Janella Kang

M.S. in Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

B.A. in Biochemistry and Applied Mathematics, University of Washington

Janella Kang is a PhD student in Global Family Health and Wellbeing and a mixed methods researcher interested in child and adolescent health and wellbeing with a focus on issues relating to child protection and health accessibility. Her work extends to exploring aspects such as mental health, sexual and reproductive health, immigrant and refugee health, and injury and violence prevention. Additionally, Janella engages in community-based participatory research and mixed methods approaches to explore resilience and protective processes and to intervene in ongoing health disparities among children and adolescents.

Janella has direct experience consulting on various quantitative and qualitative research projects using R, Stata, SPSS, MATLAB, Dedoose, and NVivo. She is also interested in using GIS tools and methods and is developing her analytical skills in ArcGIS, QGIS, and Python. 

Janella’s previous professional experiences include writing policy briefs and analyzing the social determinants of maternal and child health in a rural setting and coordinating and developing programs for people experiencing homelessness. She has also worked on issues relating to incarcerated mothers, child sexual abuse and maltreatment, and human trafficking.

Why CYAF at University of Nebraska-Lincoln

“I chose the Global Family Health and Wellbeing program at CYAF because of its diverse research and collaboration opportunities. I’ve been involved in multiple research projects with faculty across not only CYAF but also different departments and colleges. I’ve also enjoyed how interdisciplinary our department is which complements my professional goals and research interest.”

Lab Participation

Health Equity Amidst Relocation & Displacement (HEARD) Lab

Human Trafficking & Vulnerable Populations Research Lab

Interpersonal Violence Research Laboratory

Awards

Dale and Henrietta Fleck Houghton Fellowship, 2023-2024

UNL Graduate Student Research Day Winner, Spring 2023

Othmer Fellowship, 2022-2025

Highlighted Publications & Presentations

Skjefte, M., Kang, J., Comas, S., Ngirbabul, M., & Yousafzai, A. (2023). Organization and client perspectives on homelessness in Boston, MA during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A descriptive qualitative study. International Journal on Homelessness, 3(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.5206/ijoh.2022.2.14190

Edwards, K., Dalla, R., Kang, J., & Hopfauf, S. (2023, June 25). Sex Trafficking among High Schoolers: A Multi-informant Focus Group Study [Symposium]. Society for Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) 2023 Conference, Denver, Colorado, United States.

Kang, J. S., Sridhar, S., Madzorera, I., Zulu, E., Bell-Cross, S., Makasa, J., Hamer, D. (2023, April 14-16). Prevalence of Adolescent Undernutrition in Peri-urban Zambia [Poster Presentation]. Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) 2023 Conference, Washington, DC, United States. www.cugh2023.org

Timon, C. E., Dallam, S. J., Hamilton, M. A., Liu, E., Kang, J. S., Ortiz, A. J., & Gelles, R. J. (2022). Child Sexual Abuse of Elite Athletes: Prevalence, Perceptions, and Mental Health. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2022.2100026