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CUNY SPH is delighted to present the Ferguson RISE Fellows for the 2026-2027 school year.
The Ferguson Fellowship Program, named for Dr. James A. Ferguson, provides educational and hands-on research experiences for students in medical, dental, pharmacy, veterinary, public health, and social sciences fields.
The 12-month program focuses on research design, infectious diseases, and health promotion. Fellows receive educational and professional development mentoring experiences at institutions across the country, including CUNY SPH.
Fiona Fogarty is a post-doctoral fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Nash Rochman. She recently graduated from CUNY SPH with a doctorate in environmental and planetary health sciences. Her work has spanned the life course, principally focusing on how our environment impacts health: from assessing risk factors associated with prenatal heavy metal exposure and developmental outcomes to studying the effects of occupational heat stress on cognition in late life. Her work as a Ferguson RISE post-doctoral fellow will focus on integrating genomics data science into traditional epidemiological methods to support wastewater surveillance and exploring the combined impact of climate and policy on chronic disease prevalence.
Zaynab Ahmed is a recent graduate from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, where she eaned a MPH in maternal and child health with special emphasis on global maternal and child nutrition and infectious disease epidemiology. She holds a BS in biology from the University of Minnesota, where she built a foundation in epidemiology and health equity through research and nonprofit work. Zaynab has conducted research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health under the Department of Epidemiology and the Department of International Health and served as a student paraprofessional in infectious disease epidemiology at the Minnesota Department of Health, working on hepatitis surveillance and foodborne illness response. Her master’s thesis and fieldwork focused on developing and implementing a quality improvement project to enhance feeding practices for preterm, low birth weight, and sick neonates in Somaliland. As a Ferguson RISE Fellow, she will work with the Center for Immigrant, Refugee, and Global Health (CIRGH) under Dr. Diana Romero on research examining physical and mental health inequities among immigrant families using the Delphi consensus method in collaboration with migrant-serving organizations in New York.
