Graduate Interns
Melissa Hermerding, UC Berkeley MPH '18, Graduate Intern 2017
Melissa Hermerding is a graduate student intern at the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research. She is currently pursuing her Masters of Public Health at UC Berkeley with an emphasis in Infectious Disease and Vaccinology. She completed her B.S. in Biology in 2015 from Wittenberg University. Her passion for public health was ignited when she became an AmeriCorps member for AIDS UNITED in 2015. During this time, she worked with marginalized populations focusing on HIV prevention and testing on a mobile unit. This hands-on experience has pushed her to pursue a career path that blends public health, policy, and clinical medicine.
Namrata Mohanty, UC Berkeley, MPH '18, Graduate Intern 2017
Namrata Mohanty is a graduate student intern at the Forum for Collaborative Research. She is currently pursuing a Master’s of Public Health degree in the Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology program at the University of California, Berkeley. She previously studied Health Administration and Policy, with a minor in Korean Language and Culture, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She first became interested in infectious diseases as a high school intern in the Bacterial and Rickettsial Diseases Department at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. There, she had the opportunity to characterize Shigella flexneri 3a mutants in order to better understand how their behavior differs from the wild-type J17B parent strain. Her experiences in administrative and educational positions at non-profit organizations since have increased her interest in service work and public health. She aspires to career in global public health and prevention programming upon completion of her MPH.
