Fellows

Current Fellows

Marta Prescott, Clausen Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2012

Marta Prescott is the Clausen Postdoctoral Research Fellow. She was recently a research analyst and project coordinator at Columbia University where she managed a longitudinal study on the mental health of US soldiers returning from overseas. She received her PhD in epidemiology at the University of Michigan where she studied the differences in the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder between soldiers who faced war and civilians who faced trauma in their daily lives. While completing her PhD, she was a research associate at the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health at the University of Michigan, and conducted health policy research on maternal and child health in resource-poor settings. She has engaged in a number of projects involving displaced persons including the long-term mental health effects of chemical gassing in Halabja, Iraq and child development in Ethiopian communities displaced by construction of a hydroelectric dam. For her Master in Public Health with a concentration in global health from the University of Michigan, she conducted research in Sierra Leone along with aid organizations to determine the acceptability of a malaria reduction strategy in refugee camps. She received her BS in Biology from the University of Virginia.

Dipti Banerjee, Clausen Fellow 2011-2012

Dipti Banerjee is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a major in Public Health and a minor in Global Poverty and Practice. She became interested in science and social work from an early age and found that public health was an ideal intersection of her two passions. Some of her previous experiences include working locally in Berkeley with a student-run clinic that offers medical and social services to homeless populations, participating in basic science research studying the Dengue virus in an infectious disease lab, and traveling to South India to work with health outreach departments to make health care accessible and affordable for urban and rural slums communities. She plans to go on to medical school and earn a masters in public health, but wants to gain valuable work experience before she re-enters school. She has greatly enjoyed her coursework and fieldwork and is eager to continue exploring the public health field by contributing to the MCI pilot-program in Kentucky.

Former Fellows

Nadia Elkarra, Watson-Akil GMCP Research Fellow

Nadia Elkarra is the Watson-Akil Research Fellow serving as a regional coordinator for the Global Micro-Clinic Project's operations in Jordan. She is currently a medical student at the University of Jordan. A San Francisco, California native, Nadia served the Arab American community as the social service coordinator of the Arab Cultural and Community Center of the Bay Area. She provided a wide range of health services as well as educational opportunities to immigrant families in California. She has also served as a mentor and tutor to inner-city and immigrant youth in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. Nadia is excited about her fellowship with the GMCP because it allows her to employ her medical knowledge and social service experience to make change on a global level.

Samma Ishaq, Clausen MCI Fellow

As an undergraduate studying history, Ishaq earned high honors for her work on South Asia and her minor in Global Poverty and Practice. Ishaq was born in Kashmir and co-founded the non-profit KashmirCorps in 2006 to develop economic, education, and public health projects. She has also collected oral histories about mental health and gender issues and tutored orphans in Kashmir. Ishaq is a recipient of UC Berkeley's Stronach Prize for her research on poverty alleviation.

Kelly C. Jordan, Lifchez MCI Fellow

Kelly Jordan is a fourth year undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. Jordan is a Peace and Conflict Studies major focusing on conflict and development in the Middle East and a pre-med student. She is also pursuing the Blum Center's Global Poverty and Practice Minor at UC Berkeley. Jordan has worked as an apprentice with the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Clinic at UCSF's Children's Hospital. Through her work at the WATCH clinic, she was introduced to methods of weight management and treatments for diseases associated with weight, such as asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. Jordan volunteered in the summer of 2007 as a health intern for the Institute for Field Research and Expeditions at the district hospital in Kiambu, Kenya, near Nairobi. During this time, she also traveled throughout Kenya and to Uganda and Tanzania. In spring of 2008, Kelly Jordan studied at the University of Jordan in Amman, where she studied Modern Standard Arabic and took classes on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and economic challenges in the Middle East. Lastly, Jordan is a connoisseur of shawarma.

Christina Nesheiwat, Ojjeh-Kamal MCI Fellow

Christina Nesheiwat is an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. Nesheiwat is a Peace and Conflict Studies Major, with a concentration in human rights, specifically in relation to women in the Middle East. Nesheiwat is also pursuing a minor in Global Poverty and Practice. Nesheiwat has received the Leadership and Achievement Award Scholarships from the California Alumni Association. She recently was awarded the Afaf Kanafani Scholarship, which is granted annually for outstanding essays dealing with women's human rights issues in the Middle East, by UC Berkeley's Middle Eastern Studies Department. Christina is also involved with several community service programs in Southern California that conduct outreach with at-risk youth and low-income communities. She hopes to one day dub the popular television program The Office entirely into Arabic.

Ashmi Ullal, Clausen MCI Fellow

Ashmi Ullal graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a bachelor's in Molecular and Cell Biology (with an emphasis in Cell and Development Biology) in May 2008. While at UC Berkeley, Ullal worked in Dr. Daniela Kaufer's lab in Integrative Biology, studying the effects of stress and stress hormones on neuroprecursor cells in the hippocampus. Ullal also conducted research under Dr. Lia Fernald in Public Health and Nutrition, working on a number of obesity studies focusing on Latino populations in the San Francisco Bay Area. He volunteered with Suitcase Clinic (Youth Clinic) and at Berkeley Free Clinic as a Spanish-English translator to assist Spanish-speaking clients with completing health insurance forms.