Where does my talent belong? Professional Pathways in Injury and Violence Prevention

Please join Safe States and SAVIR as they highlight injury and violence prevention careers in this panel presentation.



Participants will be introduced (1) a variety of content areas inherent to injury and violence prevention, and (2) a sample of career pathways available to them as injury and violence prevention professionals. Panelists include a research professional in industry, a federal agency researcher, a state health department practitioner, and a hospital-based practitioner.



Objectives: After the session, attendees will have a sense of:

• why injury and violence are important public health challenges
• the progress that has been made because of injury and violence prevention research and/or practice
• where emerging professionals in the field might find promising opportunities to contribute

Presenters:

• Jia Benno, MPH - Injury Prevention Unit Director (Texas Dept of State Health Services)
• Ekta Choudhary, PhD, MPH - Epidemiologist and lead for the Injury Control Research Centers (ICRCs) Program (CDC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control)
• Marcie Gawel, MSN, RN, MS, BS - Program Coordinator for Community Outreach and Hospital Violence Intervention (Yale-New Haven Hospital)
• Dave Swedler, PhD, MPH - Research Scientist (Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation)

Please register using this link: https://www.safestates.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1686426&group= 

About the speakers

Jia Benno, MPH serves as the Injury Prevention Unit Director for the Texas Department of State Health Services. In this role, she oversees the Texas Violent Death Reporting System, EMS and Trauma Registry, the Child Fatality Review Program, and the Child Passenger Safety Program. Prior to joining the Texas Department of State Health Services role in January 2022, she spent the past four years at the Louisiana Department of Health where she served as the Mortality Surveillance Epidemiology Manager. Jia completed her Public Health and Epidemiology training from Tulane University in New Orleans.

Ekta Choudhary, PhD, MPH leads the Injury Control Research Centers (ICRCs) Program at the Program Implementation and Evaluation Branch, in the Division of Injury Prevention (DIP) in CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.  CDC funded ICRCs study ways to prevent injuries and violence and to work with community partners to put research findings into action. The ICRC Program forms a national network of 9 comprehensive academic research centers that focus on three core functions — research, training, and outreach. Dr. Choudhary provides programmatic and scientific leadership in initiating, implementing, and evaluating primary prevention strategies, programs, and policies through independent and collaborative research. Dr. Choudhary joined CDC in 2009 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer. Before joining NCIPC, Dr. Choudhary was a Senior Service Fellow at the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH). At NCEH, she provides expertise in disaster preparedness and response, environmental health, radiation epidemiology, situation awareness planning, surveillance, and population monitoring during a radiological event. She received her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Public Health Sciences from West Virginia University.

Marcie Gawel, MSN, RN, MS, BS is the Yale New Haven Hospital Coordinator for the Hospital Violence Intervention Program (HVIP). She is also an adjunct professor at Yale University School of Nursing and Southern Connecticut State University. Marcie earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing, Master of Science in Nursing, and Master of Science in Education. She is currently working on her Doctorate of Nursing at UCONN.

Marcie began her career in the medical field as an emergency medical technician and worked in the Hartford school system as a health educator. Once obtaining her nursing degree, Marcie gained substantial leadership experience at the Yale New Haven’s Pediatric Emergency Department.  Now with over 20 years at the hospital, she works in the Center for Injury Prevention. As the coordinator of the Hospital Violence Intervention Program, Marcie works on a multidisciplinary team to provide comprehensive care and wrap-around services to violently injured patients to reduce recidivism. Her team is the conduit for community connections and partnerships in the state of Connecticut. Her research focus is on abuse, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence.

Dave Swedler, PhD, MPH is a Research Scientist working on epidemiology and statistics focused mainly on injury, overdose, and violence morbidity and mortality. He received his PhD in Health Policy and Management at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and his MPH in General Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Dr. Swedler completed a postdoc in the Harvard-Liberty Program in Occupation Safety and Health and was a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.