A candidate is a critically applied medical anthropologist with extensive public health research and teaching experiences. They hold a PhD in sociocultural epidemiology and a Master of Public Health with a concentration in Cultural and Behavioral Dimensions of Health (medical anthropology), where they also worked as a border health researcher. The candidate has studied, worked, lived, and taught community health coursework in eight different countries. Most recently, they taught courses in cultural aspects of health, public health nutrition, and community health research at a Mid-Atlantic university. From 2019 to 2021, they taught global health before starting a research role where they researched adolescent vaccine hesitancy, decision-making, and messaging among parents and providers in the globalized HPV vaccine low-uptake communities. Their global health interests include transnational collaboration for health, health disparities and health equity, indigenous health, migrant health, global governance and comparative health systems, health activism and resistances, self-care practices, the household production of health, nutrition-related chronic disease (diabetes) prevention, and gendered vulnerability to communicable disease. For over two decades, the candidate has worked primarily with Hispanic and indigenous populations in Latin America and the U.S.

Global Experiential Talk: “Welcoming in and Closing the Circle in Global Health Education”
The candidate will present their vision of leveraging Lehigh campus internationalization in the global health classroom, creating more welcoming study abroad programming for underrepresented students in global health, and interdepartmental and interdisciplinary collaboration for closing the curricular gap between theory, reflection, and action. They will draw on their experiences as an MPH student in an ethnographic field school and doctoral Fulbright international student in Mexico, EducationUSA Outreach Advisor in southern Mexico, professor of global health, and faculty leader of global health study abroad courses, to make recommendations for more ethical, effective, sustainable, and transformative global health educational experiences at the individual, departmental, and organizational levels.