Isaac Morales is a PhD student in Sociology American University. He is a member of Health Policy Research Scholars Cohort 2024. Tell us a little bit about yourself! What’s the story behind your research interests and why you’re doing the work you’re doing? My primary research interests are parenting, child development, and studying how these processes are affected by interpersonal

Melody Mann is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a member of Health Policy Research Scholars Cohort 2024. Tell us a little bit about yourself! What’s the story behind your research interests and why you’re doing the work you’re doing? Growing up as a Punjabi American navigating the school systems, I saw

IMAGE: Background, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, AFL-CIO Still Images, Photographic Prints Collection. Foreground, Resha T. Swanson-Varner. (1) In honor of Black History Month’s 2025 theme, “African Americans and Labor,” we’re featuring HPRS scholar Resha T. Swanson-Varner (Cohort 2022), whose research examines the intersection of labor rights, racial justice, and policy in the American South. As a PhD

IMAGE: OWEN TAYLOR / TRUE LOVE SEEDS Dr. Ashley B. Gripper is amplifying the urban agriculture movement in Philadelphia, a city partially shaped by industrial expansion and systemic inequality. As a Health Policy Research Scholars alum (Cohort 2018) and Assistant Professor at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health, her work combines environmental justice, food sovereignty, and activism. Gripper’s journey is

“Like anything in human history, suicide is a story. It is a story we are told and tell ourselves. That we invest belief in or try to fulfill.” For Seth Allard, this understanding—that stories can heal or harm—drives his mission to transform how we approach mental health in veteran and Native American communities. As both an Ojibwa person and a

Melissa Horner (Manitoba Métis Federation/Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa), is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Missouri, and a Health Policy Research Scholar. Her work seeks to illuminate the ongoing impacts of U.S. settler colonialism while championing the knowledge and futures of Native Peoples. Melissa’s path to academia was not linear. Before entering her PhD program, she