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EMORY UNIVERSITY

Hemali Oza
Herz Global Impact Award
Ph.D. Student, Environmental Health Sciences
Second Year ARCS Scholar
Hemali is an Environmental Health Sciences doctoral
student, Laney Graduate Fellow, and interested
in measuring and building climate resilience and
adaptive capacity among developing and in informal
settlements. Influenced by her father’s upbringing in
a rural Indian village, she is particularly interested in
resilience as it pertains to water systems and water,
sanitation, and hygiene. Hemali received a B.S.P.H. in
Environmental Health Sciences in 2018 and an M.S.
in Environmental Science and Engineering in 2019,
both from UNC-Chapel Hill, where she worked on
point-of-use water treatment projects that resulted
in publications of her research. Hemali also enjoys
dancing with Saraas, Emory’s folk Indian dance team.

Selma Piranej
Herz Global Impact Award
Ph.D. Student, Chemistry
Second Year ARCS Scholar
Selma graduated from Loyola University Chicago
with a B.S. in Biochemistry and is currently pursuing
a Chemistry Ph.D. from Emory University. Selma’s
research interests include DNA nanotechnology and
leveraging it to create synthetic systems for sensing
applications. Throughout her undergraduate career,
Selma has been a part of the Mulcahy Scholar’s
program and published three peer-reviewed articles,
two of which were first-author. She was also awarded
the American Institute of Chemists prize. Her graduate
career thus far has resulted in two peer-reviewed
published articles and one first-author article currently
under review in Nature Nanotechnology. Selma’s
career goal is to work in academia as a research
professor. In her free time, Selma enjoys hiking,
swimming, and learning new languages. In addition to
English, Selma speaks Albanian, Italian, and Spanish.

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