Ruhul Abid, MD, PhD – Principal Investigator
Ruhul Abid, MD (Principal Investigator) is an Associate Professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Cardiovascular Research Center at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University Alpert Medical School. Along his career as a researcher in cardiovascular disease, he has worked on and spearheaded numerous community health projects in Bangladesh. Dr. Abid has implemented a program providing volunteer-based charitable healthcare to the workers of the garment factories in Bangladesh since 2013 (after the Rana Plaza accident in 2013).
These projects have provided free treatment to the workers of five different garment factories in different regions of Bangladesh (Dhaka, Gazipur, Sripur, Bhaluka, Mymensingh) to date. In order to make these efforts sustainable, this UKAID’s global health grant award will help them develop a GPS mapping system of the local healthcare providers (government and NGO) and connect them to the in-house (garment factory) clinic staffs to facilitate diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of the factory workers. This grant will also help them train the in-house clinic Health Workers for common disease screening procedures and technologies. The project will provide health education, nutrition and personal hygiene including feminine hygiene training to the factory workers and administrative staff.
Dr. Abid will help build a data-flow system from the in-house factory clinic to the database of the HPNSDP and MOHFW in Bangladesh. A US-based software consultant, Aprosoft, who has their program developers and IT consultants in Bangladesh, is jointly working with Dr. Abid to develop a customized hand-held, mobile technology named “NIROG” for health screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of the factory workers. This software is designed to have two-way communication between the health care providers (using hand-held Tablets) and patients (using their cell phones) for follow-up and treatment of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, etc from patient’s home or work place.
Ipsita Hamid Trisha, MD, MPH – Research Intern
Ipsita is a research intern at Abid Lab and is participating in an ongoing investigation of the roles of sub-cellular oxidants/reactive oxygen species (ROS) in coronary vascular endothelium in myocardial ischemia. Her work involves extraction of DNA from the labs transgenic mice and running PCR and identifying line of mice to run experiments on. She also looks for overexpression of different subcellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) expression by immunofluorescence. Quantifying angiogenesis in aortic sprouting from mice heart getting different treatments is also one of her responsibilities.
Besides, she has been working with Dr. Abid since 2013 in his Bangladesh projects of Brown global health initiative since her medical school and still working in several projects including garment workers and Rohingya project where her active participation helps in non-communicable disease and mental health screening protocol development along with health screening, preventive and clinical care provision. She also helped in the development of a manuscript from collected garment data which was published in international health by oxford university press in September 2018. She is currently working on a project where she would explore the health status of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Out of her work she loves to explore providence and enjoy its happening street arts, murals and an expanded variety of foods. She enjoys waterfire providence very much and when possible volunteers with them to create this enigmatic beauty. She also loves music and dancing.
Greta Solinap
Greta is currently a fourth year medical student who will be pursuing a career in Child Neurology after graduation. Under the guidance of Dr. Ruhul Abid, she spearheaded the data analysis of health information gathered from several mobile health clinics that served nearly 2,000 Bangladeshi garment factory workers, which lead to a publication in the journal International Health. During medical school, she has been passionate about improving local healthcare provision and communication through her leadership roles in the Alpert Medical School Medical Spanish Interest Group, the Advanced Medical Spanish pre-clinical elective, and the Latino Medical Students Association (LMSA). Prior to medical school, she spent two years working in the Philippines on projects that aimed to improve healthcare access to under-resourced communities, including a community organizing program for patients with a rare neurologic disorder called X-linked dystonia Parkinsons (XDP). She graduated from Harvard College in 2013 with a degree in the History of Science and a minor in Neurobiology.
Jason Tsichlis
Jason Tsichlis is a student at the Warren Alpert Medical School (anticipated MD: 2021). He graduated from Bates College in 2009 and received his MS in International Agricultural Development from UC Davis in 2015. Prior to medical school, Jason worked extensively in international development, with a particular focus in West Africa. He served in the United States Peace Corps in Burkina Faso from 2011-2013, where he worked with local farming groups on instituting nutrition- and climate-sensitive agricultural practices. Additionally, he has worked on nutritional supplement and market demand studies in Burkina Faso and Ghana. At Brown, he is pursuing a Scholarly Concentration in Global Health with primary focus on Rohingya refugee health in Bangladesh and infectious disease treatment efficacy in humanitarian endeavors. When he is not working, he enjoys playing piano, fly fishing, and oil painting.
Cristina Taylor
Cristina Taylor (Brown University ’19) is from southern California, and she studies International Relations and English. Along with several colleagues, she leads a disaster risk reduction effort in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh centered on land stabilization and sanitation with vetiver (binna) grass.
Phoebe Kennan
Phoebe is a Sophomore studying International Relations with a focus on Latin America. She’s an Australian interested in human rights and addressing global health issues as a means of assisting people experiencing statelessness and persecution. At the moment, Phoebe tutors for BRYTE (Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment). She is also the chair of communications for Students in Solidarity with the Rohingya People (SRP), which works to fundraise and raise awareness for HAEFA, a non-profit providing healthcare to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh founded by Dr. Abid. She hopes to continue this line of work in the future by studying law or becoming a teacher.
Briana Chung
Briana is a senior at Brown studying Health and Human Biology with a focus on the social context of health and disease. Though this Arizona native finds herself at odds with the variable Providence weather, she thrives in her hospice volunteering and clinical research. She is a co-president of Brown Students in Solidarity with the Rohingya People and hopes to involve the community in the efforts of Health and Education for All (HAEFA) to support the residents of the refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Olivia Cummings
Olivia is a senior at Brown studying Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She is originally from New York. Olivia will attend the Warren Alpert Medical School starting Fall 2019. Outside of the lab Olivia enjoys eating out with friends, knitting, and exploring Providence.
Imaan Mir
Imaan Mir is a 4th year undergraduate student and research assistant from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health. In addition to his studies, he works with multiple social justice organizations as an educator, community organizer, and advocate for human rights/refugee acceptance. Through his involvement with Health and Education for All (HAEFA), a NGO headed by Dr. Ruhul Abid of Brown University, he served as a medical volunteer in the Kutupalong-Balukhali Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh.
Alexander Philips
Alexander is a sophomore undergraduate student at Brown University. He is studying Health Economics with plans for medical school. As an undergraduate, he has studied health in the context of Hispaniola, have gained proficiency in Spanish, and has briefly assisted in the finances of Health and Education for All (HAEFA). He looks forward to continuing study in public health, economics, biostatistics, and clinical informatics to improve patient outcomes in various global health settings.