Student Profiles

Fariba Mirzaei

Doctoral student, Department of Nutrition

The experience of working among impoverished Kurds in Iran motivated Fariba Mirzaei, a newly minted doctor, to seek advanced training in public health nutrition. “People were feeding their malnourished children potato chips and cheese puffs,” she says. Since then, her medical degree from Shiraz University has been supplemented by an MPH from Tehran University, a master’s degree in molecular biology from Ball State University in Indiana, and a master’s degree from HSPH. Fariba explains, “I came to Harvard because of the expertise here in nutritional epidemiology.  Fariba’s doctoral research is centering on the relationship between nutrition and multiple sclerosis, which she has been examining since her MPH studies in Iran. “This disease is especially challenging,î she says, “because the timing of onset cannot be precisely identified.î Fariba hopes one day to work in an academic or international institution that sponsors research and prevention programs in underdeveloped countries. She also wants to be part of the effort to change attitudes in her own country, where “overweight is still associated with beauty and wealth in some areas and cultural barriers prevent women from exercising.”

Paul Petraro

Doctoral student, Department of Nutrition

Graduating in political science from Hofstra University, Paul Petraroaspired to contribute to Africa’s critical health needs. A professor suggestedthe Peace Corps, and Paul ended up in the Katete District ofZambia for over two years. It was his first time outside of the UnitedStates, and he loved it. Working in water and sanitation, health education,and community development, Paul became especially interested inteaching the skeptical villagers about HIV. “In addition to providing educationabout HIV, I was the condom distributor,” he says. “People wouldcome to my house in the middle of the night to get condoms.” Paulreturned to the United States energized to study infectious diseases.While working as a computer technician, he got a second undergraduatedegree in biology from Hofstra and then a master of public healthdegree from Emory University, where his thesis examined Pneumocystiscarinii pneumonia in AIDS patients in an Atlanta hospital. After a stint atthe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Paul became a researchspecialist for HSPH Department of Nutrition projects based in Tanzania:“For the first time I learned the importance of nutrition in the fightagainst HIV/AIDS.” Now an HSPH doctoral student, Paul has a cleargoal: “There are many research questions to ask in the global fightagainst AIDS. Mine will center on nutritional epidemiology in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Ida Hatoum

Doctoral student, Department of Nutrition

When she was in the second grade, Ida Hatoum imagined that some day there would be a magic weightloss pill. Over the years Ida has maintained a consistent interest in weight, body image, physical activity, and nutrition. While a psychology major at Boston University, and coxswain for BU varsity men’s crew, Ida conducted a study examining the links between media and men’s self-esteem and another study looking at the messages directed at girls reading Seventeen magazine. Following a year in AmeriCorps, she enrolled in the master’s program in the HSPH Department of Society, Human Development, and Health: “I came here because the courses seemed very cutting edge and because I was interested in the program in women, gender, and health.” Ida began working at the Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center as a master’s student and did her thesis on predictors of weight loss after gastric bypass surgery. Now a doctoral student in the Department of Nutrition, Ida’s focus has evolved toward the biological basis of obesity. She calls a course on the molecular basis of metabolic disorders a “life-changing experience.” One of the inaugural winners of the Pritzker Fellowship for Obesity Research, Ida plans to investigate how fat cells send signals about weight. She hopes to develop a dissertation topic that integrates her interests in nutrition, epidemiology, and biology.