Published September 5, 2008, last updated on March 8, 2013 under Research News
Five Duke faculty have been elected as new faculty of the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI). These faculty, elected by current DGHI faculty, have a strong professional interest in global health and are committed to the Institute’s work and mission. DGHI faculty serve three year terms, which are renewable.
New faculty elected to serve terms beginning in August, 2008 are:
Kim Blankenship, PhD
Associate Research Professor, Department of Sociology
Dr. Blankenship has recently joined Duke from Yale University’s School of Public Health and Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (for which she served as Associate Director). For the last 15 years, she has focused her research on understanding the ways that social inequalities (especially gender, class, and race) shape vulnerability to HIV/AIDS, and on the implications of this for structural interventions to promote HIV prevention She is currently the PI on a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to analyze the implementation and impact of community led structural interventions to address HIV risk in female sex workers in India. In a second research project, she is analyzing how movement between the criminal justice system and the community is associated with race disparities in HIV in the United States.
Victor Dzau, MD
Chancellor for Health Affairs, president and CEO of the Duke University Health System
James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and director of molecular and genomic vascular biology
Dr. Dzau’s academic interests are in cardiovascular translational research and mission-based education. He is particularly interested in eliminating health disparities among underrepresented populations and the socio-economically disadvantaged both at home and abroad. In 2001, together with Paul Farmer, MD, Dzau guided the creation of a new Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School to reduce disparities and improve health care through training, research, education, and service. Since becoming chancellor for health affairs at Duke in July 2004, he has been actively working with university leaders to champion university-wide global health initiatives to improve medical care for the underserved locally, nationally, and internationally.
Christina S. Meade, PhD
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry
Dr. Meade is a new recruit to Duke and will join the Duke faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry later this fall. She comes to Duke from the Harvard School of Medicine, where she is an Instructor in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology in 2006 from Yale, having completed her postdoctoral training program in drug abuse and brain imaging at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Her research is dedicated to understanding the impact of drug abuse on risk behaviors and clinical outcomes among persons living with HIV/AIDS. Her clinical interests include mood disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, dual diagnosis, and HIV/AIDS.
M. Giovanna Merli, PhD
Associate Professor of Public Policy Studies
Dr. Merli is a new recruit to Duke from the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her recruitment was made possible through the new Joint School – University Institute Hiring program (part of the Duke Faculty Enhancement program), which encourages collaboration between Schools and University Institutes or Centers for joint hiring of interdisciplinary scholars. Merli’s research straddles three disciplinary realms: demography, contemporary Chinese society, and global health. In China, she delves into issues with significant policy implications – from fertility, family planning, and population growth to the social and behavioral determinants of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. In South Africa, her research focuses on how HIV/AIDS affects families, and how traditional family social safety nets are responding to the AIDS crisis. She received her PhD in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania, and has Master’s degrees in demography and international relations from the University of Pennsylvania and The Johns Hopkins University.
Jen’nan Ghazal Read, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology
Dr. Read was also recruited to Duke through the new Joint School - University Institute Hiring program. In addition to her teaching and research as an Associate Professor of Sociology, Read will lead the Duke Global Health Institute’s new interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellows program. She comes to Duke from the Department of Sociology at University of California-Irvine. Her research interests are in gender, ethnicity, religion, and health, and her work particularly focuses on the assimilation experiences of Arab Americans and U.S. Muslims. Read has published numerous papers on how race, ethnicity and gender affect health outcomes in the U.S., particularly for Arab women. She is interested in expanding her global health research to investigate the health issues of Arab women living in Middle Eastern countries.
With the addition of these five faculty, there are now 20 DGHI faculty members. (Full list available at http://globalhealth.duke.edu/whos-involved/institute-faculty)
