University of California, San Francisco & Berkeley Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars

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2008 Scholars

Annaliese Beery, PhD

Annaliese Beery received her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation examined biological mechanisms underlying the formation of social bonds, particularly non-sexual social bonds between peers. Her research subjects were lab-reared and field-caught rodents that display natural variations in social behavior. Annaliese is currently focusing on the role of hormones and neuropeptides that change in response to environmental modulation. In the future, she hopes to study the interface between experience and biology in humans and animal models, with a focus on the means by which short-term experiences can have long-term effects on health and physiology. Annaliese received a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Williams College in 1997. Outside of research she enjoys gardening, pottery, teaching, spending time in the mountains, and collecting biology stories.

Julie Harris, PhD

Julie N. Harris received her PhD at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Department of Public Health Genetics. Her dissertation focused on examining how communication about genetic information occurs in the familial and clinical context, and determining how/whether that communication influences an individual’s cancer prevention and screening behaviors. Julie received a Bachelors of Science degree in Biology/Marine Biology from University of North Carolina in Wilmington, NC in 1998. Her research interests include examining the impact of emerging biotechnologies on health disparities and on examining the broader social, political, and economic forces driving their uptake. The goal of this work is to identify effective health policies and interventions aimed at reducing the negative impact of technologies on population health disparities and improve the utility of this information for all communities. When not doing research, Julie enjoys running, biking, hiking, tidepooling, and swimming. She looks forward to completing her second swim from Alcatraz this summer.

Cassandra Okechukwu, ScD

Cassandra Okechukwu received her Doctor of Science degree from the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health in June 2008. Her research focuses on how work and working conditions influence the health and health behaviors of working populations. She also has an interest in global tobacco control, especially as it relates to tobacco industry practices in African countries. In her dissertation, entitled “Working environments and smoking behaviors among the working class,” she evaluated a group randomized smoking cessation intervention for blue-collar workers, which integrated occupational health with smoking cessation messages. In addition, she examined the relationship between exposure to occupational and social hazards in the workplace and current smoking status among blue-collar and service workers. Cassandra has a Masters in Public Health degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she majored in Occupational Health. She also has a Masters in Nursing from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Cassandra is a registered nurse with a Bachelors degree in Nursing from the University of Maryland. She is of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria and enjoys dancing and writing fiction in her spare time.

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2007 Scholars