Karishma Furtado, MPH ’15, Forges Reputation as an Emerging Scholar 8/12/2015 Alumni; Public Health Share this Story: Karishma Furtado • PhD Student in Public Health Sciences, Brown School at Washington University Karishma Furtado worked on many research projects and publications during her time at the Brown School. Much of her work leveraged the skills she learned through her specialization in Epidemiology/Biostatistics. “Numbers hold the answers to so many disease-related questions,” Karishma says. “Epidemiology has taught me to ask the right questions to yield the right data. Biostatistics is the natural partner that allows me to make meaning from the numbers.” Through a research-oriented practicum at Washington University’s School of Medicine and work as a research associate at the university’s Institute for Public Health, Karishma has forged a reputation as an emerging scholar. Among other publications, she is first author on a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Health Communication. Following graduation, Karishma joined the inaugural class of the Brown School’s PhD program in Public Health Sciences, where she is studying health communication and dissemination. “With some of the best programs in the country for medicine and social work, Washington University was bound to be a public health powerhouse,” she says. “It was obviously primed for it.”