Department Highlights: Summer 2026 Faculty & Student Achievements

Dept. of Epidemiology and Population Health News

Richard Baumgartner ranked among top scientists in medicine by Research.com

Research.com released its 2026 ranking of the best scientists in Medicine, based on the D-index (Discipline H-index) metric, which only includes papers and citation values for an examined discipline. Richard Baumgartner, Professor and Chair, was ranked 6,721 in the United States and 13,527 globally, placing him among leading researchers with a D-index of at least 70 for academic publications in the field of medicine.

Doctoral candidate Kat O Connell publishes in Journal of Medical Internet Research

Doctoral candidate and Graduate Research Assistant at the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute, Kat O Connell, published, “Plain Language Summarization of Environmental Health Research Using Generative AI: A Community-Engaged, Qualitative Study,” in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). This study was done with the Envirome Center for Healthy Air, Water and Soil as part of O Connell’s research into the health effects of VOC exposure, particularly in marginalized communities. It aimed to develop and refine community-informed prompts for generating plain language summaries of environmental health research using generative AI. Co-authors included Lauren Anderson, MPA, Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute and Dept. of Urban and Public Affairs, UofL College of Arts and Sciences, Evelyn Medley, BA, Berea College, and Ted Smith, PhD, Interim Associate Dean of Research. Read more.

Dept. of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics Student News

Doctoral candidate Irina Kondaurova contributes to article published in JASA Express Letters and Earns travel award

Doctoral candidate Irina Kondaurova, and Qi Zheng, PhD, Assistant Professor, contributed to an article titled, “The impact of remote communication on voice characteristics in children” published in JASA Express Letters. Led by Maria Kondaurova, PhD, and Alan F. Smith, EdD, CCC-SLP, the team examined the production of fundamental frequency, vocal intensity and smoothed cepstral peak prominence in speech of children during in-person versus remote sessions. The findings suggest that children modify their vocal behavior to meet the communicative demands associated with remote interaction. Read more: https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jel/article/6/4/048501/3387012

Kondaurova also received 2026 Boyd Harshbarger Travel Award for a poster presentation at the Southern Regional Council on Statistics Summer Research Conference in Pensacola, Florida, titled, “Bayesian Classifier for Hierarchically Correlated Functional Data with Applications to Autism Detection in Children through Facial Dynamics.” Co-authors included Jeremy Gaskins, PhD, DBB Associate Professor, Riten Mitra, PhD, DBB, Madan Rayguru, PhD, Assistant Professor, UofL College of Business, and Dan Popa, PhD, Professor, JB Speed School of Engineering. 

Doctoral candidate Carly Middleton’s poster earns top five recognition at 2026 ENAR Spring Meeting

Doctoral candidate Carly Middleton’s poster, “Funboot: Pairwise Cell Type Colocalization Analysis for Multiplex Imaging Data via Functional Regression and Wild Bootstrap,” was selected as one of the top five posters in the 2026 RAB Poster Competition at the Eastern North American Region (ENAR) International Biometric Society’s 2026 Spring Meeting in Indianapolis, IN.  This project was supervised by Qi Zheng, PhD, Associate Professor, and Maiying Kong, PhD, Professor, in collaboration with Brown Cancer Center investigator Jun Yan, PhD.

Doctoral candidate Apsara Pitigalaarachchi’s poster selected as Best Poster Presentation at the 2026 Summer Research Conference

Doctoral candidate Apsara Pitigalaarachchi’s poster, “Doubly Robust Angle based Direct Learning for Optimal Individualized Treatment Rules using AIPW Pseudo-Outcomes with Super Learner Estimation,” was selected for the Best Poster Presentation Award for the Summer Research Conference 2026, held June 7–10 in Pensacola, Florida. This project was also supervised by Qi Zheng, PhD, Associate Professor, and Maiying Kong, PhD, Professor.

Dept. of Health Management and Systems Sciences (HMSS) News

Lee Bewley interviewed on UofL Online Learning's podcast

The United States has spent over $5.3 trillion in healthcare costs. Despite that, healthcare organizations around the world face increased financial strain. How do healthcare organizations effectively manage the complexities involved in delivering healthcare to their patient populations? To explore these topics further, this episode of UofL Online Learning's podcast features Lee Bewley, PhD, Program Director for the University of Louisville’s online Master of Science in Health Administration (MSHA) program. Listen in.

Melissa Eggen named 2026 Young Investigator Award recipient

Melissa Eggen, PhD, MHP, HMSS Assistant Professor, has been awarded a one year, $10,000 grant from the Academic Pediatric Association. Her research will explore patient and health system barriers for the use of donor human milk for preterm neonates in the NICU. She will collaborate on this project with local mentor, Deborah Winders Davis, PhD, Professor, UofL Department of Pediatrics, University of Louisville School of Medicine. Learn more about the award: https://bit.ly/3R5c99W

Doctoral candidate Chandrima Chatterjee wins top honor at 2026 KPHA Annual Meeting

Doctoral candidate Chandrima Chatterjee, placed first in the Three-Minute Thesis Student Epidemiology Methods Awards at the 2026 Kentucky Public Health Association Annual Meeting in Covington, Kentucky. Her presentation, “Documentation of Domestic Violence at the Time of Childbirth: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Kentucky Hospital Discharge Data” examined patterns of domestic violence documentation during childbirth hospitalizations using Kentucky statewide hospital discharge data. It highlights the important implications for maternal health surveillance, screening practices and healthcare system response. Melissa Eggen, PhD, MHP, HMSS Assistant Professor, Sara Choate, PhD, MSEd, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, and Brian Schaefer, PhD, MS, Associate Professor, Dept. of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, helped guide the research and served as co-authors.

Doctoral candidate Yathreb Bayan Mohamed published in Frontiers in Public Health

Doctoral candidate Yathreb Bayan Mohamed, PharmD, MBA, and Seyed Karimi, PhD, Associate Professor and HMSS Interim Chair, published an article in Frontiers in Public Health titled, “A comprehensive review of HPV vaccination policies in the United States.”  They found Medicaid expansion, pharmacist vaccination authority, and well-enforced school-entry requirements were consistently associated with higher HPV vaccine initiation or completion, while policies with permissive exemptions or weak enforcement demonstrated limited impact. Additionally, financing mechanisms such as universal and selective vaccine purchase programs reduced cost barriers but showed inconsistent effects on uptake when implemented in isolation. Read more. 

Dept. of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences Student News

Doctoral Student Eliana Lopez Baron selected to Global Louisville Leadership Academy

Doctoral student Eliana Lopez Baron was selected to participate in Louisville Metro Government’s Global Louisville Leadership Academy, which is a leadership training program sponsored by the Office for Immigrant Affairs. It is designed to empower leaders who work with Louisville’s global community. This program features a series of monthly sessions through August covering topics such as city government, leadership development, civic engagement, public safety and community involvement, culminating in a group project and a closing ceremony in September. Participants gain valuable opportunities to engage directly with Metro Government and develop a deeper understanding of the city’s diverse communities and systems. Learn more.

Publications and accolades for doctoral student Samir Kumar Sarker Rony

Doctoral student Samir Kumar Sarker Rony, MSc, served as first author on an editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health titled, “Between Gratitude and Advocacy: Navigating LGBTQ+ Public Health Research as Immigrant PhD Students.” The editorial reflects on the authors’ experiences as immigrant doctoral students conducting LGBTQ+ public health research and discusses the tensions between gratitude, advocacy and scholarly responsibility. The authors highlight the importance of equity-centered research, mentorship and institutional support for emerging scholars working with marginalized communities. Co-authors include Ayobamidele Adebanjo, MPH, HPBS doctoral student, and Ryan Combs, PhD, MA, HPBS Associate Professor. Read more.

Rony also presented at the 2026 Scientific Meeting of the American Academy of Health Behavior in Texas. At the meeting, he presented a poster and delivered a Three Minute Thesis titled, “‘We Were Just a Punching Bag’: Lived Experiences of Harassment, Emotional Labor, and Resilience Among 988 Crisis Line Counselors,” which highlights the experiences of 988 crisis line counselors and contributes to broader conversations about behavioral health workforce sustainability, emotional labor, and crisis response systems. Co-authors included HPBS doctoral student Geremew Wana and Ryan Combs, PhD, HPBS Associate Professor.

Additionally, Rony was selected as a 2026 Graduate Student Community Impact Award finalist at the University of Louisville. This recognition honors graduate students for outstanding community engagement and public service contributions across the university.