Dawne Mouzon

Dawne completed a double major in Psychology and Africana Studies at Rutgers College in 2000. Thereafter, she entered an M.P.H. program in Epidemiology at UMDNJ-School of Public Health. During her time in the M.P.H. program, she served as a Graduate Assistant for the Center for State Health Policy. In addition to her work at CSHP and her continued mentorship from Dr. Miller, Dawne had the opportunity to work with other distinguished Institute faculty such as Dr. Louise Russell, with whom she co-authored a 2005 article.

After completing her M.P.H. in 2003, Dawne worked full-time as a Research Associate at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School/University Hospital in Newark, NJ, where she performed grant-writing and helped design and supervise the clinical and community-based research projects for the Division of Academic Medicine, Geriatrics, and Community Programs (Internal Medicine). In her first year in this position, she won the Division Member of the Year Award for Excellence in Leadership. She also co-authored five additional articles during this time.

After three years as a Research Associate at UMDNJ-NJMS, Dawne returned to Rutgers to pursue a doctorate in sociology in Fall 2006. For the past two years, Dawne has worked with Dr. Kristen Springer on projects examining how subscription to masculinity ideals affects health-care seeking behaviors among midlife men, and how this relationship is shaped by socioeconomic factors. In terms of her independent research, extending past research on gender variation only, Dawne completed a paper that examines how race and gender jointly moderate the association between marital status and mental health. This paper recently won the 2009 Graduate Student Paper Competition for the Mental Health Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

Having completed her required coursework and qualifying papers, Dawne is planning to defend her dissertation proposal in September 2009. Using intersectional frameworks (race/class/gender) and secondary data from the National Survey of American Life, her dissertation addresses two paradoxes in the mental health literature: 1) why African Americans - despite lower SES and disproportionate exposure to discrimination - generally have better mental health outcomes than whites; and 2) why African Americans of lower social class have better mental health outcomes than African Americans of middle/upper social class. To interrogate these paradoxes, she plans to examine whether two potential mechanisms (quantity/quality of social ties and goal-striving stress) can explain between-group and within-group racial variation, respectively. Her committee is composed of four IHHCPAR/Sociology faculty: Drs. Allan Horwitz (chair), Deborah Carr, Sarah Rosenfield, and Kristen Springer.

In 2008, Dawne was awarded a two-year Minority Fellowship jointly funded by the American Sociological Association and the National Institute for Mental Health (ASA/NIMH).

Theresa Simpson

According to Theresa, as a consequence of Project L/EARN, her senior year at Rutgers was "very eventful and exciting." She presented a poster about her summer research project at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in San Diego, where she networked with representatives from a myriad of universities and bonded with her fellow Project L/EARN classmates. She also had the opportunity to serve as a student assistant for Dr. Jane Miller's Research Methods course during the fall 2003 semester, and as an intern for Dr. Dorothy Gaboda at the Center for State Health Policy during the 2003/2004 academic year.

Theresa worked full-time as a Research Assistant at the Center for State Health Policy from September 2005 - August 2007. In this capacity, she worked on a project examining the effects of demographic, health, and employment factors on parental eligibility and take-up in New Jersey FamilyCare. This paper, co-authored with Dr. Jane Miller, Dr. Gaboda, and Dr. Joel Cantor was presented as a poster at the 2007 annual meeting for the American Public Health Association. She also began working on a project examining caregiving and aging, a research area she hopes to pursue during her graduate studies.

After completing one year of graduate work in the demography program at Princeton University, Theresa entered the prestigious doctoral program in medical sociology at Rutgers University in the Fall 2007. Already having taken courses in the program prior to matriculating, she is ahead of the curve. Theresa’s graduate training is supported by the Baruch and Pearl Seidman Fellowship from Rutgers University. Her primary research interest is the effect of psychosocial factors on the relationship between maternal age at first birth and health over the life course.

Theresa says that, "Project L/EARN has expanded [her] educational and career opportunities more than [she] ever imagined prior to entering the program.” Yet another cohort of interns has benefited from the experiences of alumni returning to give back to the program. Theresa is a prime example of the exponential nature of the impact a training program like Project L/EARN can have.

Ramona Perry

This summer, Ramona was invited to continue her involvement with Project L/EARN as a teaching assistant. Her major responsibilities included teaching statistical software use and interpretation through student labs, preparing materials for lectures and other events, supporting the instructional staff, and advising the 2009 interns. Ramona described the experience as “new and challenging. Being on the other side of the material that I learned last summer both gave me a greater appreciation for the complexity of the work, and the quality of the program as a whole.”

Upon completion of her degrees in Communication and Psychology this fall, Ramona looks to pursue her Master’s Degree in Statistics and to continue in the field of research. As a recipient of many academic awards including the Department of State’s Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Commission Scholarship, induction into the National Psychology Honors Organization and a host of Honor Societies, Ramona is a very accomplished student, yet she describes Project L/EARN as “her proudest accomplishment.” Ramona feels encouraged as she continues her academic pursuits with the experiences and skills she has gained from Project L/EARN. She credits the program with giving her the confidence and the tools to be successful.

Temi Adegbola

As an intern, Temi completed her summer research project investigating how patient attitudes factor into physician decisions to refer to cancer clinical trials. After completing her internship with Project L/EARN, Temi began working as a research assistant for a study called Processes of Illness Management at The Center for the Study of Health Beliefs and Behavior, where she recruited and interviewed participants, and transcribed patient visits. Temi also completed her senior independent study at the center, under the mentorship of Jane Miller, Ph.D. and Howard Leventhal ,Ph.D., examining the role of consequence belief in the self management of anti-hypertensive treatment. Returning in 2009 as a teaching assistant, Temi’s major responsibilities were to aid interns in the research process and teach new interns how to perform and analyze statistical tests for research using the statistical program SPSS.

Looking back on the many experiences Project L/EARN has provided her, Temi believes that were it not for Project L/EARN, her research skills would not be as developed. Temi acknowledges that Project L/EARN has expanded her view of possible career goals more than she has ever imagined. Not only has Project L/EARN strengthened Temi’s research skills, but it has also allowed her the opportunity to make connections she definitely would not have made otherwise. Temi enjoyed her time as a T.A. this summer and notes that it gave her an opportunity to reinforce her statistical knowledge.