Researchers

Below are the researchers involved in the grant-funded project, “Investigating Human Dignity in Practice During the COVID-19 Crisis,” sponsored by Ohio State’s Global Arts and Humanities.

Contact us at HumanDignityProject@osu.edu

Christa Teston, Principal Investigator

Christa Teston, PhD is Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University where she directs the Department of English’s Business and Technical Writing courses. Her monograph, Bodies in Flux: Scientific Methods for Navigating Medical Uncertainty, has won two best book awards from the Association of Rhetoric, Science, Technology, and Medicine and the NCTE’s “Technical and Scientific Communication” subfield. Her work has appeared in Technical Communication Quarterly, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, Journal of Medical Humanities, Written Communication, and her co-edited collection, Precarious Rhetorics.


Melissa Guadrón, co-PI

Melissa Guadrón is a third-year PhD student in the Rhetoric, Composition and Literacy program at the Ohio State University. Her areas of expertise include rhetorics of health and medicine, Latinx rhetorics, disability theory, and narrative. Her current research focuses on the use of prompts in the elicitation of mental health self-disclosure narratives. As President of GAMHAA (Graduate Association of Mental Health Action and Advocacy) she is overseeing the installation of OSU’s first Quiet Room.


Mahlet Meshesha, Consultant

Mahlet Meshesha is a MPH candidate at George Washington University. She received her Masters of Social Work in 2019 from Boston University where she specialized in child trauma and social work leadership. Currently, she is a school-based trauma therapist in the public school system where she works with BIPOC youth and families. Her clinical practice is focused on decolonizing mental health treatment and addressing how oppressive structural and cultural factors impact mental health/wellness.  She is also interested in community participatory research, program design and program evaluation.


Ania Pathak, Consultant

Ania Pathak is a 5th year DO/PhD candidate at Michigan State University earning her PhD in Neuroscience. She received her bachelors’ from Michigan State in Physiology and Philosophy, where her undergraduate thesis focused on medicine as an existential, intersubjective praxis and study in embodied human vulnerability. Her past cross-disciplinary research prepared her to work at the intersection between physiology, medicine, human experience, the nervous system, and philosophy. Her current graduate work is interested in how experiences and social determinants of health affect human health, well-being, and being in the world. Above all, Ania is driven by a passion for humanizing medicine and the human condition.


Shariq Sherwani, Consultant

Shariq I. Sherwani is a doctoral candidate in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University. He received his Master of Arts (MA) degree in communication studies from the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University in 2018. His other degrees are Master of Applied Clinical and Preclinical Research (MACPR) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) both received from The Ohio State University in 2016 and 2012, respectively, and a Master of Science (MS) degree from Aligarh Muslim University received in 1998. His research focuses on health communication, primarily in the areas of stressors, quality of life, psychosocial outcomes, and uncertainty that caregivers experience while providing care to their loved ones with end stage renal disease or kidney failure. He explores the questions at the intersectionality of communication, public health, medicine, organizations, and policymaking. He has extensive experience in quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in the areas of communication, caregiving and emotional labor, obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea, and cardiovascular diseases.


Goran Stevanovski, Consultant

Goran Stevanovski M.D. is currently pursuing his MA in Biomedical Education at The Ohio State University. He got his medical degree in 2016 at Ss Cyril and Methodius University Medical Faculty in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia. With three years of experience in the medical field, patient care and teaching, he is currently focusing on integrating soft skills in the medical curriculum by using simulation in medical education. With vast international experience in clinical epidemiology, public health and non-government student associations, he is striving in equalizing and bringing evidence based medical healthcare to all. As a current Fulbright fellow at OSU, Dr. Stevanovski is a co-founder of Buckeye Brighters, a Fulbright student association.