Victoria B. Chou received a BS degree in Psychology (Neuroscience) from Duke University and earned a MS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Maryland Baltimore. She is currently completing a PhD in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. With certification in both Maternal and Child Health and Vaccine Science and Policy, she is broadly trained in infectious disease epidemiology, biostatistics, and maternal and reproductive health as part of the program in Global Disease Epidemiology and Control.
Victoria’s previous research experience ranged from basic science to clinical investigation before expanding to global health issues in developing countries. After working with academic research collaborations studying HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and China, she spent a year in Uganda conducting an NIH-funded substudy at an international clinical field site. Switching her focus to maternal and child health for her thesis, her dissertation project evaluates the impact of young maternal age at first birth on immediate and subsequent health for mothers and their children living in low-income settings. Supported by a US Fulbright grant and other awards and fellowships, she implemented a large community-based follow-up study from 2008-2009 to collect reproductive health, childhood immunization, and anthropometry data from 4,600 mother-child pairs at home in a rural district of Nepal.
As a Public Health Fellow in the Federated States of Micronesia, Victoria hopes to contribute to advancing the mission of the Department of Health and Social Affairs and will participate in activities to strengthen the national TB, HIV, and STD programs in the office of Secretary Skilling. Victoria’s future career objectives are to apply her diverse educational training and field-based practical skills to improve the lives of others globally by pursuing a challenging position which combines public health research and programming with an international emphasis.
