Md. Sohail Akhter, Rupam Mitra, Ishrat Zaman, Asma Awan (all Public Health) and Manoj Sharma (Public Health; Internal Medicine) presented and participated in a panel discussion for ARPA Scholarship Project titled "ARPA: Experiential Learning for Public Health Workforce Augmentation" on April 22, 2026 at the Nevada Public Health Association Conference, held in Las Vegas.

The panelists explained the importance of such scholarship projects for student professional development and how the level of experiential learning and goal-oriented doctoral-level skillsets are central for a highly skilled and efficient public health workforce incentivization. The project is supported by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant awarded to the UNLV School of Public Health, of which Sharma is the principal investigator and Awan is the program manager. Akhter, Mitra, Zaman and Awan are all Phd students.