T32 Training Program Trainees and Faculty

Dr. Umoh holds a bachelor's degree in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science and a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience from Emory University. She completed her Internal Medicine residency training at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Internal Medicine Residency Program. She recently completed the Johns Hopkins University clinical fellowship in Geriatric Medicine. She is board certified in Internal Medicine. Her research aims to improve health outcomes for older adults with cognitive decline. She is interested in improving our understanding of the overlap between delirium and dementia in older adults and the social, demographic, and biological factors that influence this relationship. Additionally, she is interested in social connections in older adults and identification of risk and protective factors for social isolation in older adults to decrease this detrimental condition that has been closely linked to dementia. As a part of her T32 training, she plans to combine her prior clinical and research training to use patient biomarker data and survey data available from large national cohorts to better understand the effect of delirium on cognitive decline, and the influence of social and demographic factors on these trajectories. As a fellow she was awarded the John R. Burton Scholarship, an award designed to encourage interdisciplinary and interprofessional scholarly activities dedicated to improving the care of older adults.  She is an active member of the American Geriatric society and the American Delirium society.

Emerald Jenkins, PhD, DNP, AGPCNP-BC, MSN, RN is a postdoctoral fellow appointed to the T32 training program in the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON). Dr. Jenkins holds a bachelor's degree in biology with minors in sociology, genetics, health/medicine and human values from North Carolina State University, a master's degrees in medical science and nursing from Hampton University and JHUSON respectively, and dual doctoral degrees as a PhD and DNP-Advanced Practice from JHUSON. Jenkins’ varied roles in healthcare include candy striper, Certified Nursing Assistant, medical assistant, psychiatric nurse, a primary care nurse practitioner and caregiver for her grandmother with dementia. Jenkins’ short-term goals are to evaluate: (1) the process of pain evaluation in dyads (older adults and their care partners) and clinicians in different settings of care, (2) the relationships of outcomes impacting pain, and (3) the effects of congruence of pain evaluation amongst dyads and clinicians. She considers it her long-term career goals and professional motivation to: (1) improve physical and mental health outcomes related to cognitive impairment in persons with risk factors for dementia, and (2) develop community-engaged data-driven interventions impacting physical and mental health outcomes in older adults with pain and dementia.

Chae is a postdoctoral research fellow jointly in the Health Services and Outcomes Research in Aging Populations T32 program and the General Internal Medicine Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. She received her bachelor’s degree at the University of Virginia and subsequently pursued a Doctorate of Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School. She completed her Internal Medicine residency training at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and a clinical fellowship in Obesity Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is a board-certified Internal Medicine Physician. Her research interest focuses on improving health outcomes in older adults with obesity and developing feasible, safe, and effective lifestyle interventions to increase quality of life and prevent frailty in older adults with obesity. As a part of her T32 training, she is pursuing a Masters in Health Science through the Graduate Training Program in Clinical Investigation (GTPCI) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Through her research, she hopes to fill the gaps in knowledge in the care of older adults with obesity and impact clinical practice habits.

Pomeroy is a postdoctoral fellow who earned her MPH from Johns Hopkins University in 2017 and her PhD in health services research from George Mason University in 2022. Her research aims to improve social supports among older adults to prevent hospitalizations and nursing home entry. This includes previous work coordinating quality improvement projects to enhance care transitions for hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries. Currently, her research focuses on social isolation as a risk factor for early nursing home entry among older adults. She has enjoyed working with a variety of at-risk populations including individuals living with disabilities, veterans, and subsidized housing residents. Pomeroy also has expertise using claims and electronic health record data, the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). She is an active member of several professional organizations including AcademyHealth and the Gerontological Society of America.

Smith is a postdoctoral research fellow passionate about improving health care delivery for community-dwelling older adults. Her research interests focus on the role of structural determinants on the access and effectiveness of transitional care and home health care services. Smith's experiences in clinical practice, interprofessional education, and personal navigation of the healthcare system inform this work. Smith aims to develop a meaningful, actionable research program that informs healthcare policy to improve health outcomes for older adults with complex health and social needs. Before the fellowship, Smith was an Assistant Professor at the Jefferson College of Nursing. In 2022, she was awarded the James B. Erdmann Award for Excellence in Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice at Thomas Jefferson University. Smith earned her PhD from Rutgers University, School of Nursing, where she was a Jonas Nurse Scholar.

Ehrlich holds a BS in Health Science from the University of Arizona and an MD from the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Tucson. She completed her Internal Medicine residency training at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Internal Medicine Residency Program. She recently completed the Johns Hopkins University Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine. Ehrlich’s research has focused on improving health outcomes for older adults undergoing surgery. As a resident she co-authored a review article entitled “Preoperative Evaluation of the Frail Patient,” and began working with a transdisciplinary geriatric surgery research group at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. As a fellow she was awarded the John R. Burton Scholarship in Geriatric Surgery which supported her most recent publication “Early Outcomes following Implementation of a Multispecialty Geriatric Surgery Pathway” in Annals of Surgery. Ehrlich also serves as the Early Career Professional Ex Officio Board Member for the American Geriatric Society for a 3-year term, beginning in 2022. As a part of the T32, she plans to further her knowledge of scientific methods and statistics for independent research by obtaining a Master of Health Science through the Graduate Training Programs in Clinical Investigation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and to continue her research to improve the health of older adults.

Alexa Bragg is a doctoral student in Health Services Research and Policy in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Alexa’s research interests include the organizational behavior of nonprofit and for-profit long-term care institutions, as well as the evolving role of alternative care delivery models in home health. Alexa received her MPH and MBA from Boston University in 2023. Prior to pursuing her doctoral degree, Alexa served as an Associate Health Transformation Analyst for MITRE’s VA Enterprise & Healthcare Operations Transformation Department. In addition, Alexa supported ongoing socio-behavioral and health service research projects at Boston Medical Center for the Department of Family Medicine.

Davoodi is a first-year Health Services Research and Policy doctoral student in the Department of Health Policy and Management. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Physiology and Neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego, and a Master of Public Health from the Brown University School of Public Health. Prior to coming to Hopkins, she was a Senior Data Analyst at the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research within the Brown University School of Public Health leveraging claims data to assess policy questions specific to End-stage renal disease. She also worked as an Emergency Medical Technician throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Davoodi’s research interests include examining policies and programs pertaining to the health care older adults in the United States, specifically in the areas of financing, delivery, spending, organization, and health outcomes.

Marr is second-year Health Economics and Policy PhD student in the Department of Health Policy and Management. He is interested in the financing, organization, and delivery of health care for older adults and Medicare beneficiaries. Before graduate school, Marr was an analyst at Insight Policy Research, where he worked on program evaluation and policy analysis contracts for Federal agencies. His current work examines Medicare Advantage provider networks, supplemental insurance coverage for Medicare beneficiaries, and the market for dialysis services.

Riser is a second-year doctoral student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. As a Nurse Practitioner and Home Based Primary Care (HBPC) Program Director, she provided primary care, palliative care and case management for homebound patients. Riser is board certified as an Adult Nurse Practitioner by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP). She completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at the University of Pittsburgh and her Master of Science in Nursing and Master of Public Health degrees at the Johns Hopkins University. Riser was selected as a 2017-18 fellow in the Health and Aging Policy Fellowship (HAPF) Program, sponsored by the John A. Hartford Foundation, West Health and The Atlantic Philanthropies. She currently serves on the Family Caregiver Alliance (FCA) Board of Directors. Riser’s research interests include programmatic components of home-based care models for older adults, scalability and outcome measures influencing quality of life, isolation, social justice, health care utilization and health setting transitions. She is also interested in family caregiving policies and programs, including the perspectives of the unpaid caregiver. 

Wec is a second-year Health Services Research and Policy doctoral student in the Department of Health Policy and Management. Wec received her bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Linguistics from Rutgers University and was a research assistant at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research. Prior to joining Hopkins, Wec worked at Mathematica on federally funded large-scale survey data collection projects. During her first year in the training program, Wec strengthened her quantitative analysis skills through coursework in statistics and causal inference  through attendance at a data users' workshop for the NHATS; she also took coursework towards a certificate in Gerontology. Her research interests include improving care for older adults with dementia and assessing how best to support and disseminate evidence-based practices to caregivers.