Spotlight On Students
Isaac, a master’s candidate in the College’s Health Education program, will study at the University of Oxford as part of the award
Reynaldo De Leon Jr., MS shares how in July 2018 he completed his year of service as an AmeriCorps Health Educator in the Chicagoland area, where he primarily taught sex/life skills education to students in charter and public middle and high schools. This moving experience led him to further his studies and learn more about sex education programs implemented in the United States. While pursuing his Master of Science degree in Community Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, he developed an interest in looking closely at critical sex/life skills education topics that might help curb the rates of sexual violence, and perhaps even gun assaults, in the country. Specifically, this interest of his was rooted in the alarming fact that most sexual and gun assault perpetrators in the country are men. Eventually, this led to a published manuscript co-authored by his dissertation sponsor in the Journal of School Health entitled Strengthening Comprehensive Sexuality Education Anew: A Commentary (De Leon & Allegrante, 2020).
Currently, he is involved in writing two systematic reviews. He has also recently co-authored a published scoping review (Mallaiah, De Leon, Williams, & Allegrante, 2022) and submitted another scoping review for publication generated from his dissertation project (manuscript under review). The abstract and preliminary findings of one of the systematic reviews – of which he is the corresponding author – were presented at the Society for Public Health Education’s 2021 annual conference. He has also previously co-authored a published systematic review in 2019 while serving as an AmeriCorps Health Educator with his colleagues from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Aguayo, Khan, De Leon, & Schwingel, 2019). His participation in some of these research endeavors, although not specific to his dissertation topic, has given him methodologic capacity in literature search, scoping and systematic review methods.
As a Certified Health Education Specialist and a Doctoral Candidate in Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, he is once again given an opportunity to collaborate with an underserved priority population: Black and Hispanic/Latinx families living in homeless shelters and transitional housing in New York City. So far, these roles have given him an understanding of the crucial need for laying a foundation in designing a parent-based sex education program that would increase/maintain parent-child communication regarding critical sex/life skills education topics, which may eventually circumvent unwanted sexual and reproductive health outcomes among Black and Hispanic/Latinx adolescents living in homeless shelters and transitional housing in the city.
He is now in the data analysis phase of his dissertation project, examining needs assessment questionnaires and semi-structured qualitative interview transcripts regarding parental attitudes, beliefs, and views about a potential parent-based sex education program and sex education in general. Ultimately, information regarding these undertakings can help lay a foundation for the design, feasibility, and content of the said program among the priority population mentioned above.
Reynaldo De Leon Jr., MS shares how in July 2018 he completed his year of service as an AmeriCorps Health Educator in the Chicagoland area, where he primarily taught sex/life skills education to students in charter and public middle and high schools. This moving experience led him to further his studies and learn more about sex education programs implemented in the United States. While pursuing his Master of Science degree in Community Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, he developed an interest in looking closely at critical sex/life skills education topics that might help curb the rates of sexual violence, and perhaps even gun assaults, in the country. Specifically, this interest of his was rooted in the alarming fact that most sexual and gun assault perpetrators in the country are men. Eventually, this led to a published manuscript co-authored by his dissertation sponsor in the Journal of School Health entitled Strengthening Comprehensive Sexuality Education Anew: A Commentary (De Leon & Allegrante, 2020).
Currently, he is involved in writing two systematic reviews. He has also recently co-authored a published scoping review (Mallaiah, De Leon, Williams, & Allegrante, 2022) and submitted another scoping review for publication generated from his dissertation project (manuscript under review). The abstract and preliminary findings of one of the systematic reviews – of which he is the corresponding author – were presented at the Society for Public Health Education’s 2021 annual conference. He has also previously co-authored a published systematic review in 2019 while serving as an AmeriCorps Health Educator with his colleagues from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Aguayo, Khan, De Leon, & Schwingel, 2019). His participation in some of these research endeavors, although not specific to his dissertation topic, has given him methodologic capacity in literature search, scoping and systematic review methods.
As a Certified Health Education Specialist and a Doctoral Candidate in Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, he is once again given an opportunity to collaborate with an underserved priority population: Black and Hispanic/Latinx families living in homeless shelters and transitional housing in New York City. So far, these roles have given him an understanding of the crucial need for laying a foundation in designing a parent-based sex education program that would increase/maintain parent-child communication regarding critical sex/life skills education topics, which may eventually circumvent unwanted sexual and reproductive health outcomes among Black and Hispanic/Latinx adolescents living in homeless shelters and transitional housing in the city.
He is now in the data analysis phase of his dissertation project, examining needs assessment questionnaires and semi-structured qualitative interview transcripts regarding parental attitudes, beliefs, and views about a potential parent-based sex education program and sex education in general. Ultimately, information regarding these undertakings can help lay a foundation for the design, feasibility, and content of the said program among the priority population mentioned above.
My name is Fengyu Dong and I go by Kelly. I am currently a 2nd year graduate student in the MS Community Health Education program and a member of the MS Student Committee.
I had one of the most unusual but intellectually exciting first semesters at TC last Fall. My professors were more than academic instructors in the classroom. They are inspiring, compassionate, and extremely caring of my personal well being as an international student. I am thankful for the course experience and was able to improve myself significantly in academic reading, writing and communication. In particular, I accelerate the learning of professional content knowledge about the arts and science of health education throughout class projects, group discussions and the well-intentioned final papers. Outside the classroom, I was exposed to leadership training opportunities through participating in the MS Student Committee. I was consulted about the students’ learning experience and given the opportunity to advise how professors can make our TC experience more fulfilling.
My career interest was to become a health science teacher at the secondary school level because I think the subject of health education and community health are essential for the youths. I am now inspired by our professors to pursue a more in-depth, rigid and quantitative academic research on issues such as youth tobacco use, mental distress in the time of COVID pandemic, high-risk substance use and suicide attempts among Asian American adolescents, as well as sensitive issues such as Asian hate and hate crime. I am seriously considering pursuing further studies after the completion of the MS program. In addition, I also developed professional interests in the field of social psychology (applied and clinical), applied statistics (newly discovered interest by learning with the amazing statistics professor) and education entrepreneurship.
I graduated Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in Public Health from Hunter College, the City University of New York in June 2021. I was a recipient of the Meghan Charlop Scholarship and the Clinton Global Initiative University Fellowship Award.
My name is Fengyu Dong and I go by Kelly. I am currently a 2nd year graduate student in the MS Community Health Education program and a member of the MS Student Committee.
I had one of the most unusual but intellectually exciting first semesters at TC last Fall. My professors were more than academic instructors in the classroom. They are inspiring, compassionate, and extremely caring of my personal well being as an international student. I am thankful for the course experience and was able to improve myself significantly in academic reading, writing and communication. In particular, I accelerate the learning of professional content knowledge about the arts and science of health education throughout class projects, group discussions and the well-intentioned final papers. Outside the classroom, I was exposed to leadership training opportunities through participating in the MS Student Committee. I was consulted about the students’ learning experience and given the opportunity to advise how professors can make our TC experience more fulfilling.
My career interest was to become a health science teacher at the secondary school level because I think the subject of health education and community health are essential for the youths. I am now inspired by our professors to pursue a more in-depth, rigid and quantitative academic research on issues such as youth tobacco use, mental distress in the time of COVID pandemic, high-risk substance use and suicide attempts among Asian American adolescents, as well as sensitive issues such as Asian hate and hate crime. I am seriously considering pursuing further studies after the completion of the MS program. In addition, I also developed professional interests in the field of social psychology (applied and clinical), applied statistics (newly discovered interest by learning with the amazing statistics professor) and education entrepreneurship.
I graduated Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in Public Health from Hunter College, the City University of New York in June 2021. I was a recipient of the Meghan Charlop Scholarship and the Clinton Global Initiative University Fellowship Award.
Alyssa Jean BSN, RN., is a registered nurse and second-year student in the Masters of Science in Community Health Education program. After working as a telemetry nurse and being disheartened by the lack of education intentionally given to patients regarding their health status, new diagnoses, and medications, it caused her to think about the larger barriers that impede positive health outcomes. As a result, she has become increasingly interested in preventative health, the effects of social determinants and other non-clinical factors that contribute to hospitalization, as well as how to address risk factors that increase the chances of inpatient readmission. In addition, she is interested in researching the dynamic of hospitals and other inpatient settings to discover how patient education and empowerment can be emphasized.
Alyssa Jean graduated from New York University Rory Meyers School of Nursing with a major in Nursing and Global Public Health, where she had the chance to study abroad in Accra, Ghana, and serve as a teacher's assistant at a non-profit called Street Girls Aid. Street Girls Aid is an organization that offers ante and postnatal care for pregnant teenagers, health education, and early childhood education for teenage girls and women. There, she saw the beauty and effectiveness of education and empowerment, and the necessity of knowledge to make well-informed decisions.
Through her nursing and public health experience, coupled with her growing knowledge pertaining to community health education, she hopes to create programs geared towards knowledge, empowerment, and increased self-efficacy towards making healthy decisions, while also tackling the more external and upstream factors that while beyond an individual's control, can still affect their health and quality of life.
Alyssa Jean BSN, RN., is a registered nurse and second-year student in the Masters of Science in Community Health Education program. After working as a telemetry nurse and being disheartened by the lack of education intentionally given to patients regarding their health status, new diagnoses, and medications, it caused her to think about the larger barriers that impede positive health outcomes. As a result, she has become increasingly interested in preventative health, the effects of social determinants and other non-clinical factors that contribute to hospitalization, as well as how to address risk factors that increase the chances of inpatient readmission. In addition, she is interested in researching the dynamic of hospitals and other inpatient settings to discover how patient education and empowerment can be emphasized.
Alyssa Jean graduated from New York University Rory Meyers School of Nursing with a major in Nursing and Global Public Health, where she had the chance to study abroad in Accra, Ghana, and serve as a teacher's assistant at a non-profit called Street Girls Aid. Street Girls Aid is an organization that offers ante and postnatal care for pregnant teenagers, health education, and early childhood education for teenage girls and women. There, she saw the beauty and effectiveness of education and empowerment, and the necessity of knowledge to make well-informed decisions.
Through her nursing and public health experience, coupled with her growing knowledge pertaining to community health education, she hopes to create programs geared towards knowledge, empowerment, and increased self-efficacy towards making healthy decisions, while also tackling the more external and upstream factors that while beyond an individual's control, can still affect their health and quality of life.
My name is Katie Shillman, and I am a second year student in the M.S. in Community Health Education program. Originally from Bethesda, Maryland, I moved out west to attend UCLA and graduated in 2020 with a B.A. in Communications and Political Science. During my four years at UCLA, I became very involved in peer education groups on campus, such as Bruin Consent Coalition, Sexperts, and the Campus Assault Resources and Education Office. In these organizations, I helped design and lead workshops for a variety of student populations in order to prevent sexual and domestic violence. Arming fellow students with the knowledge they need to have safe and positive intimate relationships was an incredibly rewarding experience. However, I also became increasingly aware of the great shortcomings of health education for young people across our country. Therefore, I am particularly passionate about designing and implementing more comprehensive and inclusive sex and consent education programs to prevent violence, pregnancy, and the transmission of STIs/STDs. Realizing that I want to dedicate my life to this work is what brought me to Teachers College at Columbia University.
Community Health Education at Teachers College is an outstanding program that has already had a significant impact on my professional and personal journey. The classes are thought-provoking, eye-opening, and collaborative. Students and professors discuss the most pressing health issues facing our country today while simultaneously learning from each other’s unique perspectives and experiences. The professors are some of the most supportive, knowledgeable, and welcoming people I have had the honor of working with. It has been abundantly clear since my first day of classes that the professors want all of their students to succeed and that they see our potential to make large contributions to the field of public health. The guidance and encouragement they provide is unlike anything else I have experienced. For over 100 years, Teachers College has borne visionaries, activists, and leaders who have tirelessly committed themselves to making our world a better place. Likewise, the Community Health Education program is empowering me with the knowledge and resources I need to become a changemaker in public health.
My name is Katie Shillman, and I am a second year student in the M.S. in Community Health Education program. Originally from Bethesda, Maryland, I moved out west to attend UCLA and graduated in 2020 with a B.A. in Communications and Political Science. During my four years at UCLA, I became very involved in peer education groups on campus, such as Bruin Consent Coalition, Sexperts, and the Campus Assault Resources and Education Office. In these organizations, I helped design and lead workshops for a variety of student populations in order to prevent sexual and domestic violence. Arming fellow students with the knowledge they need to have safe and positive intimate relationships was an incredibly rewarding experience. However, I also became increasingly aware of the great shortcomings of health education for young people across our country. Therefore, I am particularly passionate about designing and implementing more comprehensive and inclusive sex and consent education programs to prevent violence, pregnancy, and the transmission of STIs/STDs. Realizing that I want to dedicate my life to this work is what brought me to Teachers College at Columbia University.
Community Health Education at Teachers College is an outstanding program that has already had a significant impact on my professional and personal journey. The classes are thought-provoking, eye-opening, and collaborative. Students and professors discuss the most pressing health issues facing our country today while simultaneously learning from each other’s unique perspectives and experiences. The professors are some of the most supportive, knowledgeable, and welcoming people I have had the honor of working with. It has been abundantly clear since my first day of classes that the professors want all of their students to succeed and that they see our potential to make large contributions to the field of public health. The guidance and encouragement they provide is unlike anything else I have experienced. For over 100 years, Teachers College has borne visionaries, activists, and leaders who have tirelessly committed themselves to making our world a better place. Likewise, the Community Health Education program is empowering me with the knowledge and resources I need to become a changemaker in public health.