Public health students, faculty receive national awards

Six students and a faculty member from UNMC’s College of Public Health were recognized recently for their outstanding work in public health at the 143rd American Public Health Association (APHA) annual conference.

Awards were presented to:

  • Armando De Alba, M.D., instructor, health promotion social & behavioral health sciences — For excellent service to the section as Awards Committee co-chair, APHA-Public Health Education and Health Promotion Section;
  • Yang Wang, Ph.D. student, health services research & administration — Student Incentive Award, Excellence in Disability and Public Health Research, APHA Disability Section;
  • Niodita Gupta, Ph.D. student, health services research & administration — Student Presentation Award 2015, Medical Care section APHA, for her roundtable presentation of the paper “Patient-Provider Communication about Prostate-Specific Antigen Testing and Prostate Cancer Treatment: Evidence from Health Information National Trends Survey”;
  • Fang Qiu, Ph.D. student, biostatistics — one of three finalists for the Applied Public Health Statistics Student Research Competition, Applied Public Health Statistics Section;
  • Jocelyn Herstein, M.P.H. student, environmental and occupational health — Delta Omega Poster Session and Award, Delta Omega. She was one of 19 students selected to present at APHA and received a $350 prize; and
  • Katelyn Jelden, M.P.H. student, in environmental and occupational health — $500 Leadership Challenge Annual Meeting Scholarship, APHA. She is now UNMC’s liaison for the APHA Student Assembly.

Also, 50 students, staff and faculty, including Ali S. Khan, M.D., M.P.H., dean of the UNMC College of Public Health, presented at many of the 1,000 oral, roundtable and poster sessions during the five-day conference.

The meeting, held Oct. 31 to Nov. 4 in Chicago, was attended by more than 12,000 public health practitioners from around the world. The theme, “Health in All Policies,” emphasized how all environments in which people live, work, learn and play have a tremendous impact on their health.