Dr. Shelly Hovick completed her PhD in communication at University of Georgia in 2009. Her scholarly interests lie in the area of health communication. She is interested in understanding how communication can be used as a vehicle to reduce health and communication disparities, looking specifically at how individuals seek and process health information. Before returning to graduate school Dr. Hovick worked for the Hunger Task Force in Milwaukee as a community educator. While at UGA she served as a research assistant for the Southern Center for Communication, Health and Poverty. At the Southern Center she was involved in research understanding the degree to which low-income people feel susceptible to multiple health risks, desire health information, and have adopted health protective behaviors. Dr. Hovick’s dissertation built on this interest in health information by exploring the barriers and facilitators to communication of family health histories. Shelly is a Kellogg Health Scholar at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Site in the Center for Research on Minority Health/Health Disparities Research, Education, and Training Consortium.
Darrell Hudson, PhD
Dr. Darrell Hudson completed his PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of
Michigan School of Public Health in August 2009, where he also received his MPH. He received a BA in
Psychology from Morehouse College in 2002. Darrell’s dissertation examined the relationship
between socioeconomic position (SEP) and depression among African Americans. Considering that benefits
conferred with higher SEP could be undermined by socially patterned stressors such as racial
discrimination among African Americans, he hypothesized that increased levels of SEP would be related to
increased odds of depression among African Americans because. He found that increased levels of home
equity and parental education predicted greater odds of depression among African Americans. Conversely,
household income and education, predicted decreased odds of depression for African Americans.
Additionally it was found that higher SEP is related to greater reports of racial discrimination among
African Americans. As a Kellogg Health Scholar, Darrell plans to build upon his dissertation research in
three main areas: 1) the examination of heterogeneity in SEP across racial groups in the United States;
2) the exploration of the process of upward social mobility among African Americans could be deleterious
to the health of African Americans; 3) the development of a deeper understanding of how biological
pathways translate social experiences such as racial discrimination into mental disorders and diminished
physical health, particularly the mechanisms that may undermine the expected salubrious effects of
increased SEP among upwardly mobile African Americans. Darrell is at the University of California, San
Francisco site.
Sze “Sam” Liu, PhD
Dr. Sze “Sam” Liu completed requirements for her PhD in Epidemiology from Brown University,
Program in Public Health. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in Biology and
Psychology from Cornell University and a Master’s in Public Health in Epidemiology from Columbia
University. Prior to moving to Providence for graduate school, Sam worked on tuberculosis and tobacco
control related-projects at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Her dissertation research
quantifies the effect of school desegregation policy on reducing racial disparities in adolescent birth
rates in the US. Sam plans to continue to investigate how school desegregation and resegregation trends
in recent years affected the health of the US population. Her general research interests include
examining how educational quality affects health, investigating the role of social and physical
environmental factors in creating health disparities, and understanding the health consequences of
governmental social policy. Sam is a Kellogg Health Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Dara D. Mendez, PhD, MPH
Dr. Dara Mendez received her PhD in Maternal and Child Health with a specialization in Perinatal
Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health
in August 2009. She obtained her MPH in Maternal and Child Health from UNC in 2005 and her BA in
Sociology/Anthropology Pre-Med from Spelman College in 2002. She received a pre-doctoral grant from the
National Institutes of Health to complete her doctoral studies and dissertation research investigating
the effects of institutional racism, perceived discrimination and other social stressors on the risk of
preterm birth. Her primary research interests include understanding the social and contextual factors
influencing pregnancy and birth and how these factors contribute to existing racial/ethnic health
disparities in the US. Her additional research interests include examining neighborhood context and
health, community-based participatory research techniques and the effects of slavery on current health
disparities in the US. Dara plans to continue her research in examining institutional racism and other
social determinants as major contributing factors to perinatal health disparities and the implications
of current health programs and policies in eliminating health disparities. Dara is located at the
University of Pittsburgh site.
Renee Walker, PhD
Dr. Renee Walker received her Doctorate of Public Health (DrPH) in Behavioral and Community Health
Sciences in June 2009 from the University of Pittsburgh. Renee also holds a MPH from Drexel University
in Community Health and Prevention and a BA in Biology from Lake Forest College (Lake Forest, IL). Her
research interests are in the roles of residential neighborhood context as a determinant of health,
particularly the neighborhood food environment (types of food stores, types of food offered,
affordability, etc.) and the implications for overweight and obesity. Renee�s previous health
disparities research includes the use of qualitative methodologies to: 1. understand perceptions of
diabetes self-management among residents of a low-income community in Philadelphia, and 2. explore
facilitators and barriers to proper diet and nutrition among older African American participants in an
exercise and nutrition program. Renee�s current research utilizes Concept Mapping to explore perceptions
of factors that go into food buying practices among low-income, urban residents of two neighborhoods
with different access to large chain supermarkets. Her research seeks to fill some of the gaps regarding
our understanding of how neighborhood context is related to healthy eating practices. Renee is a Kellogg
Health Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health.