This summer three Epidemiology doctoral students have passed their dissertation defenses and will be graduating, bringing the total to 17. Nancy Seraphin completed her dissertation defense on July 14 studying “Tuberculosis Acquisition and Transmission among Persons of Haitian Descent Living in Florida”. Nancy will remain at the University of Florida as a post doctoral associate in the Department of Medicine – Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine. On June 30, Emeka Okafor defended his dissertation titled “Marijuana Use Among HIV-Seropositive and HIV-Seronegative Men: Long Term Trends, Predictors of Use and Impact on Cognitive Function”. Emeka will soon be leaving Gainesville for a prestigious post-doc position at UCLA. Hui Hu presented his dissertation titled “Neighborhood Environment and Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy” on June 17 and will be joining the faculty of our department as an Assistant Research Scientist in late August. We are very proud of all their hard work and look forward to their future contributions.