The 2019-2020 Dissertation Research Award Winners presented updates on their research progress to an audience of faculty, postdocs, and peers.
Ruijia Chen is a ScD candidate in the SBS Department at Harvard Chan. Ruijia’s dissertation research is entitled “Childhood Socioeconomic Status, Race, and Cognitive Function: The Role of Psychosocial Stressors and Resources Across the Life Span.” Her research uses causal mediation and longitudinal analyses to examine how psychosocial resources and stressors contribute to racial disparities in cognitive function.
Ayesha McAdams-Mahmoud earned her ScD in the SBS Department in May 2019. Ayesha’s dissertation, “The Trade Project: Promoting Community Health Through Story Exchanges,” explores prosocial predictors of trust and empathy in the interpersonal relationships of police and youth in low-resource settings that are undergoing system-level policing reforms to eliminate bias.
Kristen Nishimi is a PhD candidate in the SBS Department. Her dissertation research, titled “Psychological Resilience from Early Adversity and Cardiometabolic Health,” investigates the associations between psychological resilience to adversity in childhood and its effects on cardiometabolic health and related biobehavioral processe