Valerie Paz Soldán

Valerie Paz Soldán is a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is interested in reproductive health and women's health issues, and is currently working on her dissertation proposal on the diffusion of fertility ideas within men's and women's groups in Malawi. She is also working on three papers for publication using data from the Pregnancy and STI Avoidance study in Malawi that she helped collect last summer: 1) dual protection from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, 2) sexual risk behaviors among men, and 3) voluntary counseling and testing for HIV. She will be returning to Malawi this spring to collect the rest of her data for her dissertation. Valerie was born and raised in Lima, Peru, and has a Peruvian father and North American mother (and three siblings). She obtained her Bachelor's degree in Psychology at Stanford University, and her Master's degree in Public Health at San Jose State University. Her master's thesis was on the training of community health workers in Peru, based on an evaluation of the training provided to community health workers working on a children's malnutrition program.