{"id":437,"date":"2026-05-11T13:55:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/?p=437"},"modified":"2026-05-13T15:08:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T15:08:25","slug":"celebrating-graduating-student-trainees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/2026\/05\/11\/celebrating-graduating-student-trainees\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the center&#8217;s graduating student trainees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As another academic year wraps up, we want to take a moment to recognize our outstanding group of students who worked with us at the Center for Thriving Communities on different research projects. Our students learned about various parts of the research from community engagement to SOP development to literature reviews and more. They all balanced pursuing their degrees while taking their time to learn about our work and helping projects move forward. They all recently graduated from their respective programs at UNC-Chapel Hill this May.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Karenna Barmada<\/strong> joined this past semester for her Karen M. Gil Internship working on CommunityRx-Kidney Health. <a href=\"https:\/\/gilinternshipblog.web.unc.edu\/2026\/04\/22\/closing-the-gap-clinical-trials-and-community-health-at-the-center-for-thriving-communities-with-karenna-barmada\/\">Check out her reflections on her internship experience.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Adriana Gaona<\/strong> joined NC CEAL two years ago as a Graduate Research Assistant. She\u00a0served as a pivotal support to multiple projects, primarily in the evidenced based intervention taking place in Anson County, North Carolina. Adriana has worked to assist with the recruitment of 44 participants and enroll them into our study. She has worked to develop a presentation a poster to be presented at our annual meeting.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rachel Moon<\/strong> has worked on CommunityRx-Kidney Health this past year as a Graduate Research Assistant.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Aditi Yerra<\/strong> joined two years ago supporting the Co-LEARN team.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thank you to our staff and faculty supervisors and mentors supporting the journey for each and every one of our students.\u00a0 Join us in celebrating and thanking Karenna, Adriana, Rachel and Aditi for their energy and fresh perspectives to our teams and the work.<\/p>\n<div class=\"gallery gallery-437-1\"><div class=\"row gallery-row\"><div class=\"col-sm-3 col-lg-3\"><a class=\"thumbnail img-thumbnail\" href='https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/2026\/04\/30\/gil-interns-reflection-closing-the-gap-with-communityrx-kidney-health\/barmada-karenna-headshot-500x500\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/04\/Barmada-Karenna-headshot-500x500-1-150x150.avif\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Headshot of a smiling woman with long brown hair looking at the camera\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/04\/Barmada-Karenna-headshot-500x500-1-150x150.avif 150w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/04\/Barmada-Karenna-headshot-500x500-1-300x300.avif 300w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/04\/Barmada-Karenna-headshot-500x500-1.avif 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><div class=\"caption\">Karenna Barmada is graduating with a B.A. in Psychology and Neuroscience at UNC-Chapel Hill<\/div><\/div><div class=\"col-sm-3 col-lg-3\"><a class=\"thumbnail img-thumbnail\" href='https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/2026\/05\/11\/celebrating-graduating-student-trainees\/gaona-adriana_2-wpv_1536x1536_center_center\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/Gaona-Adriana_2-wpv_1536x1536_center_center-150x150.avif\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Headshot of a person smiling with long dark hair\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/Gaona-Adriana_2-wpv_1536x1536_center_center-150x150.avif 150w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/Gaona-Adriana_2-wpv_1536x1536_center_center-300x300.avif 300w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/Gaona-Adriana_2-wpv_1536x1536_center_center-600x600.avif 600w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/Gaona-Adriana_2-wpv_1536x1536_center_center.avif 630w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><div class=\"caption\">Adriana Gaona is graduating with a MPH from the Gillings School of Public Health<\/div><\/div><div class=\"col-sm-3 col-lg-3\"><a class=\"thumbnail img-thumbnail\" href='https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/2026\/05\/11\/celebrating-graduating-student-trainees\/rachel-moon_photo-scaled\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/Rachel-Moon_Photo-scaled-1-150x150.avif\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Picture of a person with dark hair smiling\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/Rachel-Moon_Photo-scaled-1-150x150.avif 150w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/Rachel-Moon_Photo-scaled-1-600x600.avif 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><div class=\"caption\">Rachel Moon is graduating with a MPH from the Gillings School of Public Health<\/div><\/div><div class=\"col-sm-3 col-lg-3\"><a class=\"thumbnail img-thumbnail\" href='https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/2026\/05\/11\/celebrating-graduating-student-trainees\/c4182ee5-29d7-4c72-b925-a05c93bc3648\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/C4182EE5-29D7-4C72-B925-A05C93BC3648-150x150.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"A student holding a blue graduating cap wearing a white dress leaning on a column outside posing for a picture\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/C4182EE5-29D7-4C72-B925-A05C93BC3648-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1466\/2026\/05\/C4182EE5-29D7-4C72-B925-A05C93BC3648-600x600.jpeg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><div class=\"caption\">Aditi Yerra is graduating with a B.S.P.H in Health Policy and Management from the Gillings School of Global Public Health<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As another academic year wraps up, we want to take a moment to recognize our outstanding group of students who worked with us at the Center for Thriving Communities on different research projects. Our students learned about various parts of the research from community engagement to SOP development to literature reviews and more. They all &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/2026\/05\/11\/celebrating-graduating-student-trainees\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Celebrating the center&#8217;s graduating student trainees\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24653,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":false,"featured_image_medium":false,"featured_image_medium_large":false,"featured_image_large":false,"featured_image_thumbnail":false,"featured_image_alt":false,"category_details":[{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/category\/news\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions\/454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/thrivingcommunities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}