Postdoctoral Fellowships

TWO-YEAR POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP IN MATERNAL, CHILD AND ADOLESCENT HEALTH EPIDEMIOLOGY

In the past, the UC Berkeley School of Public Health MCAH Epidemiology Postdoctoral training program provided postdoctoral fellows with a transdisciplinary perspective that includes advanced training in MCAH and Epidemiology, as well as in skills needed for transitioning to academic faculty and research leadership positions.

PAST POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS

Christiana von Hippel

Christiana Von Hippel, ScD

Dr. von Hippel was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Wallace Center and the Center of Excellence in Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health from 2018-2020. She earned her doctorate in Social Epidemiology from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and her MPH from Indiana University Bloomington School of Public Health. Dr. von Hippel studies how diverse communities of women innovate to solve their own sexual and reproductive health problems when interventions designed by health professionals are inaccessible or insufficient to meet their needs. Her current research explores how women’s health-promoting innovation can be supported through increased access to digital health technologies and peer-to-peer collaboration in online communities.

Jordyn Tinka Wallenborn PhD

Jordyn Tinka Wallenborn, PhD 

Dr. Wallenborn was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Center for Environmental Research and Children's Health from 2017-2019. She has an MPH from North Dakota State University and a PhD in epidemiology from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research primarily focuses on perinatal health including breastfeeding, contraception utilization, and mental health. Her research agenda focuses on causal pathways and identifying novel, translational targets for intervention development. Dr. Wallenborn has experience working with underserved populations both nationally and internationally.  Currently, she is working as a Postdoctoral Scientific Collaborator at Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute.

Rebecca Reno PhD headshot

Becky Reno, PhD

Dr. Reno was a Maternal and Child Health Bureau Postdoctoral Training Fellow from 2017-2019, and is currently a Fellow with the Wallace Center.   She has an MSW and PhD in social work from Ohio State University, and a MA in education policy. Her research agenda is focused on bi-directional translational research, including the development and evaluation of culturally grounded interventions to address social and structural determinants of health contributing to disparate birth outcomes. Dr. Reno has clinical experience working with low-income, pregnant women of color, and extensive, interdisciplinary research experience related to understanding and addressing maternal and child health outcomes as a consequence of racial oppression and social injustice.

Eric Coker

Eric Coker, MS, PhD

Dr. Coker was a postdoctoral fellow from 2015-2017 with the Center of Excellence in Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health. He workedwith the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health (CERCH) on several projects, including the CHAMACOS study

Dr. Coker received both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Environmental Health Science from the University of Washington, a Master’s degree in Global Health from the University of California, San Francisco, and a Ph.D. degree (Public Health) from Oregon State University.

Currently, Dr. Coker is Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Global Health at Univerity of Florida.

Irene Headen

Irene Headen, MS, PhD

Dr. Headen was a 2015-2017 postdoctoral fellow with the Center of Excellence in Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, where she studied how neighborhood environments interact with individual-level interventions to modify their effectiveness on pregnancy-related weight status. 

Dr. Headen earned her bachelor of science in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master of science and doctorate in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley.  Her research interests center around the social and structural determinants of racial/ethnic disparities in pregnancy outcomes.

Currently, Dr. Headen is an Assistant Professor of Black Health in the Department of Community Health and Prevention at the Drexel Dornsife School of Public Health.