Ryan Rego
Educational background and interests:
Ryan graduated in 2017 from the Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, USA with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and a Master of Public Health degree. During his undergraduate and masters degrees, Ryan gained experience ranging from clinical work as an emergency medical technician to public health work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Malaysia. Between his masters and PhD, Ryan spent a year working with Population Services International in Johannesburg, South Africa as a Research Fellow.
PhD project focus:
Ryan is focusing on the effect of water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions on the spread of diarrhoeal disease in areas of high population density. Specifically, Ryan is interested in the measurement of these interventions in displaced populations and populations especially vulnerable to diarrhoeal disease, such as children under five. His PhD project will focus on comparing novel methods of diarrhoea measurement, such as the use of surveys utilising the bristol stool chart or collection of stool samples, to current widespread measurement methods and survey questions which suffer from several biases. Ryan is also specifically interested in using data from this project to track carriage of pathogens from endemic to non-endemic areas via displaced persons. This project will primarily take place in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.