CGHE Announces 2020-2021 Big Ideas Teams Leadership

Dr. Murshid’s areas of research interest include institutions, structural sources of violence, social policy, and health disparities. Her recent work examines the experiences of microfinance participation among women in Bangladesh, and how mobile financial services  affect marginalized groups, such as migrant workers. 

Dr. Palermo examines the impacts of social policy on population health. As co-principal investigator for studies in Tanzania and Ethiopia, she examines the impacts of government social protection programs, which are linked with other services and complementary interventions, on health and well-being.  

Dr. Murshid and Dr. Palermo will be launching a global child writing group every 2^nd Wednesday of the month, inviting interested faculty and graduate students to present work in progress and build meaningful partnerships at UB.

Dr. Agbemenu’s research interests include reproductive health education, care, and outcomes, and women's health in the African immigrant and refugee population. Her research points to the urgent need to develop culturally-targeted, trauma-informed, reproductive health education for refugees.

Dr. Lemke’s research focuses on the politics of education and how educational organizations address equity. She is particularly concerned with the intersection of power and educational policy, programming, and schooling processes and how neoliberal sociopolitical and normative culture shapes educational actor decision-making and youth schooling experience. Her recent publications focus on the experiences of displaced children and youth within the educational system.

Dr. Frimpong Boamah utilizes multiple theoretical and methodological lenses to interrogate issues related to urban health, public policy, environmental governance, land tenure, and sustainable urbanism in both Global North and South countries. His scholarly interests are centered around water governance and determinations of the appropriate institutional frameworks for dealing with water issues.

Dr. Raja’s research focuses on understanding the role of planning and policy in building sustainable food systems and healthy communities. Her scholarship and teaching emphasizes the necessity for equitable and inclusive planning processes. Dr. Raja also serves as Co-Director for CGHE.

Dr. Smith is a nutritional epidemiologist whose research focuses on measurement of dietary behaviors and assessment of the determinants and health effects of mycotoxin exposure on mothers and children. Her primary work is done in partnership with Zvitambo Institute for Maternal and Child Health Research, Meyrick Park, Harare, Zimbabwe through the SHINE (Sanitation, Hygiene, Infant Nutrition Efficacy Project) trial.

Dr. Kordas’ research within the field of environmental epidemiology focuses on the effects of the totality of broad exposures (multiple metals, air pollution, pesticide exposure) on child health. She has a longstanding partnership with research collaborators in Uruguay where she has been developing a research program in pediatric environmental epidemiology since 2006. Dr. Kordas also serves as Co-Director for CGHE. 

The antimicrobial resistance team is led by Dr. Shamim Islam, clinical associate professor of pediatrics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Islam’s research and practice focus on understanding and treating infectious diseases. The AMR team is working to understand and control AMR emergence and spread from hospital and municipal wastewater in Bangladesh.