During Summer 2023, the NC InCK team was supported by multiple wonderful interns. They have been involved in a variety of projects, especially with our Research and Evaluation team. NC InCK is grateful for all their important contributions. Read more about our interns, their work, and what they learned below.
Jeylan Close is a pediatrician, child psychiatrist, and is in the National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP at Duke University. Jeylan is passionate about NC InCK’s model of holistically addressing the needs of children and families and has been able to do some qualitative work around family engagement from the perspectives of Family Navigators. When her hands are idle, she likes to weave baby hats. Jeylan is now working on the evaluation of the manual referral process, where community partners can directly identify children who may benefit from NC InCK care management services. Jeylan is entering her final year at Duke and plans to continue to work with the NC InCK team.
“I have learned so much about care management models and the logistics of how they can be operationalized. Working with Rushina [Cholera] and the whole leadership team at NC InCK has also taught me a lot about how to effectively manage projects. I have appreciated their thoughtful approach and hope to adopt their skills and strategies in my future work.” -Jeylan Close
Alex Gertner is a psychiatry resident at UNC-Chapel Hill. He has an MD-PhD from the UNC School of Medicine and the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Alex is interested in how social circumstances and policies affect children and adolescents' mental health. Alex is working on developing dosage and intensity measures for NC InCK services and examining how these may affect parental stress and child development. This project will help NC InCK better understand service delivery and components of services that affect child well-being. Alex hopes to continue working with the NC InCK team to improve child and adolescent well-being in North Carolina.
Amaris Huang is an undergraduate student at Duke University (’25) studying biomedical engineering and computer science. As a NC InCK intern, she supported a mixed-methods research study on food insecurity screening and intervention policies in pediatric clinics nationwide. Through her work on this project, Amaris assisted with performing rapid qualitative analysis on stakeholder interviews and helped with conducting a literature review of food insecurity and value-based payment models. Her work supported the development of a manuscript with collaborators from the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, UNC School of Medicine, and Wake Forest School of Medicine. Amaris plans to continue working with the research team towards the full fruition of the project.
“I was drawn to NC InCK’s mission to better the health and wellness for children, and I am passionate about working for health equity initiatives.” -Amaris Huang
Vibhav Nandagiri is an undergraduate student at Duke University ('25) majoring in Biology and International Comparative Studies with a Health Policy Certificate. As part of NC InCK's research team, he supported a mixed methods study on food insecurity screening and intervention efforts in pediatric clinics across the nation. In addition to assisting primary data collection, Vibhav also carried out rapid qualitative analysis on interviews and conducted a literature review of existing policy innovations supporting food insecurity screening and intervention efforts. This work supported the development of a manuscript with collaborators at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, UNC School of Medicine, and Wake Forest School of Medicine. After this summer, he will be taking a short break from NC InCK to study abroad, but he plans to return in 2024 to continue his work with the research team.
“NC InCK's pioneering model for care delivery centers a child's well-being above all else. As a lifelong resident of North Carolina, I was drawn to the passion of everyone on the NC InCK team to better pediatric health care in my home state.” -Vibhav Nandagiri
Michelle Shankar is a pediatrician and former public-school teacher in the National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP) at Yale University. She is passionate about optimizing collaboration between healthcare and education systems to improve outcomes for children. This past summer, Michelle worked on a qualitative project to understand how Family Navigators, pediatric primary care providers, and school providers support families with school attendance to develop guidance for data sharing and best practices. In her free time, Michelle has been enjoying summer fiction reads and North Carolina's beautiful mountains.
“Through this project, I have come to understand the rich and unique perspective of each of these roles in a child's care team. I am inspired by their passion to build bridges across our disciplines and create strong networks of support for NC InCK children and families. I hope to pursue a career that blends clinical work with health services research and policy work, and I would love to continue to learn from and support NC InCK's work!” - Michelle Shankar
Lily Suarez is a second year Internal Medicine and Pediatrics resident at Duke University originally from Columbus, OH. She worked on a national project exploring the implementation of food insecurity screening and interventions in pediatric clinical practices, which aimed to identify opportunities to leverage innovative care models, like NC InCK, to improve child and family food security. Working with collaborators at Wake Forest University and UNC-Chapel Hill, these results have been shared at two national conferences, and she is currently preparing a manuscript to share these findings.
“I was, and am drawn, to NC InCK because of my clinical role taking care of children and families. We are so limited by what we can do within clinical care, but the way that NC InCK aims to redesign care and provide communication channels between all the sectors that take care of children gives me hope that our next generation will be happier and healthier.” -Lily Suarez
Pearl Teiko is a recent Public Policy graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill (’23) from Greensboro, NC. She worked with NC InCK as a summer intern for the Duke University Margolis Center for Health Policy, where she devised a data collection and evaluation approach for NC InCK’s manual referral pilot. This data collection tool will help NC InCK evaluate the success and efficacy of permanently establishing a referral pathway. In August 2023, Pearl continued her work at NC InCK and started her Master of Public Policy at the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy.
“I learned a lot about the complexities of implementation science and how its principles can be applied to policy interventions. I hope to take the knowledge I’ve gained from this experience to promote health equity in NC and nationally.” – Pearl Teiko
Anna Zolotor was raised in Carrboro, NC and attended Duke University (’23), where she completed her B.S. in Statistical Methods and Biology with a minor in Global Health. In college, she was involved in student journalism, community service, and public health policy research which brought her to NC InCK. This summer, Anna worked on a research project related to the NC InCK algorithm that distributes children into Service Integration Levels (SILs). Her work involves both a quantitative piece as well as a more qualitative component comparing NC InCK's algorithm to traditional approaches. In September, Anna will be moving to Boston, MA where she will begin her work as a statistician in the health care sphere.
“While I've had research experiences in the health policy space, my previous work has involved considering broad applications of very widely applicable tools and metrics. My NC InCK work this summer has been my first experience doing work that directly involves an operating model with acute implications. I've loved getting to learn about how one element of NC InCK (the algorithm) was created and how it actually functions.” -Anna Zolotor
Th entire team at NC InCK wants to thank each one of our interns for their hard work and collaboration. We wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors and look forward to continuing to work with several of you!