Two senior undergraduate students at Yale, each of whom conducted extensive research in labs at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), were recent recipients of prestigious awards for postgraduate study.
August Rios studied housing justice, policy, and tenant housing conditions in the Housing and Health Equity Lab and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in November. Isabel Rancu used computational methods to study the transmission and evolution of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) in the Ted Cohen Lab and was awarded a Marshall Scholarship in December.
Both Rios and Rancu are from South Carolina and knew each other before attending Yale. “When August won the Rhodes, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, no way!' '' Rancu said. “He told me, ‘OK, you got this,’ and then I won the Marshall.”
Cross-school collaboration
Rios and Rancu exemplify the impactful research that results from cross-school collaboration at Yale, reflecting the school’s strategic priority to build resilient public health communities in our school, at Yale, and beyond, and to create pathways for translating that science into local and global health impact.
Rios is a Yale College senior majoring in urban sociology who has been involved in housing justice work since his first year at Yale. He serves as a commissioner on the New Haven Affordable Housing Commission and co-founded a student organization at Yale to provide free legal information to Connecticut residents in small claims court. Rios also obtained a realestate license and worked with first-time home buyers, all while completing his undergraduate courses.
Given his passion for housing justice, Rios’ adviser connected him with Dr. Danya Keene, PhD, professor of public health (social and behavioral sciences) in the fall of 2024. Rios enrolled in Keene’s Social Justice and Health Equity course and became involved in the Housing and Health Equity Lab the following semester.
Members of Keene’s lab mentor students across YSPH and Yale College. Keene said over a dozen Yale College students have worked with her lab in recent years, either as paid research assistants or as students using data for an undergraduate thesis. In addition, her lab has worked with undergraduate and doctoral students from other universities, and even high school students.
In Keene’s lab, Rios used existing qualitative data from low-income tenants in New Haven to analyze how they experienced and navigated housing conditions. “He found so many interesting things that we decided we should do a whole new project about housing conditions,” Keene said.
Over the summer of 2025, while also working at two different internships, Rios developed a qualitative research protocol for the study and interviewed 15 tenants from an existing cohort study called project ReSIDe. With Keene as his adviser, Rios developed the qualitative interviews into a thesis project.
Keene said Rios’ passion for housing justice and his skills as a researcher have made his thesis exceptional. “He's just such a wonderful interviewer; he's just so thoughtful and such a good listener. And so that resulted in a lot of really rich data.”
Rios’ thesis uncovers new insights into how living in poor housing conditions affects tenants beyond physical health. “It’s not just asthma and lead paint; it’s about the psychological burden of living in housing that’s really not up to code, and all the ways that tenants are exerting their agency and navigating these conditions,” Keene explained.
She is excited about the impact his research will have. “I think it's going to be really important for the field and for advocates in the housing space,” Keene said.
At Oxford, Rios will pursue a two-year Master's in Philosophy in comparative social policy with a concentration in housing policy.
A first for Rancu and the Cohen Lab
When Isabel Rancu learned she had won the Marshall scholarship, Dr. Ted Cohen, DPH, MD, MPH, was one of her first calls. A Yale senior studying molecular biophysics and biochemistry with a data science certificate, Rancu joined Cohen’s lab as a first-year student.
Because the Cohen Lab’s infectious disease research requires a strong computational and computer science background, it’s rare for undergraduate students to join. In fact, Rancu is the first undergraduate student to ever work in the lab, said Cohen, professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases). He described how Rancu would spend several hours each week in the lab learning skills that were not taught in her undergraduate classes. “She’s incredibly personable, easy to work with, and smart, asks a ton of questions, and is willing to go away and try things and come back,” Cohen said.
Despite being the only undergraduate in a lab populated with doctoral, post-doctoral and master’s students, Rancu said she felt incredibly supported. Lab members offered strong mentorship, involving her in lab meetings, and helping her develop research skills. “The group culture has been so good to a young undergrad scientist because it just totally was all about: how can we help each other; how can we support each other?” Rancu said.
During her four years in the lab, Rancu worked on many projects from modeling tuberculosis (TB) transmission to investigating how the TB genome can be sequenced directly from sputum samples. She led a project focused on using genomic data from TB to understand transmission patterns of the disease within communities in Moldova in Eastern Europe. The paper was recently published in a peer-reviewed journal. Rancu’s senior thesis research focused on the bacterial genomics and the bioinformatics behind TB.
As a Marshall Scholar, Rancu will pursue a Master of Research in bioinformatics and theoretical systems biology at Imperial College and a Master of Science in applied infectious disease epidemiology at University College London. Though she isn’t sure of her exact career path, Rancu knows she wants to work at the intersection of public health-oriented infectious disease research, teaching, and clinical care.
“It’s going to be a huge loss for us when she graduates, but we’re so proud of her,” Cohen said.
Rancu said she hopes that more undergraduates will get involved in research at YSPH. “It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my time at Yale to be part of the lab,” Rancusaid.