Seven Scholars Join Full-Time Faculty

Seven public health scholars have joined the full-time Columbia Mailman School faculty since last year. They bring expertise in cutting-edge methods, from implementation science to high-resolution mass spectrometry, and broad research interests, from autism to Alzheimer’s, mental health, reproductive health, entrepreneurship, and more.

What brought them to Columbia Mailman? Rebecca Kehm, assistant professor of epidemiology, says she was motivated by the “opportunities to engage in cutting-edge research, collaborate with world-renowned public health experts, and make an impact on public health locally and globally.” What energizes them? Anindita Dasgupta, assistant professor of sociomedical sciences, says she is “already so impressed by the enthusiasm, initiative, and dedication to public health research from the incoming MPH class.”

Gazi F. Azad, PhD
Assistant Professor of Population and Family Health

Gazi F. Azad uses implementation science to optimize service delivery across systems of care, including clinical and school settings, for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. She is the developer of Partners in School, an implementation strategy for aligning evidence-based practices across home and school for children on the autism spectrum. Additional areas of expertise include community-embedded research and topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in service provision. She is a licensed psychologist at the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.  

Azad will be co-teaching an online implementation science class in the spring. Looking ahead, she hopes to develop a course in child mental health. “I am excited to engage public health students in my research. Collectively, we can minimize the research-practice gap in child mental health services,” she says.

Amar Bhidé, DBA
Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Amar Bhidé has researched and taught about innovation, entrepreneurship, and finance for over three decades. He now focuses on teaching, developing, and disseminating case histories of transformational technological advances. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of the Columbia Center on Capitalism and Society, and a founding editor of the journal Capitalism and Society. Bhide is the author of several books, including the forthcoming Uncertainty, Judgment, and Enterprise (Oxford), which proposes a novel framework to analyze everyday uncertainties in entrepreneurship and beyond.

Bhidé isn’t new to Columbia; previously, he was the Glaubinger Professor at Columbia Business School. At Columbia Mailman, he is teaching a course titled “'Lessons from Transformational Advances.” “The opportunity to teach was the main draw of Mailman for me,” he says.

Anindita Dasgupta, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences

Anindita Dasgupta is a social and behavioral scientist whose research examines the intersection of gendered health inequities and sexual and reproductive health among populations of girls and women marginalized by systems of oppression in New York City, the Middle East, and South Asia. She is funded by the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to implement the PrEP for WINGS study, which aims to reduce hazardous alcohol use, intimate partner violence, and increase PrEP initiation for women engaged in the criminal legal system in New York City. 

As a post-doc, in 2016, Dasgupta participated in a joint fellowship between Sociomedical Sciences and the School of Social Work. This fall, she is launching a study with women engaged in the criminal legal system in New York City, and says she is “eager to engage students in this research, and a number of other projects I am starting on reproductive justice.”

Rebecca Kehm, PhD
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology

Rebecca Kehm is a cancer and social epidemiologist whose research aims to identify modifiable early-life factors that are associated with cancer risk, particularly early-onset breast cancer. She utilizes family-based cohorts to explore how social stressors, physical activity, and air pollution interact with genetic susceptibility, and analyzes biomarkers in breast tissue and blood to study risk throughout the life course. She is translating her epidemiological findings into novel interventions for communities disproportionately burdened by cancer. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia Mailman in 2020.

Kehm is working on a research proposal with faculty in Environmental Health Sciences to study how air pollution during pregnancy affects the mother's long-term risk of chronic disease. “I am most excited about the chance to collaborate with faculty across different departments,” she says.

Thoai Ngo, PhD
Chair, Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health

Thoai Ngo, an internationally recognized scientist working at the intersections of global public health, population dynamics, gender equality, and sustainable development, will become the next chair of the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health effective October 8. Ngo joins the School from the Population Council, where he has held research leadership and executive roles since 2016, and before that at other prominent international research institutions and nonprofits, addressing a wide range of global health and development issues. Ngo has lectured at Columbia Mailman and hosted APEx summer and academic internships.

Says Ngo: “I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to lead the Population and Family Health Department that equally values public health, population science, social justice, and societal impact. I am thrilled to build upon PopFam’s significant accomplishments and guide it through this critical phase of growth and development.”

Manaswi Sangraula, PhD, MPH ’16
Assistant Professor of Population and Family Health

Manaswi Sangraula’s work focuses on using community-engaged methods to design, adapt, implement, and evaluate mental health interventions globally. She has expertise in designing and delivering training and supervision of brief mental health interventions to non-specialist providers, such as community psychosocial workers and staff at community-based organizations, in underserved settings. She co-designs peer-to-peer and wellbeing initiatives for human rights defenders. Manaswi is also the Program Evaluation Specialist for NewYork Presbyterian’s Community and Population Health Division and develops evaluations for public space activation, reproductive health, and early childhood development programs.

Randolph Reyes Singh, PhD
Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Randolph Reyes Singh’s research uses high-resolution mass spectrometry to analyze organic contaminants and small biological molecules to shed light on the complex web of environmental exposures known as the exposome. His research aims to uncover any discernible disparities in the chemical profiles of individuals afflicted with illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease compared to those in robust health, and how chemical exposures contribute to the development and progression of diseases. His current research endeavors benefit from his extensive experience working with complex matrices such as wastewater and biota.

Singh says what drew him to Columbia Mailman were “the people and the breadth of research questions they wish to answer.” This fall, he is looking forward to studying the intersection of chemical exposures, drug metabolism, and genetics, as it relates to cancer. Additionally, he says, “I want to develop the capability for helping study asthma and the risk factors present at home.”