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Abby Arcuri

Abby Arcuri

(910) 622-8572

Abby Arcuri

Science Communication Writer

Abby Arcuri is currently an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She majors in Health Policy and Management with a minor in Medical Anthropology. She is currently a Work-Study student assistant for CHER while also participating in various campus organizations. In the future, Arcuri hopes to graduate with her undergraduate degree and pursue a Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in health communications. Abby is especially interested in studying the socioeconomic barriers that impact healthcare in communities and what can be done to improve it.

Vineeta Pasala

Vineeta Pasala, B.S.

Vineeta Pasala, B.S.

Student Intern

Vineeta Pasala (she/her) is a student intern for the Co-LEARN Project in the UNC Center for Health Equity Research. She is a second-year undergraduate student at UNC Chapel Hill, pursuing a Neuroscience major with a minor in Chemistry on the pre-med track.

Her research interests in the public health field revolve around alleviating health disparities faced by high-risk minority populations through educational outreach and community-driven research methods.

Abhigna Rao

Abhigna Rao, B.A.

Abhigna Rao, B.A.

Student Research Assistant

Abhigna Rao is a Student Research Assistant with Abacus Evaluation at the UNC Center for Health Equity Research and is pursuing her MPH in Health Behavior from the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She also serves as a Graduate Research Assistant with the Center for Aging and Health in the UNC School of Medicine studying health disparities in cancer care access among aging populations.

Rao earned her Honors Bachelor of Arts in Interpersonal Communication from the University of Delaware. While there, she contributed to multiple evaluation projects at the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP at UD) and wrote her undergraduate thesis on student experiences and priorities in settings of higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was later published in the Delaware Journal of Public Health.

At a high level, she is passionate about program implementation, evaluation, and qualitative research, and hopes to apply those to areas of health literacy, women’s and family health, and cross-cultural inequities.

Jonathan Smith

Jonathan Smith, B.S.

(919) 264-1604

Jonathan Smith, B.S.

MPH Practicum Student

Jonathan Smith (he/him/his) is an MPH practicum student working with the CRx-CKD Team in the UNC Center for Health Equity Research. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Biology from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2018. He completed one year of coursework at UNC Greensboro as he prepared to attend medical school, and he is now working toward his M.D. at UNC Chapel Hill. Smith decided to pursue the M.D./MPH dual degree and is currently a Gillings student in the Population Health for Clinicians Concentration preparing to graduate from the program in May.

Smith has conducted research related to vascular disease and gender disparities with the UNC Department of Vascular Surgery. He also has interest in mentoring and supporting students, and this academic school year, he was motivated to work in the UNC Learning Center to improve outcomes through academic coaching. Smith is passionate about reducing barriers and helping others overcome obstacles to living successful lives, and this has compelled him to learn more about health equity and combating structural racism. He plans to use knowledge acquired from the MPH curriculum and his experience at CHER to provide more holistic care to patients living with vascular and chronic diseases when he becomes a physician.