Gianna is originally from Melrose Park, Illinois but moved to Arizona with her family at the age of 8. She spent 10 years in Phoenix before heading to Tucson in 2012 to begin her undergraduate career at the University of Arizona. At the U of A she studied public health and graduated with her BS in 2016 before continuing into the MEZCOPH master’s program with a focus in Epidemiology. Since graduating with her MPH in December of 2019, Gianna has taken time to strengthen her data processing software skills and has now taken on the job of Lead Epidemiologist at Amistades. In her future career, Gianna desires to continue as an epidemiologist working towards health equity in the state of Arizona. Eventually she would like to be conducting her own studies and developing her own data to make impactful change.
During her 8 years of education, Gianna has worked extensively on public health and prevention efforts in the city of Tucson. Alongside the Supervised Asthma Medication in Schools (SAMS) program, Gianna collaborated with TUSD schools to provide education and medical devices to in-need asthma-diagnosed elementary students at participating schools. Proper inhaler usage and asthma education was given at every encounter while simultaneously collecting and imputing data for the SAMS study. Additionally, Gianna worked on the Student Aid for Field Epidemiology Response (SAFER) program at the U of A to track and help combat food borne illnesses in the city of Tucson. She participated in the disease investigation portion of the program and collected data directly from hospital-confirmed cases of various foodborne illnesses.
At Amistades Gianna will be focusing on the Mayahuel Prevention Consortium (MPC) and the Caras de Esperanza youth-centered prevention program. Gianna has a true passion for improving the health of her city and knows that achieving these improved levels of health will take a comprehensive and collaborative approach.