Sonia Rupcic - Research Manager, HIT Lab

Biography:

Sonia’s work as a public health researcher spans across international contexts. From 2005-2008, Sonia worked with a rural NGO in South Africa-Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Program, overseeing and revamping the monitoring and evaluation department. Her responsibilities included monitoring and evaluation activities for 2 Trauma Centers and 8 gender-based violence campaigns, as well as special research projects. She was also responsible for developing research plans, which included timelines, budgets, and data collection tools. While at pursuing a dual Masters in Public Health (MPH) and a Masters in International Affairs (MIA) at Columbia, she partnered with researchers at Social Science Training and Research Partnership to conduct research in Vietnam. Her responsibilities included drafting a Monitoring and Evaluation plan for a museum exhibit on the social history of HIV and conducting a literature review on interventions addressing HIV-related stigma. In 2010, her final year at Columbia, she led a study that examined the impact of new aid policy on health services to poor communities in South Africa. Sonia was also responsible for developing and implementing data collection tools. Her work with Weil Cornell Medical College in 2008 also involved developing data coding instruments and data streamlining. Sonia earned her BA in International Studies from the University of Chicago in 2004.