People

Dr. Steven Bellan, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Center for Global Health
College of Public Health
Center for Ecology of Infectious Diseases
Georgia Informatics Institute for Research and Education
University of Georgia
@lechaquel
CV

Postdoctoral Researchers

Lauren Steinbaum comes to us from Stanford University, where she recently completed a PhD in Environmental Engineering and Science. For her PhD, she investigated environmental transmission of soil-transmitted helminths, a type of intestinal worms that infect humans, in rural homes in western Kenya. Her PhD focused on disease transmission on at the micro-level (she actually used a microscope!), and she is excited to learn more about macro-level (i.e. population-level) disease transmission as a postdoctoral researcher in the Bellan lab.

Doctoral Students

 

Rachel Mercaldo obtained her Bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University, where she majored in mathematics until she discovered Fourier Series and began incorporating biology and chemistry into her degree. While at Penn State, she studied the effectiveness of Agion® Antimicrobial. She also had the opportunity to attend a research experience at the Odum School of Ecology at UGA that cemented her interest in infectious disease transmission. She is particularly focused on the epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Rachel can be contacted via email at .

 

MPH Students

Shelly Gleason found her passion for data analysis as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. While earning her BS in Ecology, she studied models for estimating zooplankton biomass in the Great Lakes.  Currently, Shelly works part-time with the HIV/AIDS Epidemiology Section of the Georgia Department of Public Health while working on research involving respondent-driven sampling of people who inject drugs.