Rienna Russo is a third-year PhD student in Epidemiology in the Cardiovascular Disease track. Her research focuses on examining and mitigating the drivers of cardiovascular health disparities. Prior to coming to Harvard, Rienna was the project coordinator of an agent-based modeling study examining food policies and CVD outcomes at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led a longitudinal evaluation of the food retail environment in New York City in addition to advocating for data disaggregation while analyzing and documenting the experiences of Asian Americans.
Rienna received her BA in Public Health and Cognitive Science from Johns Hopkins University and her MHS in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research interests include investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CVD risk factors and outcomes, as well the implications of race/ethnicity operationalization in clinical prediction algorithms on health equity.