Michaela Greenlee is a rising senior and Presidential Honors Scholar at New York University, majoring in Global Public Health and minoring in Child & Adolescent Mental Health Studies. Her research interests include studying how to mitigate health disparities regarding mental health access and food insecurity in racial/ethnic minority populations, and exploring how acculturation influences minorities’ wellbeing.
This summer, Michaela had the privilege of working under the mentorship of Dr. Ali Giusto to develop project management and organizational tools for LEAD (Learn, Engage, Act, Dedicate) – a pilot RCT of a task-shifted intervention to improve depression and family engagement for fathers reporting problem drinking in Kenya. Her responsibilities included creating flowcharts of the intervention design, producing a data and safety monitoring board charter, and developing a data dictionary to ultimately design a survey in REDCap of various measurement scales (e.g. alcohol use, interparental problems). Outside of the project, Michaela also completed celebratory tasks related to CUGMHP’s 10th year anniversary. She had the pleasure of interviewing several CUGMH Scholars to learn about their research interests, projects and career trajectories.
Michaela is grateful for building a supportive network of Columbia faculty, mentors and peers, as well as growing proficient in research. This valuable experience has contributed to her future goals of conducting research as a public health practitioner with the WHO and eventually becoming a professor. She is eager to continue working with Dr. Giusto and her team on further developing the survey and evaluating implementation strategies to better engage Kenyan fathers.