Student Opportunities

The Center sponsors numerous opportunities for students.  These include capstone and practicum opportunities as well as paid and volunteer research assistant positions. Some of these positions are described below.  Students are also encouraged to read Center faculty webpages to learn about their areas of research and contact faculty to explore possible opportunities. For more information, please contact Prof. Jon Vernick (jvernic1@jhu.edu) or Dr. Wendy Shields (wshield1@jhu.edu). Check back often as new opportunities will be posted as they arise. 

Pediatric Pedestrian Safety Project--Capstone Project

We are seeking a graduate student who is interested in the clinical and public health applications of virtual reality technology as applied to pediatric injury prevention. We are a group of pediatric emergency medicine (Drs. Ryan and Canares) and public health faculty (Eileen McDonald) who are interested in developing and testing a virtual reality intervention to improve road crossing behaviors among children.

We are looking for a graduate student who wants to work with us to review the literature, define the problem, and brainstorm possible intervention approaches. Depending upon the timing and the students interests, there may be opportunities to: engage in formative work with the priority population of interest (children), engage with computer scientists, conduct record reviews to better quantify the burden of injury, or to reach out to potential partners and collaborators.Interested students should contact Letecia Ryan, PhD here.

Pediatric Falls Formative Work

We are seeking a student research assistant to assist with a study that is collecting qualitative data about pediatric falls to inform an m-health intervention for parents of young kids. The student’s primary responsibility will be to engage with and respond to parents inquiring about the study, screen them for eligibility, conduct informed consent and then schedule an interview for them. Student may have the opportunity to observe in-depth interviews with permission from the respondent and/or analyze the interview transcripts using standard qualitative data analysis techniques. The work will be about 10 hours a week; this is a paid position, commensurable with experience. The work could potentially be used as the basis for a capstone stone project. Interested students may contact Elise Omaki at eperry@jhu.edu with questions.

Opioid Decision Aid

We are seeking a student research assistant to assist with a study that is designing a patient-centered educational tool around prescription opioids and pain management. The student’s primary responsibility will be to conduct a systematic literature review on patient-centered interventions for acute pain management, but there may be additional opportunity to assist with other research tasks including observing in-depth interviews and analyzing qualitative data. The work will be about 10 hours a week, there is an option to be paid if the student is work-study eligible, and the resulting literature review could potentially be a capstone opportunity. Interested students may contact Elise Omaki at eperry@jhu.edu with questions.  

Manuscript Assistance

Center faculty have numerous research projects at different stages with available data sets. Students with biostatistics experience (Statistical Methods courses) are needed to conduct data analysis and literature reviews and to draft manuscript sections, under the guidance and direction of Center faculty.

Safety in Seconds™(SIS) Project

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children in the United States. Properly used car seats and booster seats reduce death and injury. While use has increased, there are disparities across populations, booster seat use is unacceptably low, and there is widespread misuse of all types of seats. To improve this, Center faculty developed the Safety in Seconds™ (SIS) app and evaluated its impact on parents’ child passenger safety knowledge, prevention beliefs, and proper and consistent use of car seats and booster seats for their children ages 0-8 in an NICHD funded RCT (HD069221).

The study has been completed and several manuscripts have been published about the app in this and previous trials. They are available for your review. A data codebook is available and data files will be provided. Students may be able to use these opportunities to fulfill the analysis and writing assignments that are required for Statistical Methods in Public Health III and IV. They may also be used to fulfill MPH capstone and other degree practicum requirements. Contact the named faculty for more details.

• SIS Baseline Messages
  One of the theoretical underpinnings of SIS was the Precaution Adoption Process Model which was used to stage parents on their child car seat and booster seat use. PAPM was also used as the basis for an algorithm within the app that would allow for PAPM stage-specific messaging to be delivered to the parent to promote correct and consistent car seat and booster seat use. We are seeking a student to assist with a manuscript that focuses on the PAPM staging and describes the baseline messages that participants received. Interested students may contact Eileen McDonald at emcdona1@jhu.edu.
• SIS All Kids Manuscript
  In this RCT, the index child was 4- to 8-year-olds and we collected child passenger safety data on any additional children in the family. We are seeking a student to assist with a manuscript that describes how family characteristics influence patterns of car seat use in multiple children from the same family. Interested students may contact Dr. Andrea Gielen at agielen1@jhu.edu.

Scholarships and Fellowships

• The Susan P. Baker Scholarship
  Provides support for an outstanding doctoral student at the School who has demonstrated great promise to make significant contributions to the field of injury prevention and control. 

• The Susan and Timothy Baker Fund in Injury Control
  Supports doctoral students interested in studying ways to reduce injuries by focusing on improving safety through designing safer products and environments.

• The William Haddon Jr. Fellowship in Injury Prevention
  Provides tuition and stipend support for an outstanding doctoral student in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

• The Richard E. Hoffman, MD, MPH Endowed Scholarship for Injury Prevention
  Supports students interested in studying injury prevention, epidemiology, control, and policy within the Department of Health Policy and Management.

• The Nancy A. Robertson Scholarship in Injury Prevention 
  Supports exceptional doctoral students specializing in injury prevention in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

For more information on funding opportunities, contact Jon Vernick. 

Training Grants

• Occupational Injury Epidemiology and Prevention
  Students supported by this training grant take courses in injury epidemiology, occupational safety, quantitative and qualitative research methods, prevention policy, and behavioral and social sciences. Funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health  (NIOSH) helps support tuition and stipend for eligible doctoral students.
• Interdisciplinary Fellowship in Violence Research
  The goal of this doctoral and postdoctoral fellowship is to train individuals to study the causes and prevention of violence and its physical, reproductive, mental and social health consequences, along with research on preventive interventions. Students can matriculate through multiple departments in the schools of Public Health, Medicine and Nursing.

For more information on the NIOSH training grant, contact Keshia Pollack Porter.

Internships

In 2021, the Center expects to support one or two JHSPH masters or doctoral students to work with the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

When: Summer 2021 (8 weeks) 

Location: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia  

Internship Topics and Application Details: To be announced spring 2021.

For more information, contact Jon Vernick.