Summer 2019

Caroline Efird is a PhD student in the department of Health Behavior at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Prior to her graduate studies, Caroline was an elementary school teacher in North Carolina and Southern California. She also spent several years directing programs for children and families at a non-profit organization in Durham. Her research interests center on health equity, the social determinants of health, whiteness, and anti-racism praxis.

Lauren Frey is pursuing her Master of Public Health degree in Health Behavior at Gillings School of Global Public Health. She has partnered with Naeema Muhammad, the co-director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network and long-time resident of Rocky Mount, to collect oral histories in southeast Rocky Mount this summer. Prior to graduate school, she worked at the Mississippi State Department of Health as a Public Health Associate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Madelaine Katz is a second-year Master’s of Public Health student in the Health Behavior department at the UNC Gillings School for Global Public Health. A globally and locally-focused advocate for health equity, Madelaine has worked in a variety of cultural settings on programming and research in the areas of gender equality, HIV/AIDS prevention, access to education, sexual and reproductive health, and patient-provider communication. In her public health graduate work, the importance of accessible and equitable healthcare for all has been made evident, and she is inspired by the important work that the Stories to Save Lives project provides in centering community voices in the conversation about healthcare access.

Susie Penman is a 2nd-year PhD student in American Studies. Before starting at UNC, she completed her MFA in Documentary Expression at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture. She is interested in studying criminal justice, race, and law in the American South.

Shelby Smith of Saxapahaw, NC is a current student in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Before attending nursing school, she utilized her Bachelor’s Degree in Public Health to manage programs for infant mortality reduction at a local health department focusing on equitable access to reproductive life planning, expanding access to volunteer doulas, and organizing local anti-racism efforts at work and in her community. As a member of the Hillman Scholars in Nursing Innovation, Shelby will obtain her PhD in Nursing with primary research interests in perinatal and women’s mood disorders, health equity, and biological-behavioral connections.

Summer 2018

Nick Allen is an M.A. student in literature, medicine, and culture focusing his research on end of life and gerontology. He currently serves as a research assistant in the HHIVE lab (Health Humanities Interdisciplinary Venue for Exploration) and a field scholar for the SOHP. He wants to help make interdisciplinary connections between the health humanities and oral history.

Chadwick Dunefsky is a senior in the history department. He’s interested in the role of gender and sexuality as it evolves in American history – with a particular interest in the latter half of the twentieth century. He is particularly interested in oral history because of its use in exploring the individual’s involvement with history and the life history approach in exploring an individual’s life in detail. Chadwick plans on pursuing a graduate degree in public history at NC State University and hopes to continue oral history practices as he further explores how to communicate and present history to a broader audience.

Anna Freeman is a senior from Wake Forest, North Carolina majoring in public policy and archaeology. She currently works as an administrative support specialist at the Center for the Study of the American South, as well as volunteers at UNC’s Research Labs of Archaeology. She spent summer 2018 working with both Darius Scott and Rev. Bill Kearney to collect oral histories in Warren County, NC.

Madeline Reynolds Kameny is a master’s student in health behavior at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She is originally from the Chapel Hill area and just returned after spending five years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her experience is mostly in refugee and immigrant health access, and her undergraduate background is in economics, which connects her interest in health messaging and decision-making.

Joanna Ramirez is a MPH student in health behavior at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She grew up in Concord, North Carolina and went to Davidson College for a BA in English. Joanna has worked at Peacehaven Community Farm in Whitsett, NC as a hospice home health aide in a memory/Alzheimer’s unit, and in cancer research. She conducted oral histories in Dunn, North Carolina for SOHP.

Darius Scott recently received a PhD in geography at UNC. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Social Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine. His postdoctoral research is supported by the National Science Foundation and weighs how personal narratives relay HIV/AIDS’ impact on black gay men’s social spaces and their relationships with rural communities in the South.