Meet the Team

Morgan is a Research Project Coordinator in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Morgan holds a Master of Public Health in Health and Social Behavior from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (MPH-65 program, Class of 2022).

With a strong commitment to community health and health equity, Morgan is passionate about supporting community-based organizations (CBOs) and frontline staff who deliver essential services to their clients and broader communities. Prior to her current role, Morgan worked as a Community Health Worker at Hennepin County, where she connected children and families to preventative medical and dental care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she contributed to Hennepin County’s emergency response, supporting adults experiencing homelessness as a Site Lead at decentralized shelter sites and later as part of their housing stability team.

Beyond her professional interests, Morgan enjoys catching up with friends and family, spending time outdoors, and participating in local community gardening and planting initiatives.

Ridhi Arun is pursuing a Doctorate of Public Health (DrPH) at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, focused on forced displacement, the embodied effects of displacement, and transforming health and migration systems through equity-centered research and design. She brings an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on mixed-methods research, systems mapping, design thinking, community-engaged research, and monitoring and evaluation.
 
Prior to pursuing the doctorate, Ridhi worked with organizations including the Task Force for Global Health’s Migration Health Initiative, International Organization for Migration (IOM), and IDEO.org, leading multidisciplinary teams to craft community-led, equitable, and innovative solutions to a variety of challenges across migration health.
 
She received a BS in Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MS in Global Health Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco. In her spare time, she enjoys playing tennis, reading translated fiction, and spending time outdoors with friends and family.

Emmanuella Michel (she/her) is an MPH student in the Health and Social Behavior program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with a concentration in Climate & Planetary Health. Her work focuses on community engagement, climate justice, and mental health – particularly how environmental change affects the well-being of communities most impacted by systemic inequities.

Emmanuella currently serves as a Research Assistant with the Mass ACCERT Capacity-Building Team, where she supports evaluation, technical assistance, and capacity-building efforts to advance community-engaged cancer research. She also works with the Office for Community and Belonging to help launch a new interdisciplinary concentration in Community Engagement in Public Health Research & Practice.

Her practicum work with Generation Zanzibar, a youth-led network of 38 community groups, explored how climate change affects youth mental health through interviews and focus groups in communities affected by flooding and waste. Prior to Harvard, she was a Postbaccalaureate IRTA Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she developed a Social Determinants of Health module for clinical research and coordinated data collection across multiple studies. Emmanuella is passionate about bridging research and community action.

Outside of her work, she enjoys pottery, exploring new music, spending time with family, and traveling.

Nihaal Rahman (he/him) is a Population Health Sciences PhD student in the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences. His research interests include social epidemiology, climate and health, built environments, and the intersections of these fields, particularly within the Asia-Pacific region. At Harvard, Nihaal is a Presidential Scholar and a Doctoral Trainee in Demography and Population Sciences at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Nihaal also holds affiliations with the National Center for Child Health and Development in Tokyo, Japan and Fukushima Medical University in Fukushima, Japan. He graduated with an MPH from Columbia University and a BS from Johns Hopkins University. Outside of his research, Nihaal enjoys film photography, snowboarding, scuba diving, and finding new DJ sets to obsess over. 

Jen Cruz, PhD, MPH (she/her) recently graduated with her PhD from the Population Health Sciences program with a focus on Applied Social Epidemiology. Jen is passionate about the intersection of community, public health, and justice. Prior to coming to HSPH, she received her MPH in Global Health Epidemiology from the University of Michigan and her BS in Psychology from Seattle University. She was also a Fulbright-Nehru Student Researcher. Jen is now working at the New York Academy of Medicine as the Associate Director of Non-Communicable Diseases. 

Shinelle O. Kirk is a Senior Research Associate at the Conservation Law Foundation, where she primarily works on the Healthy Neighborhoods Study, a large participatory action research study examining the impact of neighborhood changes on health. With a background in clinical care and research, she brings extensive public health expertise to her work, focusing on implementation science projects that elevate resident expertise in research and decision-making, translating findings into actionable strategies to improve health outcomes and systems.