MPH 2017

Tatevik Hovakimyan (AUA MPH 2017), Clinical Pediatric and Adult Cardiologist – Arrhythmologist, Nork Marash Medical Center, Yerevan, Armenia

Tatevik Hovakimyan works as a clinical pediatric and adult cardiologist – arrhythmologist. Currently she is the responsible clinician in charge of arrhythmology service at Nork Marash Medical Center of Yerevan, Armenia. She is also a first-year Executive Master of Science student at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Department of Health Policy, where she studies Health Economics, Outcomes and Management in Cardiovascular Science. She earned a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the American University of Armenia (AUA) in 2017. Her MPH thesis project was on the risk prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea in patients with repaired congenital heart defects. During her studies at AUA she received a full merit-based scholarship from the AUA and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia. Dr. Hovakimyan is also a recipient of European Society of Cardiology scholarship for her studies at LSE. She received her medical degree from Yerevan State Medical University. Her special scientific and research interests include care of patients with repaired congenital heart diseases reaching adulthood, management of patients with different kinds of arrhythmia, and outcomes research, including evaluation of health policies and interventions.

Monica Steffi Thomas (AUA MPH 2017), Program Officer, JHPIEGO, India

Monica Steffi Thomas works as a Program Officer in JHPIEGO at Durg, Chhattisgarh, India in the project called Expanding Access to Intrauterine Contraceptive devices Services in India (EAISI). The job responsibilities include supportive supervision visits to hospitals and needs based support to increase the quality of family planning services, training of providers (doctors and staff nurses), rolling out of the program, implementation and evaluation of the program by analyzed data. In a country like India, where maternal deaths are 160 for every 100,000 births, providing high quality family planning services can improve the health of mothers and children in the country. Prior to joining JHPIEGO, she was working as an intern at Hindu Rao hospital, New Delhi. She holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the American University of Armenia. She completed her MD degree from Yerevan State Medical University, Armenia. She received a merit based International Scholarship while studying in the MPH Program. Dr. Thomas’s presentation, entitled “The association between iron supplementation during pregnancy and childhood and anemia status among one to five year old children in India” master’s project [which evaluated the iron supplementation program in India using data on 29,916 children from the National Family Health Survey] was awarded Best Oral Presentation at the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) Young Researchers Forum, a pre-conference event at the 10th European Public Health Conference that took place in Stockholm, Sweden in 2017.