Trainees
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Sueyoung Oh (she/her)
Sueyoung is a postdoctoral scholar at the LGBTQ+ Policy Lab at Vanderbilt University. She earned her PhD in Community Psychology with a concentration in Quantitative Psychology and a graduate certificate in Gender and Sexualities from the University of Virginia. Her research examines violence against LGBTQ+ individuals and the socio-ecological risk and protective factors that contribute to health inequities within this community, with particular attention to sleep health. Through understanding these multilevel factors, she aims to inform prevention and intervention strategies at individual, interpersonal, and societal levels that promote well-being and health equity among LGBTQ+ individuals.
Christopher A. Julian
Chris is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Vanderbilt University’s LGBTQ+ Policy Lab. They are a family demographer and sociologist whose research examines changes in sexual and gender identities and their intersection with shifting family patterns and population aging in the United States. Their work documents LGBTQ+ family experiences, evaluates survey methods used to measure them, and explores how diverse family forms shape health and well-being across the life course.
Anyah Prasad (she/her/hers)
Anyah is trained as a physician in India and received her Masters and PhD in gerontology from Leiden University in the Netherlands and University of Massachusetts Boston, respectively. She currently holds a primary appointment in the Department of Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University. Her work focuses on understanding the social determinants of health and subjective age among LGBT older adults with a special interest in the health promoting role of social relationships.
Leping Wang (she/her)
Leping Wang was trained as a medical sociologist and family demographer. She received her Master’s degree in Applied Quantitative Research at New York University and her PhD degree in Sociology at Boston University. Her research interests involve aging and the life course, medical sociology, sociology of gender, family demography, and social networks. Her primary line of research investigates how marriage as an institution exacerbates gender inequality in health, well-being and wealth over the life course. Her work closely engages with the minority stress theory, chosen family theory, feminist life course theories, and intersectionality.
Graduate Students
Undergraduate Students
Undergraduate students develop skills while training as research assistants with LGBTQ+ Policy Lab faculty.
- Research skills include conducting literature reviews, original data collection, qualitative and/or quantitative data analysis, written dissemination, and research presentation.
- We host an LGBT Student Research Symposium each Spring providing undergraduates with an opportunity to share research findings and works-in-progress.
- Research assistants in the Policy Lab routinely submit abstracts to conferences and are accepted for poster and oral presentations.
2020 LGBT Student Research Symposium hosted virtually.
Alumni
Ellesse Akré, PhD, MA
(she / her / hers)
Ellesse-Roselee L. Akré́ is a health services researcher whose research portfolio focuses on health inequities, intersectionality, and access to health care. She was a Post-Doctoral Fellow and held a primary appointment in the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University. After completing her training, Ellesse is now an Assistant Professor of health policy and clinical practice at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. Her program of research employs tools from health services research and population health science to demonstrate how macrolevel systems like heterosexism, sexism, and racism are determinants of health inequities. She leverages the frameworks of critical race theory and intersectionality perspective to quantitatively study how social, demographic, and policy contexts shape health and health care disparities for BIPOC and LGBT populations.
(he / him / his)
Matthew received his PhD in Sociology from The University of South Carolina and holds a primary appointment in the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University. Matthew’s research interests include LGBTQ health, social networks, politics, and misinformation.
Harry Barbee, PhD, MS
(he / him / his) (they / them / theirs)
Harry received their MS and PhD in Sociology from Florida State University and holds a primary appointment in the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University. Harry’s research uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how social locations—especially gender and sexual identities—affect people’s subjective experiences of aging as well as their health, well-being, and medical involvement.
(he / him / his)
Ben received his PhD in Economics from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University and holds a primary appointment in the Department of Economics at Vanderbilt University. Ben uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods to examine how changes in public policy affect markets for sexual and mental healthcare, and especially how LGBTQ+ people navigate those markets. His current projects examine the effect of public health insurance eligibility expansions on the markets for drugs used to treat sexually transmitted illnesses and aim to detect, quantify, and describe discrimination faced by transgender and nonbinary people in access to mental healthcare.
(he / him / his)
Samuel received his MSc in Applied Economics from the University of Nottingham and his PhD in Economics from Swansea University and holds a primary appointment in the Department of Economics at Vanderbilt University. Sam’s research broadly explores the impact of LGBTQ+ policies on the health and labour outcomes of LGBTQ+ people. In addition, Sam works across several projects relating to public policy and health.
Joshua Martin
(he/him/his)
Josh received his PhD in Economics from the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University. He holds a primary appointment in the Department of Economics at Vanderbilt University, where he serves as a research affiliate with the LGBTQ+ Policy Lab and the Center for Research on Inequality and Health. His work utilizes quasi-experimental methods to examine how discrimination, information, and policy affect individuals’ labor market outcomes and household investment decisions.
Hasan Shahid
(he/him/his)
Hasan received his PhD in Economics from Georgia State University. He holds a primary appointment in the Department of Economics at Vanderbilt University. He also serves as a research affiliate with the LGBTQ+ Policy Lab and the Center for Research on Inequality and Health. Hasan is an applied microeconomist and employs causal inference techniques for policy analysis and to better understand issues affecting gender and sexual minorities.