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Legacy Programs Alumni: Scholars in Health Disparities Program A - G

Dr. Carlotta M. Arthur

Dr. Carlotta M. Arthur received a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from Purdue University and an M.A. in psychology and Ph.D in clinical psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She completed a clinical health psychology internship at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston Texas. Dr. Arthur was a member of the inaugural cohort of the W.K. Kellogg Scholars in Minority Health Disparities at the Harvard School of Public Health from 2001 to 2003, and co-coordinated Harvard University's first symposium on minority health disparities. Carlotta has been a faculty member at Meharry Medical College, an HBCU in Nashville, TN and an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer at Smith College in the Departments of Afro-American Studies and Psychology. Dr. Arthur is currently at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York where she is Director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program and is Program Officer for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Diversity Initiatives. Dr. Arthur is also owner of Tranquility Psychological Services PLLC in New York, a professional practice specializing in the management of psychological stress, particularly among women, and health psychology research and consulting. Carlotta's early research examined psychosocial factors in cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stress among African Americans and Caribbean Americans. Her current work focuses on psychosocial factors in mental and physical health; health inequities among members of the African Diaspora; psychological stress and health; stress and coping of Black women; and cultural competence in mental health care with Black Americans.

Rajni Banthia, Ph.D.

Dr. Rajni Banthia is a health policy scientist who conducts research on physical activity and access to healthy foods. Her efforts are focused upon health behavior promotion and chronic illness prevention through scientific and public policy initiatives that target neighborhood factors, reduce health disparities, and foster new opportunities. She helps convene and engage stakeholders to address social determinants of health through a community and environmental justice lens. Based on findings from empirical studies, Banthia develops policy briefs, grants, and reports that will inform advocacy and policy initiatives on local, state, and national levels. Over her career, she has forged relationships with stakeholders in governmental, community, medical, and academic settings with the intent of creating bridges between scientific and policy applications. Banthia's research focuses on the relationships between neighborhood, social, and environmental factors, health behaviors, and health disparities. She has extensive experience in theory-building, epidemiological, survey, and applied clinical community-based participatory research. Furthermore, she has spent considerable time engaged in study design, statistical analyses, manuscript preparation, focus groups, and evaluation of psychosocial and public health interventions that promote healthy lifestyles. To increase the access, accountability, and reach of health sciences, she has provided community outreach tools, health education programming, and consultation and training support to underserved populations. Banthia earned a BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley with a minor in South Asian Studies, and a PhD in behavioral medicine from the University of California San Diego/San Diego State University joint doctoral program in clinical psychology. She completed her clinical internship at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Scholars in Health Disparities program.

Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Ph.D., M.D.

Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo is Assistant Professor in Residence of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Division of General Internal Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital. Her interests include the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease, health disparities, and the quality of chronic heart failure care. Dr. Bibbins-Domingo received her undergraduate degree at Princeton University in molecular biology and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Before starting her graduate studies, she spent two years at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Dr. Bibbins-Domingo received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco and went on to complete medical school and clinical training in internal medicine. She was a Kellogg Scholars in Health Disparities Program alumna at the University of California, San Francisco.

Portia L. Cole, Ph.D.

Dr. Portia L. Cole received her BA degree in Sociology at George Washington University, an M.S.W. degree at Catholic University of America and her PhD in Sociology at American University. She was awarded a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship by the American Sociological Association and specialized in mental health and social policy during her doctoral program. Her dissertation explored the impact of Sickle Cell disease (SCD) on the mental health of Black women. In 2004, she was awarded a W.K. Kellogg Health Disparities Post Doctoral Fellowship and was placed at Morgan State University's Public Health Program where she studied the role of the Black church in cancer prevention. Dr. Cole is currently an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Social Work and is currently teaching advanced graduate course(s) in health policy. In 2007, Dr. Cole was honored with the award of an H. Jack Geiger Congressional Health Policy Fellowship and served as a health legislative assistant in the late Senator Edward Kennedy's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee office. In this role, she participated in national public policy decisions and discourse to improve the health status of racial/ethnic minority populations. Since her return to VCU, she continues to conduct research on SCD, health disparities, and work-family conflict stress among women of color. In addition, she is the co-principal investigator of The Family Law Clinic, a multidisciplinary project of the University of Richmond (UR) Law School and Virginia Commonwealth University. In this role, Dr. Cole oversees the instruction of social work students who work alongside UR law students to ensure that clients have access to psychological care, counseling and social work services.

Beverly Araujo Dawson, Ph.D.

Dr. Beverly Araujo Dawson is assistant professor of social work at Adelphi University. Dr. Dawson received her Ph.D. from the Joint program in Social Work and Psychology from the University of Michigan. She received her Master's of Social Work from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in Psychology from Hunter College. Her research focuses on the impact of psychosocial stressors such as discrimination and language barriers on the mental health of Latino immigrants, as well as the development of culturally competent interventions for Latino communities. Dr. Dawson was a Kellogg Scholars in Health Disparities Program alumna at the Columbia University site.

Dr. Tamara Dubowitz

Dr. Tamara Dubowitz is an Associate Policy Researcher at RAND. Trained in Social Epidemiology with concentrations in Maternal and Child Health and Public Health Nutrition, Dubowitz' research interests include neighborhood effects, particularly that of the built physical and social environment, obesity and diet related disease, and the health and nutrition effects of social policy (e.g., housing policy, food stamps, and WIC) and monitoring and evaluation. Her work has utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine individuals within their social and structural contexts, having examined immigrant status and duration of residence in the United States, structure of the workday, access to childcare and competing daily-life constraints alongside of neighborhood socioeconomic status and racial composition. Dr. Dubowitz has also worked internationally. In addition to spending 2 1/2 years working on women's health programs and development with the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso, West Africa, Dubowitz led an evaluation of a maternal and child nutrition program led by UNICEF India. More recently, she has looked at factors of the built environment and their association with prevalence of obesity in Pittsburgh, Pa.Dr. Dubowitz received her doctorate and master of science from Harvard School of Public Health as well as her master's degree in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her Research Focus includes the following: Health promotion and disease prevention; social epidemiology; neighborhood effects on health and nutrition; maternal and child health and nutrition; the effect of social determinants (e.g. racial and socioeconomic residential segregation) on health disparities; diet and diet-related disease (i.e. obesity); monitoring and evaluation of programs and interventions; families and children, energy and environment. Dr. Dubowitz received her Sc.D. in maternal and child health from Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, S.M. from Harvard University and M.Sc., University of Pennsylvania.

Dionne Godette, Ph.D.

Dr. Dionne Godette is an alum of the 2004-2006 Kellogg Scholars in Health Disparities program at the Harvard School of Public Health. She received her terminal degree from the School of Public Health at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is currently an assistant professor of health promotion and behavior at the College of Public Health, University of Georgia. Dr. Godette's recent publications in domestic and international journals focus theoretically and empirically on examining inequities in: (1) physical consequences experienced by minorities related to alcohol, tobacco and other drug (ATOD) use, and (2) social consequences of ATOD use (e.g. criminal justice involvement and disruption of social relationships).

Joseph P. Gone, Ph.D.

Dr. Joseph P. Gone is assistant professor in the Department of Psychology (Clinical Area) and the Program in American Culture (Native American Studies) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. An enrolled member of the Gros Ventre tribe of Montana, Gone enlisted in the U.S. Army for two years before obtaining his A.B. in psychology at Harvard University in 1992. Following a year of living and working on the Fort Belknap Indian reservation in north-central Montana, Gone pursued his doctorate in clinical and community psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. During his graduate training, he served as the Charles A. Eastman Dissertation Fellow at Dartmouth College before accepting an Internship in Clinical Psychology at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Gone earned his Ph.D. in 2001 and commenced his academic career with a brief faculty appointment in the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago before relocating to Ann Arbor. As a cultural psychologist, Gone engages in his research the key dilemma confronting mental health professionals who serve Native American communities, namely how to provide culturally appropriate helping services that avoid the neo-colonial subversion of local thought and practice. He has published articles and chapters concerning the ethnopsychological investigation of self, identity, personhood, and social relations in American Indian cultural contexts vis-à-vis the mental health professions.

Melva Green, M.D.

Dr. Melva Green is Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Dr. Green is a physician specializing in diagnosing and treating mental, emotional, and behavioral problems. Her credentials include graduation from Meharry Medical College with numerous honors including induction into Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, an internship in Pediatrics at DC's Children's National Medical Center and a residency in Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. Greatly disturbed by the health gap that plagues the lives of many forgotten communities, she completed a W.K. Kellogg postdoctoral fellowship in health disparities before returning to Hopkins as a Sommer Scholar for a Masters in Public Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. She holds a Masters in Business Administration from Hopkins as well. Dr. Green's accomplishments are showcased in the numerous honors and awards received and appointments to several organizational advisory boards. The most recent accolades and appointments include being Chair of the Committee on Women at the American Psychiatric Association, Executive Council member at the Association of Women Psychiatrists, Sommer Scholars Alumni - Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2005 Surgeon General's Work Group on Women's Mental Health and 2006 Regional Finalist for the White House Fellows Program.