People & Collaborators

Karolina Edlund (she/her) is a Master of Science student in reproductive epidemiology and a Seiden & Denny Scholar at Harvard Chan School. She holds a BA in neuroscience and anthropology from Kenyon College. Through research, Karolina seeks to understand how social environments shape both emotional and physical well-being across the life course. Under the mentorship of Dr. Denckla, Karolina conducts analyses in the Nurses’ Health Study to explore links between child loss, maternal bereavement, and cardiovascular health.

Grace Gao is a research assistant in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard Chan School.  She holds a Master of Public Health from the Harvard Chan School and is a clinician working with populations dealing with profound loss. Through research, she seeks to investigate the modifiable factors that can reduce the adverse impacts of loss on mental and physical health across the lifespan and contribute to population-level interventions to promote wellbeing. She brings prior experience in health technology and service design to inform how systems, tools, and information can better support human experience.

Sirad A. Hassan (she/her) is a second-year Population Health Sciences doctoral student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard Chan School. Prior to starting graduate school, Sirad earned her MS in human nutrition from Columbia University and her AB in public and international affairs from Princeton University, with minors in African American studies, African studies, cognitive science, and global health and health policy. Sirad is deeply passionate about public health work that advances population mental health, and she is committed to working collaboratively with diverse refugee and immigrant populations, focusing on increasing health access and addressing racial disparities to improve their health outcomes.

Clara Szeman is a rising senior at Middlesex School and the founder of GLOW (Grief, Love, Optimism, Worth), a youth-led initiative dedicated to improving grief literacy and creating more compassionate communities for grieving young people. Inspired by the loss of her father at age six, Clara has transformed her personal experience into advocacy through public speaking, research, and community engagement. She has presented on grief literacy at professional conferences and now collaborates with Dr. Christy Denckla to advance youth-centered grief research and education. Clara hopes to pursue a career that combines healthcare, research, and public policy to improve the well-being of children and families.

Martin Wong is a rising senior at the Boston Latin School, and he is very passionate about public health. Since middle school, Martin has served on several youth advisory boards in his district, city, and at the national level with the goal of improving community well-being. He has led projects on mental and physical health, media education, substance misuse, and more. As a part of his work, he created a video that speaks on grief, which can be accessed via the button below.

Martin is also actively involved in his school community through leadership roles in school clubs, volunteering, and his ongoing participation in science fairs. On weekends, he teaches table tennis to younger children in his local community to motivate them to stay physically active.

McKenna Yoshinobu (she/her) is a Master of Arts student at Tufts University’s Eliot-Pearson School of Child Study and Human Development. She received her Bachelor of Science from New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering and is originally from O’ahu, Hawai’i. Her research interests focus on childhood bereavement, investigating how early grief endeavors influence the development of moral emotions—particularly guilt and avoidance behaviors, and their long-term expression across adolescence and adulthood.