2016); Law and Practice of the United Nations, 2nd edition (co-author, Oxford University Press, 2016); and The Power of Deliberation: International Law, Politics and Organizations (Oxford University Press, 2011). He has been a visiting professor at the New York University School of Law, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and O.P. Jindal Global University in Sonipat, India. He is currently a member of the International Advisory Board of the International Peace Institute, New York. A citizen of Canada, he holds an LL.M. degree from Columbia University and J.D. and B.A. degrees from the University of Toronto.

J. Hellen Amuguni, Associate Professor, Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, and Associate Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine, School of Medicine

Dr. Hellen Amuguni is an associate professor in the Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University with a dual appointment at the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine. She has expertise in infectious disease, Gender and One Health. She works at the cutting edge of the One Health initiative, which combines a multidisciplinary approach and human, animal, and environmental health knowledge for monitoring and prevention of current and emerging diseases. She also integrates gender components into her work as part of her approach to strengthening the collaboration and capacities of the sectors and actors involved in health service delivery. Dr. Amuguni is the project director for the Tufts-led and USAID-funded STOP Spillover One Health grant, which supports countries in Africa and Asia to stop the spillover of infectious diseases from wildlife to humans, and to reduce amplification and spread of disease in the human population. She is also the project lead for SheVax+, an IDRC-funded gender and LVIF grant that focuses on women’s empowerment and engagement in the livestock vaccine systems in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.

Liana Woskie, Assistant Professor of Community Health, School of Arts and Sciences

Liana Woskie is an assistant professor in the Department of Community Health at Tufts University. She recently completed a Ph.D. in health policy and economics from the London School of Economics (LSE), where her project, “Quantifying Structural Violence: Female Sterilization and Normalized State Repression in Healthcare,” was awarded the Guggenheim Emerging Scholar Prize for research on contemporary manifestations of violence against women. Before graduate school, Woskie served as the assistant director of the Harvard Initiative on Global Health Quality. During this time, her research publication on comparative health financing (with Papanicolas and Jha) was named Top Article of the Decade by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and it informed both congressional and senate hearings on U.S. health spending. She also served as coordinator for the Lancet Independent Panel on the Global Governance Response to Ebola (2015–16). During COVID-19 Woskie built on this experience by examining differentially curtailed population mobility and human rights throughout the pandemic.

Patrick Webb, Alexander McFarlane Professor of Nutrition, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy

Dr. Patrick Webb is a scholar-practitioner who has worked extensively on food security policy and practice, nutrition, agricultural development, humanitarian emergencies, and climate change interactions with food systems. Today, he is the Alexander McFarlane Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Webb currently serves as the technical adviser to the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition (GLOPAN), and adviser to the Food Systems for the Future initiative. He was recently reappointed to the Steering Committee of the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the Committee on World Food Security, as well as serving on the Eat-Lancet 2.0 Commission.

Before joining Tufts, he was a member of the Science Council of the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), and he has been a member of multiple expert groups supporting the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Earlier, he lived in Africa (Ethiopia, Niger, and The Gambia) while working for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

He manages several large projects, including Feed the Future’s Food Systems for Nutrition Innovation Lab. His work relating to climate change is focused on modelling the planetary boundary impacts of dietary choice, and the food system impacts of climate/weather anomalies globally and in low- and middle-income countries.

Emily Hagan, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) candidate, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

Emily Hagan is currently a second-year veterinary student at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. Following graduation, she plans to practice as a public health veterinarian, working with stakeholders to conserve wildlife, protect domestic animal populations, and safeguard human and animal health. Her goal is to address global health challenges with local communities and use culturally appropriate solutions that consider the relationship between animal, human, and environmental health.

Prior to joining the Tufts University community, Hagan was a research scientist and the behavioral risk research program manager at EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit research group that focuses on emerging infectious diseases and is dedicated to public health while protecting wildlife. Using a One Health approach, her work focused on understanding the behavioral components of zoonotic disease spillover and transmission in West Africa and Southeast Asia. This work aimed to develop sustainable behavioral interventions that prevent the spillover, amplification, and spread of infectious diseases.

Her previous work focused on HIV immunology, comparing natural and nonnatural host SIV infections and immunological mechanisms of control. Hagan has a Master of Public Health in epidemiology from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Her capstone research examined the burden of reptile- and amphibian-acquired salmonellosis.

Krystal Mutebi, Undergraduate Student, Community Health, School of Arts and Sciences

Krystal Mutebi is an undergraduate student at Tufts University, studying community health on the premedical track. With a deep-rooted commitment to improving the well-being of her Tufts community, she has become an active leader on campus, engaging in various aspects of student life. As the president of the Tufts Ladies of Essence a cappella group, Krystal harmoniously combines her love for music with her academic pursuits. Her leadership extends beyond the stage, as she also serves as the Tufts Community Union vice president, demonstrating her commitment to advocacy and student representation. In this role, she strives to create an inclusive campus environment for her peers.

Laura Corlin, Assistant Professor of Public Health & Community Medicine, School of Medicine

Dr. Laura Corlin is an assistant professor of public health and community medicine at Tufts University and an International Climate Fellow with the Higher Education Association Sustainability Consortium. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in environmental health at Tufts School of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular epidemiology at Boston University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on developing and applying new methods to assess the health effects of environmental mixtures in observational studies. Through her exposure assessment and environmental epidemiology research, Corlin seeks to mitigate environmental health disparities. Corlin also enjoys working with students in and out of the classroom.  

Natalie Rubio, Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Executive Director, Cellular Agriculture Commercialization Lab, School of Engineering

Dr. Natalie Rubio began working in the field of cellular agriculture in 2014, interning at New Harvest and Perfect Day. After graduating with a B.S. in chemical and biological engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder and spending a year working at Quartzy, she joined the Kaplan Lab at Tufts University to perform graduate research on cultured meat from novel species. She completed her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering/cellular agriculture. She also served as an advisor for Bond Pet Foods and Matrix Food Technologies and was the first employee at Ark Biotech, where she led the process science team, before rejoining Tufts.