Interview with Sitara Weerakoon, PhD, MPH
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Highlights from this episode:
- Her journey as a behavioral epidemiologist focusing on substance misuse and mental health among teens
- The value she learnt about academia through engaging in postdoctoral research
- Tips for research writing and the rewarding process of writing papers that contribute to knowledge growth of certain topic.
- How publicly available data can be a valuable resource for research.
- Her thought process for thinking through her next steps in academic vs industry roles
Episode 218 of Public Health Careers
Sitara Weerakoon, PhD, MPH is a Statistical and Behavioral Epidemiologist.
She is Associate Research Scientist in the Substances and Sexual Health Lab at Yale School of Public Health and Co-founder of @doughnuts_and_data and online platform sharing all things epidemiology and statistics.
She conferred a Bachelor of Public Health and French from Austin College in Texas later earning a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas. During her master’s, she served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and continued in this role throughout her PhD program, also at UTHealth. Concurrently, she worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center of Pediatric Population Health contributing to CDC publications and YMCA collaborations.
Following her PhD in Epidemiology also from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX she became a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Yale University School of Medicine, later taking on a role as an Adjunct Professor at Southern Connecticut State University. Currently, she is an Associate Research Scientist at Yale School of Public Health.
Links from show
Public Health Careers episode 15 with Sitara
Substance Abuse and Sexual Health (Sash) Lab
National Research Service Award (T-32 Funded Program)
CDC for publishing papers YMCA
Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
Albums
Connect with Guest
Doughnuts And Data on Instagram
