Danaiym Talantbekova is a rising senior at Carnegie Mellon University pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a minor in Politics and Public Policy. As a 2026 Summer Research Intern with DIVAA Lab, affiliated with the New York State Office of Mental Health and Columbia University, she worked under the mentorship of Dr. Bernadine Waller on a systematic literature review examining intimate partner homicide as a lethal outcome of intimate partner violence.
Her responsibilities included screening peer-reviewed articles across multiple databases, extracting and coding data across sixteen variables spanning victim demographics, race and ethnicity, risk factors, and major findings, and synthesizing evidence across 30 studies representing twelve countries. The review follows PRISMA-aligned methodology drawing on datasets including the CDC National Violent Death Reporting System and national coronial records across the United States, Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region. Her work forms the evidence base for an academic paper being co-authored with Dr. Waller.
Before this internship, Dana designed and led a community development project in Jinja, Uganda as an International Social Development Fellow, winning $13,000 from the Buffett Research Institute to establish rainwater harvesting infrastructure at a school with no prior water access. She is a published author on economic policy with experience at a tax policy nonprofit in Washington, D.C., and a fashion journalist whose work took her from the runways of Paris and Milan to the heart of production at Berlin Fashion Week. She is originally from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and speaks four languages.
After graduation, Dana plans to pursue a Master’s in Global Health and build a career at the intersection of gender-based violence research and policy.