Robert Canales and Glendene Lemard

The Yerby Postdoctoral Fellowship Program was named in honor of Alonzo Smythe Yerby, the first African-American chair of what is now the Department of Health Policy and Management at HSPH. The program’s mission is to add multidisciplinary talent to public health faculties by helping minorities bridge the gap between postdoctoral studies and faculty positions at schools of public health.

Robert Canales

Before coming to HSPH, Canales attended Stanford University to study engineering. One of his professors was exploring the effects of pesticide exposure on children of farm workers. Canales became involved in the project, while working on his doctorate. He became "sort of the oddball there, doing a public health project in an engineering program." That experience led him to a dissertation on a model to map and estimate how much lead and pesticide exposure a child might receive in a typical residential setting.

Today, with the help of an EPA grant, Canales focuses on pollutants in indoor environments that people breathe and absorb through their skin. He has developed a computer model that uses chemical parameters and housing data to estimate the concentration of chemicals in the air, dust, and household surfaces such as rugs and wood flooring over time. He has taken a particular interest in children’s exposure to contaminants, since they tend to put their hands on surfaces and then into their mouths.

"In some cases, we will simulate several years and combine [the pollutant levels we find] with human activities," he said. "We’re estimating for a range of people living under a range of conditions."

For Canales, the fellowship has served as a kind of transition period for him to get his bearings.

"I wasn’t sure how welcome engineers were in public health," he said, "but now I can see a place for me in the field. Much of engineering is very traditional, but public health is evolving and multidisciplinary. I feel that I can make significant contributions."

Glendene Lemard

Lemard left her homeland of Jamaica in 1997 to continue her studies in international relations abroad. She worked with migrant farm workers in Miami, conducted epidemiological studies for the dermatology department at the University of Miami School of Medicine in South Florida and in Panama, and helped the Miami-Dade international disaster response team present a report on a rescue mission to Colombia. Today at HSPH she works on several projects related to violence as a public health issue.

Jamaica has one of the highest annual homicide rates in the world, said Lemard, whose dissertation at the University of Miami focused on violence in her native country. Most homicides in Jamaica occur in Kingston, the capital, and are committed by young males. More than 50 percent of the homicides are the result of disputes or reprisals, she said.

"Very poor urban people living in close quarters get into arguments, and someone dies over it," she said. "We see poor Jamaicans killing poor Jamaicans, poor young males killing poor young males. Guns are concentrated in these inner-city areas."

"I specialized in international economics and politics and socioeconomic development in graduate school, so at first I looked at the problem from the perspective of social violence as a big problem to the development of a country," she explained. "But then I stepped outside that box and examined the problem from a public health perspective. I used epidemiology to acquire data for the analysis of trends of homicides, motives, and gun use."

With HSPH Professor David Hemenway, Lemard continues her study of firearm usage in Jamaica and the likelihood of being injured or killed by a gun. She also works with Laura McCloskey, adjunct associate professor of Society, Human Development, and Health in the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, in a study of immigrant women in Boston and intimate-partner violence. She compares the association of levels of intimate-partner violence in the countries of origin and patterns of domestic abuse experienced in the U.S.

Lemard will soon travel to Guyana to study and make recommendations on what that country’s government can do to prevent violence through community interventions. The project has been funded by the Inter-American Development Bank.

"My background in international studies allows me to frame the problem," Lemard added, "then look at the challenges that affect the data. I believe that sound data is essential to the policymaking process if violence prevention programs are to be effective and sustainable."

The Yerby Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is a School-wide initiative. Five fellowships, carrying an annual stipend of $55,000 plus benefits, are awarded each year. Other fellows this year are Renee Johnson, who is working on injury prevention among children; Lorna Haughton, who is studying HIV/AIDS interventions among African-American groups; and Edna Viruell-Fuentes, who is investigating the interplay of gender, race/ethnicity, immigrant status, and class on health in Latino populations.

For more information about the Yerby Fellowship, contact Program Director Betty Johnson at bljohnso@hsph.harvard.edu or at 617 496 8064.

--PHC