Congratulations to Rutgers doctoral students Nora Sullivan and Yingning Xie, who were awarded the 2025 Howard Leventhal Scholarship for Trainees. The scholarship selection committee selects two students annually to receive the funds to pursue dissertation research and jump-start their investigative careers.

Sullivan, who is pursuing her doctorate in social work from the Rutgers School of Social Work, is focusing her research on faith-based organizations offering permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, also known as a Housing First approach.

She aims to better understand the intersections of faith-based and Housing First approaches to inform future interventions and funding decisions for homelessness services.

Sullivan recently worked as a graduate research assistant with IFH’s Center for State Health Policy, supporting research on healthcare and housing, and as a graduate research assistant with the Rutgers Center for Prevention Sciences, supporting research on opioid use treatment.

Yingning Xie (Ningning), who is pursuing his doctorate in planning and public policy from the Rutgers Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, is focusing his research on car-less immigrants and their access to high-quality health-related destinations, as well as the impact of affordable mobility tools such as e-bikes.

He will also explore immigrants’ perceptions of their transportation accessibility and how transportation constraints affect their access to health-related services.

Xie recently worked as a teaching assistant and research assistant at the Rutgers Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center supporting research on healthcare accessibility, improvement of food access and transit facilities, and bikeshare programs in New York City.

The Howard Leventhal Scholars will share the progress of their work through a presentation to Institute faculty and staff after the course of a year.

Howard Leventhal, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Board of Governors Professor, furthered health psychology research through theoretical and empirical contributions spanning the fields of emotion, illness behavior, and illness attribution.