Rebecca Doyle is a second-year graduate student in the Masters of Public Health program at the University of Pennsylvania. She serves as a graduate assistant to Dear Pandemic and helps conduct both qualitative and quantitative research in areas such as vaccine hesitancy and childhood literacy. Rebecca earned her Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience and Economics …

Joanna Dreifus supports the Dear Pandemic team by engaging with community members on social media platforms. She earned her MPH at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, focusing on health promotion and disease prevention. By day she is a special needs education consultant, and by night she’s a performing stand-up comedian in NYC (this …

Tita Smyth Escobedo, a native Spanish speaker, a Clinical Psychologist with 10+ years of experience in Project Management, and 5+ years of experience in Web Development and Social Media, she understands the psychology behind the clients’ needs. Tita owns her own business, where she is in charge of coordinating work with developers, designers, and consultants, …

Dr. Chloe Gibbs is an expert on education policy and the economics of education, and her research focuses on measuring the effects, both intended and unintended, of policies and programs targeted at disadvantaged children and families. Her research on early childhood investments has been cited by TIME, U.S. News, The Washington Post, The Wall Street …

Dr. Lauren Hale is a sleep health researcher and professor in the Program in Public Health at Stony Brook University School of Medicine and serves as Associate Editor and Contributing Writer of Dear Pandemic. She received her MA and PhD from Princeton University in Public Affairs focusing in Population Studies. Hale serves on the Board …

Alejandra Silva Hernández is a first-generation student in the accelerated General Public Health Program at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. After graduation, she intends to apply to medical school to continue to advocate for underserved communities. In her free time, she enjoys virtual taekwondo and photography.

Dena Jennings, D.O. is a physician and artist in Central Virginia. She was born in Akron, Ohio during its booming years of ingenuity as the rubber capital of the world. Her father was an executive at Goodyear International; her mother, a banker at a hometown savings and loan. Culturally, she was raised the 5th generation …

Vicki Johnson-Lawrence, PhD, MS is an expert in the use of trauma-informed approaches for public health practice and health equity research. She advocates for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging to ultimately promote population health. She studies social factors that increase stress and by extension, chronic disease risk in mid-late adulthood. Dr. Johnson-Lawrence draws upon her …

Michelle Kinder is an immunologist whose research has primarily focused on how to harness the immune system to fight cancer. She received her Ph.D. in Immunology at University of Pennsylvania and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. She has worked for a number of years in the private sector developing therapies …

Dr. Vijaya Knight graduated from Mysore Medical College, University of Mysore, India, followed by a residency in Neuromicrobiology and Immunology, National Institutes for Mental Health and Neurosciences, India. She then obtained a PhD in Immunology from Melbourne University, Australia, followed by 3 years of postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco, studying immune …