Director   |   Staff    |   Post-Doctoral Associates   |   Ph.D. Students   |   Policy   |   Alumni

Director

WILLIAM PAN, Professor of Global Environmental Health & Population Studies

I am the Elizabeth Brooks Reid and Whitelaw Reid Professor of Global Environmental Health and Population Studies at Duke University with appointments in the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) and Nicholas School of Environment. I have over 20 years of experience studying the impact of human-environment dynamics on health, with a focus on tropical regions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). My primary training is in biostatistics, spatial analysis and demography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with additional training in infectious disease, environmental epidemiology, remote sensing and Bayesian spatial statistics. I am Director of the Duke-Peru Priority Partnership Location, Executive Steering Member of the North Carolina One Health Collaborative, former Section Chair and Governing Counselor for the Statistics Section of the American Public Health Association and member of the Emerging, Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases Research Core for the Center for Comparative Medicine and Translational Research.

My research focuses on understanding dynamic relationships between humans and the (natural, social, built) environment with a particular interest in health outcomes resulting from these relationships.  As such, my work is highly interdisciplinary with recent publications addressing climate change and child growth (Danysh et.al 2014), mercury toxicity (Diringer et.al 2015), spatial transmission risks from different M. tuberculosis genotypes (Ribeiro et.al. 2015) and economic impacts of dengue infection (Salmon-Mulanovich et.al, 2015).

I am strongly committed to improving human and environmental well-being in LMICs and have served on several expert panels, including the MINAMATA Effectiveness Evaluation Panel, Population-Environment Research Network, Chair of the Science Advisory Board for IMACS (Institute for Malaria and Climate Solutions), Technical Advisory Group for Tripartite (FAO, WHO, WAOH, and UNEP initiative on One Health), and the Wellcome Trust Zika Virus Research Roadmap Science Advisory .  I strongly support the provision of diverse training opportunities for students and have been highly successful in managing interdisciplinary collaborations to help students / mentees navigate these types of partnerships.

CV-Jan 2023

 

Staff

ERNESTO ORTIZ, Research Analyst – Duke Global Health Institute

I am a Peruvian American and completed my medical training in Peru before moving to the U.S to get my MPH at the University of Iowa. After completing graduate school I worked at the University of Iowa for a year doing research on zoonotic influenza. In 2007 I got a job offer at the US Naval Medical Research Unit -6 in Peru and moved back to Peru where I spent 4 years doing research on emerging infectious diseases in different regions of Peru. I joined DGHI and Bill Pan’s team in April 2012 and work as an Associate in Research, assisting on the design and implementation of different research projects in Peru and South America mainly focused on environmental health and emerging infectious diseases.

 

Research Instructor

MARK JANKO

Mark Janko is an ecologist, statistician and population health geographer conducting multidisciplinary research on the epidemiology, ecology and population genetics of infectious disease. He did his graduate training in the Biostatistics and Geography departments at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His doctoral work addressed important challenges to current and future malaria control in the Democratic Republic of Congo and broader sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, he focused on 1) understanding the mechanisms through which ecological changes (such as agricultural development) may increase malaria risk; 2) developing novel approaches to monitoring insecticide resistance in bed nets; and 3) using population genetics tools to understand malaria sub-population structure and gene flow.

In his postdoctoral fellowship, he is using his background in hierarchical modeling and malaria epidemiology to understand the spatial-temporal transmission dynamics of malaria in Peru and Ecuador. One goal of this work is to develop an early warning system such that epidemics can be predicted and averted before they happen.

 

Ph.D. Students

SARA O’MALLEY
Sara O'MalleyText is forthcoming.

Sara is a PhD student in the Environmental Science and Policy Division of the Nicholas School of Environment.  She is studying infectious disease transmission in Latin America.

 

 

 


DANIEL TOBIN

More text is forthcoming!

Danny is a PhD student in the ESP Division of the NSOE….

He works on policy-related issues pertaining to resource extraction (i.e., gold mining, logging, etc.)

 

 


RESHMA NARGUND

Reshma is in her fifth year as a PhD student in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. She is studying the relationship between in-utero exposure to air pollutants and DNA methylation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JASMINE PARHAM

Jasmine is a PhD student in Biology studying the terrestrial distribution of mercury pollution near artisanal and small-scale gold mining operations in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

 

 

 

Policy Experts

CHRIS P. LARA

With more than decade of work experience in international relations, Chris P. Lara started a two-years mid-career fellowship at the Sanford School of Public Policy of Duke University in August 2017, after leading the United Nations Relief, Reintegration and Protection of Civilians section in Unity State (South Sudan). Previously, in November 2014, he joined the Global Emergency Ebola Response as UN Crisis Manager, Coordinator and Liaison officer between the Government of Sierra Leone Crisis Centre and the United Nations Mission for Ebola Response (UNMEER), and subsequently with the World Health Organization (WHO) working on recovery and transition.

In addition, he brings to the Pan Lab his background on humanitarian diplomacy gathered through his work with UN-Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva (Emergency Services Branch) and New York (Coordination Response Division) (2009-2012), and coordination with the Department of Peace Operations, working on humanitarian demining advocacy (UNMAS) at HQ and field levels (2012-2014). Chris has also worked as Protection Specialist with US State of Florida.

Chris research focuses on cross-sectoral strategic coordination, and science-policy knowledge cross-fertilization and translation in the framework of the 2030 Agenda (SDGs).

 

Pan Lab Alumni

(name, position in lab, year[s], current institution)

Doctoral & Post-Doctoral

  • Axel Berky PhD, NSOE ESP Doctoral Student, 2017-2022, GeoSynTec
  • Justin Lana PhD, NSOE ESP Doctoral Student, 2015-2021, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Panama City, Panama
  • Jacqueline Gerson PhD, Biology Doctoral Student, 2016-2021, Michigan State University
  • Ian Pray PhD, Oregon Health and Sciences University Doctoral Student, 2014-2019, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Caren Weinhouse PhD, DGHI Post-Doctoral Fellow 2014-2018, Oregon Health and Sciences University
  • Emma Fixsen MD, Doris Duke International Clinical Research Fellow 2017-18, Duke University Medical Center
  • Francesco Pizzitutti PhD, DGHI Post-Doctoral Fellow 2016-17, Johns Hopkins University
  • Lauren Wyatt PhD, doctoral student 2012-17, Environmental Protection Agency
  • Andres Mallipudi MD, Doris Duke International Clinical Research Fellow 2016-17, NYU Langone Bellevue Medical Center
  • Sarah Diringer PhD, doctoral student 2011-16, Pacific Institute
  • Helena Frischtak MD, Doris Duke International Clinical Research Fellow 2015-16, Contra Costa Regional Medical Center
  • Beth Feingold PhD, PIMM Post-Doctoral Fellow 2011-14, SUNY-Albany School of Public Health
  • Gabriela Salmon-Mulanovich PhD, doctoral student 2008-12, Universidad Peruana Cayetano-Heredia
  • Frank Franklin PhD JD, doctoral student 2006-10, Multnomah County Health Department
  • Ethel Maciel MD, ICHORTA Post-Doctoral Fellow 2008, Universidad Federal do Espirito Santo, Brazil

Masters Students

  • Kaila Balch, MScGH, Duke 2023
  • Chrissie Pantoja, MEM, Duke 2023, Doctoral Student @ Duke
  • Sara O’Malley, MScGH, Duke 2022, Doctoral Student @ Duke
  • Rani Kumar, MEM, Duke 2021, Colorado Department of Health
  • Annika Gunderson, MScGH, Duke 2021, Doctoral student @ UNC-Chapel Hill
  • Adam Mushnick, MEM, Duke 2020, Genentech
  • Mali Velasco Delgado, MEM, Duke 2020, MDB Inc
  • Chengyang Wang, MEM, Duke 2020, ICF
  • Tatiana Manidis, MEM, Duke 2019, Gradient
  • Emily Robie, MScGH, Duke 2019, Duke Global Health Institute
  • Delaney Reilly, MEM, Duke 2018, ICF
  • Clay Jones MScGH, 2016-18, Norton Sound Health Corp.
  • Delaney Reilly MEM, 2016-18, ICF Consulting
  • Elizabeth Monahan MScGH, 2015-17, Timmy Global Health
  • Rachel Whitson MEM, 2015-17, Ramboll Environmental
  • Jose Magana MEM, 2014-16, Innovations in Health Care
  • Anthony Saxton MScGH, 2014-16, University of Miami Medical School
  • Ross Hansen MScGH, 2012-15, University of South Carolina Medical School
  • Dominic Lucero MScGH, 2013-15, GlobalData Healthcare
  • Cristina Chao MScGH, 2013-15, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Elizabeth Yin MEM, 2012-14, Larry Walker Associates
  • Jessica Dent (Cain) MEM, 2012-14, Cardno ChemRisk
  • Justin Lana MScGH, 2011-13, Clinton Health Access Initiative
  • Sheng Liu MScGH JD, 2011-13, NYU
  • Undergraduate students working in lab:  Fernanda Machicao (2022), Estella Muro (2021), Luiza Perez (2019), Joshua Grubbs (2018), Jennifer Callejas (2018), Karina Martinez Romo (2018), Margot Neueux (2017), Madison Krischak (2017), Pooja Mehta (2017), Sarah Nuss (2017), Austin Peer (2017), Charlotte Lee (2015)