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Elizabeth Heitz, MPH, a Class XVI environmental health fellow at the Maryland Department of Health, performed an evaluation of
Maryland’s Childhood Lead Registry to examine whether the system was effectively capturing all children with blood lead concentrations
above the reference level, producing accurate estimates of lead exposure over time and in sensitive sub-populations, and providing data
of sufficient quality and timeliness for intervention. She conducted key informant interviews with stakeholders to understand operations
and evaluate qualitative attributes of the system, performed an analysis of the registry data to assess quantitative system attributes, and
presented her preliminary results at the 2019 CSTE Annual Conference.

Katharine (Kayla) Bruce, MPH, a Class XVI maternal and child health fellow at the Louisiana Department of Health, was honored as
CSTE’s 2020 Hillary B. Foulkes award recipient. Her fellowship work demonstrated a commitment to maternal and child health, increasing
access to reproductive care, and addressing social determinants of health and health equity. Her work included an analysis of disparities
in postpartum contraceptive method use, which was published in Maternal and Child Health Journal. She also wrote code to calculate
health equity metrics for all census tracts in Louisiana, and created a guide to facilitate use of these metrics in statewide surveillance and
reporting. After her fellowship, she stayed at the Louisiana Department of Health as the Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Epidemiologist.

Kirtana Ramadugu, MPH, a Class XV infectious diseases fellow at the Florida Department of Health, worked on a variety of projects in
areas such as zoonotic, vectorborne, food and waterborne disease, HIV, and injury. Major projects included studying carbon monoxide
poisonings in Florida following Hurricane Irma and also examining local transmission of Zika, chikungunya, and dengue viruses.
Following graduation from the fellowship, Kirtana worked as a tobacco epidemiologist and is now a laboratory epidemiologist at the Ohio
Department of Health.

AEF Class XVI graduates

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