Hannah Getachew-Smith, MPH, CHES

Health Communication Specialist

Hannah Getachew-Smith, MPH, CHES is a doctoral candidate focusing on health communication in the Media, Technology, and Society program at Northwestern University. Trained in public health, she holds an MPH from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in behavioral sciences and health education, a BA in political science and global health studies from Northwestern, and is a Certified Health Education Specialist. She has conducted research and evaluation for more than ten years at the federal, state, and local levels in both the public and private sectors. In her current role, she works in the Health Communication Interaction Design Lab at Northwestern to develop and evaluate interventions to facilitate difficult conversations in health that utilize new or emerging technologies. Her research focuses on the evaluation of digital behavior change interventions to promote healthy behaviors and address health disparities, specifically disparities that exist in developmental delays among children. Prior to returning to Northwestern, Hannah spent four years working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducting research and evaluating national HIV prevention campaigns and partnership initiatives.