2022 Dillon Family Fellowship Award recipient, Hayami is a PhD candidate in population health sciences in the Social and Behavioral Sciences department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (the School), and a graduate student affiliate at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (HCPDS). She holds an MPH from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and an MD from the University of Occupational and Environmental Health Japan.

Hayami’s research investigates how positive psychological factors may be associated with health. Her dissertation work examines how factors such as optimism and purpose in life may be associated with indicators of healthy aging and what the underlying mechanisms may be. Her dissertation advisor is Laura Kubzansky, Lee Kum Kee Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and co-director of the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the School. Hayami will join the HCPDS’s Work and Well-being Initiative ((Professor Kubzansky is a co-lead, along with HCPDS Director Lisa Berkman, and MIT Professor Erin Kelly) as a research assistant in fall 2022.