The Team
Kaitlin Piper, PhD
Lab Director
kaitlin.piper@emory.edu
Dr. Kaitlin Piper is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. She is Associate Director of the Injury Prevention Research Center at Emory (IPRCE) and a Co-Investigator with the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). Nationally, she holds leadership roles in correctional healthcare as part of the Cross-Center Collaboration on the Health of Justice-Involved Women and Children, the Academic Consortium for Criminal Justice and Health, and the Collaborative Justice-Involved Research and Training Program.
Her research portfolio centers on expanding access to behavioral health care for families affected by the criminal legal system, advancing the decriminalization of mental health conditions, and examining how laws and legal systems shape the health of marginalized communities. Her work is grounded in a commitment to transforming how institutions respond to behavioral health needs, moving away from punitive approaches and toward evidence-based, health-promoting solutions.
Carson Bohl, MPH
PhD Student
carson.quinn.bohl@emory.edu
Carson Bohl is a PhD student in the Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences (BSHES) at Emory University. His research focuses on decriminalizing and destigmatizing mental illness and expanding access to comprehensive healthcare among people experiencing homelessness. Informed by critical perspectives on the limitations of psychiatry, his work interrogates how the construction and experience of mental health is shaped by social identity and embedded within political-economic systems.
Methodologically, Carson employs mixed-method and community participatory approaches—including qualitative interviewing, ethnography, and arts-based interventions—to amplify the voices of unhoused populations and to generate platforms for advocacy and storytelling. He is passionate about disseminating research through public forums.
Carson’s scholarship also explores the role of grassroots organizing as a mechanism for cultivating political will and advancing policy reform in local communities. He is actively involved with community-based organizations and coalitions in Atlanta that focus on improving housing and health outcomes for unhoused residents. His prior work included the implementation and evaluation of comprehensive school-based mental health infrastructures across multiple Georgia school districts. Broadly, Carson’s work is motivated by a commitment to systems thinking and structural reform as essential strategies for advancing public mental health and health equity.
Tasfia Jahangir, MPH
PhD Student
tasfia.jahangir@emory.edu
Tasfia Jahangir is a PhD student in Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences (BSHES); Woodruff Scholar; and NIH T32 Predoctoral Fellow in the Training in Advanced Data Analytics and Computational Sciences to End Drug-Related Harms (TADA) at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. She is also an NIH R25 Predoctoral Fellow in the Collaborative Justice-Involved Research and Training (CJRT) Program at Brown University. Her research examines how structural interventions, particularly economic policies, can alleviate material deprivation and its public health consequences.
Her dissertation will focus on welfare bans imposed under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA or the infamous “welfare reform bill”) that restricts access to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for individuals with felony drug convictions, and the implications of this legislation for the American opioid crisis. Jahangir’s research agenda leverages natural and quasi-experimental methods to evaluate population-level policy impacts, and, where possible, qualitative approaches to explain the social processes behind them. She currently works under the advisement of Dr. Doug Livingston and contributes to several federally-funded projects, including one examining the effect of economic security policies (minimum wage, SNAP, TANF, Earned Income Tax Credits) on firearm violence in Black communities.
Jahangir’s scholarship appears in journals spanning public health, medicine, psychology, and policy, including the American Journal of Public Health, British Medical Journal (BMJ), Prevention Science, American Psychologist, and the International Journal of Drug Policy. Her work has been cited by local community-based organizations and the New York State Senate. To date, she has authored 26 peer-reviewed publications and received 34 competitive awards, scholarships, and fellowships.
Sean Stielow, MAT, MS
MD/MPH Student
sean.stielow@emory.edu
Sean Stielow is a first-year MD/MPH student at Emory University School of Medicine.
Mackenzie Hines-Wilson
MD/MPH Student
mackenzie.hines-wilson@emory.edu
Mackenzie Hines-Wilson Mackenzie Hines-Wilson is a first-year MD/MPH student at Emory University School of Medicine. She graduated with college honors as a John B. Ervin Scholar and Civic and Community Engagement Scholar from Washington University in St. Louis, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy-Neuroscience- Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience and a minor in Anthropology. After graduation, she served as a Sally Provence Clinical Research Fellow and Donald J. Cohen Fellow at the Marcus Autism Center and recently completed a summer research fellowship as a Ferguson RISE Fellow at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. At Emory, Mackenzie serves on the Student Curriculum Committee and its Program Evaluation Subcommittee, reflecting her commitment to medical education. She is also the Outreach Coordinator for the Harriet Tubman Women’s Clinic, which provides care to uninsured and underserved women in Georgia, and a graduate research assistant under Dr. Anna Newton-Levinson in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, where she studies reproductive and sexual healthcare access. Mackenzie plans to pursue a career in primary care and use her work in medicine to advance health equity by strengthening healthcare delivery systems, promoting health literacy in marginalized populations, and serving underserved communities.
Ella Minyoung Lee, MPH
MPH Graduate
Ella Minyoung Lee is an overdose prevention specialist and recent graduage of the MPH program in Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.
Taylor Nelson
MPH Student
taylor.nelson@emory.edu
Taylor Nelson is a second-year MPH Candidate studying Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences, with a dual concentration in Mental Health and Human Rights, at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. As a graduate of McGill University, where she earned her B.A. in Sociology, with minors in Political Science and the Social Studies of Medicine, she has acquired training that has shaped her commitment to health equity and narrative-based approaches in public health practice.
Her ambitions center on mental health equity, carceral health reform, sports-based development, and human rights. In the Piper Lab, Taylor leads her Master’s thesis examining the barriers to mental health care for Black women in Georgia prisons, and contributes to a systematic review of juvenile behavioral health services. Internationally, Taylor was also a recipient of the Global Field Experience (GFE) Award, completing the REACH Fellowship in Trento, Italy, supporting the creation of an ethnographic documentary on migration, human rights, and community wellbeing under Dr. Briana Woods-Jaeger. As a former Team Canada athlete, she also supports participatory, arts-based program development, exemplified by her work with the Atlanta Track Club and The Atlanta Dance Academy, where she applies principles of sports-based youth development and mental health to improve her communities. Taylor is also part of the Clinical and Research Program for Psychosis at Grady Health Systems, where she supports mixed-methods research to examine the opportunities and challenges of CPS-P work in improving family-centred psychosis care.
Across her work, Taylor integrates mixed-methods research, evaluation science, and principles of neuroarts and storytelling to advance health equity for marginalized communities. She plans to use her training in future professional roles related to health communications, knowledge translation, and program development to better the lives of communities often overlooked or silenced at the margins.
Kaitlin Dang
MPH Student
kaitlin.dang@emory.edu
Kaitlin Dang is a second-year MPH student in the BSHES Department. She currently holds a Bachelor’s in Global Health with a minor in psychology. At Emory, she is currently pursuing a mental health certificate This passion can be seen by being actively involved as the Outreach Chair for Emory's Mental Health Alliance (EMHA) and serves as Vice President of Wellness and Inclusion for Emory’s Graduate Student Government Association (GSGA). She brings in experience in public health research, exploring topics such as sexual health and the development of interventions to support mental and physical wellbeing of incarcerated youth. She currently works with Emory Centers for Public Health Training and Technical Assistance as a Program Evaluation intern on their Program Evaluation and Quality Improvement (PEQI) team. This position has allowed her to learn more about continuous quality improvement through feedback on how programs and information systems work in practice. Outside of that, Kaitlin enjoys cafe hopping, going to music festivals, and playing pickle ball with family and friends.
Aanya Ravichander
Undergraduate Pre-Med Student
aanya.ravichander@emory.edu
Aanya Ravichander is a senior studying Human Health and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is interested in pursuing a career in medicine and is focused on reproductive healthcare, the juvenile justice system, and the intersection of clinical medicine and the humanities. She provides birth support to refugee moms and advocates for incarcerated survivors of domestic violence. Aanya also works as a research assistant at the Marcus Autism Center studying the effects of sociodemographic factors, like maternal education and child opportunity index, on diagnostic outcomes. In the Piper Lab, Aanya works on advancing health equity through projects surrounding language tools in the care of marginalized populations, behavioral health service utilization by system-involved youth, and narrative understandings of black women’s experiences post-incarceration. On campus, she has been involved in the Student Activities Committee, Sexual Assault Peer Advocates, and serves as a tour guide! She is also a Peer Mentor in the Pre-Health Advising office. In her free time, Aanya loves to play the drums, hang out with her friends, and explore the city!
Aanya Karande
Undergraduate Pre-Med Student
anya.karande@emory.edu
Anya Karande is a second-year undergraduate student at Emory University studying Economics and Human Health with a minor in French Studies. She is on the pre-med track and aspires to pursue a Master of Public Health and work abroad in Paris before attending medical school. Her academic and professional interests lie at the intersection of global health, public policy, women’s health, and child development. To deepen her understanding of these topics, Anya works as a Microeconomics Supplemental Instructor, where she supports students in mastering foundational economic concepts. She is also enrolled in a child development experiential learning course, which allows her to apply classroom theory to hands-on experiences with children through Team Up! Mentoring. Beyond the classroom, Anya serves as an Event Programming Chair for Oxford College’s Student Activities Committee, coordinating campus-wide events to strengthen student connection and well-being. Through these experiences, she has developed a deep appreciation for the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health, as well as the importance of fostering inclusive and supportive communities. In her free time, Anya enjoys singing, going to the gym, and trying out new coffee shops.