Recent
Skye Allmang
Skye Allmang is a fourth-year Social Welfare PhD student in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Prior to coming to UCLA, she obtained a Master of Public Policy degree at Brandeis University and worked for several years at a nonprofit in Southern California on social welfare issues. Her scholarly research focuses on the evaluation of youth employment programs, both nationally and internationally, with an emphasis in underserved communities. She recently completed a summer research project in Mexico City.
Amy (Yan) Chai
Amy Chai completed her PhD in Epidemiology from the Fielding School of Public Health and her dissertation examined paid maternity leave policy and child health outcomes in low-income and middle-income countries. She is also interested in Epidemiologic methodologies for causal inference and bias analysis, quantitative research methods for chronic disease, healthcare and well-being on a global level. Amy completed her BS in Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri and MS in Biomedical Engineering at Yale University. Before coming to UCLA, she worked as a research assistant at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. Her previous experience includes several evidence-based epidemiological research studies of Traditional Chinese Medicine, focusing on longitudinal analysis with multiple endpoints for TCM efficacy evaluation in acute ischemic stroke.
Amanda Elliott
Amanda Elliott is a third-year undergraduate student at UCLA's College of Letters and Science studying Political Science and International Relations. She has previously worked at the Los Angeles Mayor's Office of International Affairs and at the Constitutional Rights Foundation in Los Angeles, participating in the intersections of civil society organizations and policy. She is thrilled to be working with the WORLD Center to compile a database of organizations involved in migration, climate change, and gig economies.
Diana Flores-Peregrina
Diana Flores-Peregrina is a PhD student in UCLA’s Economics Department specializing in Applied Microeconomics, Labor and Population, and Economic History. She has worked on public health research projects in Mexico, and her research interests currently focus on the improvement of health and poverty conditions of children in less developed countries like Mexico, highlighting the additional inequalities faced by girls and women.
Adva Gadoth
Adva is a doctoral student in the Epidemiology Department with research interests in global health and neglected tropical diseases. Before beginning her studies at UCLA, Adva worked on childhood nutrition interventions in Gujarat, India, and served as a regulatory toxicologist conducting risk assessments for the World Health Organization. She plans to focus her dissertation research on infectious disease transmission patterns in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is thrilled to work with the WORLD Policy Analysis Center in helping inform evidence-based public health policy around the globe.
Vahe Khachadourian
Vahe Khachadourian is a third year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He received his MD from the Yerevan State Medical University and his Master of Public Health degree from the American University of Armenia in 2011. He is interested in causal inference and advanced quantitative methodologies, and his main research focuses on disaster epidemiology, particularly long-term health effects of disasters. He has published his work in peer-reviewed journals and has presented his findings at international scientific conferences. As a Conrad N. Hilton Scholar with the WORLD Policy Analysis Center pursuing a training in the quantitative track, he is looking forward to learning from leading experts in the field of policy analysis and getting hands-on experience while working with and analyzing large national and international databases.
Stephanie Ly
Stephanie is a third year doctoral student in Community Health Sciences at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health with research interests in global childhood malnutrition. She previously managed an international study spanning 9 countries investigating birth defects in children and has completed work in the areas of stunting and malnutrition. Stephanie hopes to analyze effective policy implementation to join the effort in eradicating global poverty with the WORLD Policy Analysis Center.
Kexin Jin
Kexin is a second year PhD student in Epidemiology at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Her dissertation research projects focus on reproductive health and risk of cancer in a rural population in China. She received a BMed (MD equivalence) from Nanjing Medical University and obtained a ScM in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. During the past six years, she applied causal inference and conducted quantitative data analyses for research projects on cancers, HIV/AIDS, trauma, eye diseases and so on. As a Hilton Scholar, she will gain experience in building the database for comparative policy analysis and will develop future research and career on policy and social determinants of health.
Melissa Mendoza
Melissa Mendoza is a doctoral student in Comparative Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. She is a former teacher and her research interests include inclusive education policy implementation for people with disabilities, teacher education, and the transition from school to employment. This is her second summer as a fellow at WORLD and she has worked on projects related to inclusive education, labor rights, and equality in education. Melissa received her BA in Liberal Studies, Education Specialist Credential, and MA in Special Education from Azusa Pacific University.
Laurelyn Mynhier
Laurelyn Mynhier, M.A. is a doctoral student in Comparative and International Education at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences. She completed undergraduate, masters and doctoral studies (ABD) in economics wherein her research focused on labor economics of gender, economics of education, and welfare economics. She has 12 years university level teaching experience and has worked for the Department of Health and Human Services in case management and eligibility as well as a Senior Financial Analyst for Associates First Capital and Schools First Federal Credit Union. Currently, her research with World addresses sex and gender equality in the workplace and educational persistence among adolescent girls in rural Kenya.
Ally Power
Ally Power, BA, is pursuing her MPH in Epidemiology and the Bixby Program Certificate on Reproductive Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She is an Equal Rights and Non-Discrimination Research Fellow at the WORLD Policy Analysis Center and serves on the UCLA Reproductive Health Interest Group leadership team. While at UCLA she has worked as a Graduate Student Research Intern for the Center on Gender Equity and Health Campus Violence Prevention Study, Student Ambassador for the UC Women’s Health, Gender, and Empowerment Center of Expertise, Research Intern for the Cedars Sinai Medical Center OB/GYN Department, and Program and Strategic Learning Intern at Peer Health Exchange. In her various roles as intern, she was responsible for conducting focus group discussions, data analysis, health education content development, and more. Before beginning her studies at UCLA she was a Program Coordinator at the UCSF Center for Reproductive Sciences and Crisis Line Counselor for the intimate partner violence prevention organization La Casa de Las Madres. Her research focuses on data-driven reproductive and sexual health policy.
Feliz Quinones
Feliz Quinones is currently a fifth-year doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies in the Human Development and Psychology division. Feliz works under the mentorship of Professor Sandra Graham on the UCLA Middle and High School Diversity Projects, where they examine the psychosocial benefits and challenges of ethnic diversity in schools. Her research examines the neighborhood and school contexts (and more specifically, the ethnic mismatch between these two) and how these influence middle school students' experiences with racial/ethnic discrimination. As a Hilton scholar, she hopes to gain greater insight on the educational policies that are currently in place and to acquire the necessary methodological skills to examine the quality of education for children on a global scale.
Anissa Raja
Anissa Raja is a current graduate student of Urban & Regional Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles' Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research interests and personal passion revolve around global environmental issues such as climate change adaptation, migration, sustainability and the intersections of these topics within public health. With her area of concentration being Regional & International Development, she specially hopes to work in the disaster management field, with the aim of incorporating an environmental justice lens. She is a member of Women in Transportation (WTS)-Orange County and an affiliate of UCLA’s WTS-Student chapter. She served as a chair member of UCLA’s Planners of Color for Social Equity (PCSE) and the Urban Planning Women of Color Collective (UPWOCC).
Alexis Rae
Alexis Rae is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at UCLA. She received an MA in Sociology from UCLA and a BA in International Relations/Political Science from UC San Diego. Her primary subfields are in political sociology and gender, and she uses qualitative methods to study war and armed conflict, elections, and women’s political participation. She researches the ways in which armed conflict influences policy on female political representation in state legislatures as well as the global phenomenon of violence against women in politics. She works with the research team at the WORLD Policy Analysis Center as part of a gender equality initiative, examining global research on gender equality and anti-discrimination.
Veronika Rozhenkova
Veronika Rozhenkova is a Ph.D Candidate at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Prior to her doctoral studies, she received an EdM degree in International Education Policy from Harvard University, a Diploma in Philology from Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University and worked as a university faculty member in Russia. Her main research interests are in international higher education policy and reform, specifically in globalization and internationalization of higher education. Veronika has also been actively engaged in the Center for International and Development Education (UCLA) that houses development projects related to the issues of international education. She looks forward to working with the WORLD team and the other Conrad N. Hilton scholars while receiving advanced training and conducting research on the world's most pressing issues.
Leora Sherman
Leora Sherman is a first-year Master’s student in Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She intends to focus her research on maternal and reproductive health. Prior to beginning her studies at UCLA, she earned her B.A. in anthropology, Spanish, and public health from Washington University in St. Louis and worked for several years as a health care consultant in Washington, D.C. She looks forward to working with WORLD to analyze global policies related to gender and LGBTQ+ equality.
Akshay Singhal
Akshay is a new international graduate student at UCLA, in the Department of Computer Science. Hailing from India, he comes with experience in Full Stack Software Development. He is looking to specialize in distributed systems and systems programming. He is contributing to the development of the Constitutions Network platform, with Erin and Ross. In his free time, he generally just ends up sampling and rewatching his TV shows & movies collection.
Jayashri Srinivasan
Jayashri Srinivasan is a doctoral candidate in the Social Research Methodology division at Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Before joining UCLA, Jayashri received her Master's degree in Physics and Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her main research interest lies in advancing as well as applying quantitative methods to examine education policy and practice issues. In the past five years she has used these methods including multilevel modeling, and Bayesian Inference to investigate teacher's classroom practices, and access to educational opportunities in K-12 settings. Her dissertation study examines these topics using large-scale international assessments.
Gabriel Suchodolski
Gabriel Suchodolski is a UCLA Sociology PhD student with research interests in politics, social organization, territory, environmental change, and welfare policies. Before joining UCLA, Gabriel worked with traditional communities and social movements in the Brazilian Amazon, conducting ethnographic research and social cartography. He has an MA in Anthropology from Columbia University, an MA in Sociology from Rio de Janeiro State University, and a BA in International Relations from the University of São Paulo. He hopes to analyze the implementation of land and welfare policies, and their relation to localized social organization and politics, in comparative perspective with special interest in Brazil, India and east Africa.
Andrew Swindell
Andrew Swindell is a doctoral student in the Comparative and International Education program at the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UCLA. His research interests include how to achieve quality education for all people in emergency settings how school choice policy in the United States affects access and equity. Before UCLA, he worked as a foreign aid practitioner in Liberia and a K-12 teacher in Thailand and Myanmar. He holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Missouri and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Bucknell University. Andrew is looking forward to joining the WORLD team to research rights and access to education for asylum-seekers, refugees, and international migrant populations.
Victoria Wang
Victoria Wang is a PhD student in the Department of Economics. Her past research focuses on family policies in China, such as the One-Child Policy and maternity leave. Before coming to UCLA, she was an economic consultant in New York specializing in pharmaceutical litigation disputes. Victoria received her Bachelor's degree from Rice University in Mathematical Economic Analysis, Mathematics, Policy Studies, and Asian Studies, with a minor in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. She also holds a Master's in Social Sciences with a concentration in Economics from the University of Chicago. Victoria is excited to contribute to the valuable policy evaluation work done at the WORLD Policy Center.
Natalia Woolley
Natalia Woolley is a PhD student in the Community Health Sciences department at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Natalia's research focuses on adolescent health, particularly on the interplay between broad socioeconomic factors and adolescent risk behaviors in low and middle-income countries. Natalia has a B.A. in International Development and a M.S. in Public Health, both from UCLA. She has also worked at the UNDP and at the Brazilian government conducting policy monitoring and evaluation. As a Hilton scholar, Natalia hopes to gain translational research skills to help governments implement and evaluate evidence-based policies targeting youth health.
Fangzhu Zhou
Fangzhu Zhou is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Department of Economics. Her research focus is urban economics, gender studies and public policy. Before beginning her studies at UCLA, Fangzhu received her BA (Honors) in Economics from the University of British Columbia and she was listed on Dean’s list and also awarded the honor of Chancellor’s Scholar. Her recent research examines the causal relationship between housing unaffordability and children education inequality and this paper is awarded UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate Research Grant. As a PhD economist, she hopes to apply her research skills to eliminate discrimination, reduce poverty and alleviate inequality.
