Health in Social Context

Dr. Getrich's research focuses on the health, well-being, and incorporation of structurally marginalized immigrants in the United States. She examines the lived and embodied experiences of U.S. immigration policies and enforcement practices to determine how immigrants, their children, and advocates maneuver to fight for inclusion, well-being, and justice. Her current research focuses on the impact of intensifying immigration enforcement on the mental health of immigrant communities in the D.C. Metro region.

My research examines the influence of environmental factors on health and behavior across the lifespan, with a particular focus on the adolescent period. I use a variety of biological methodologies to probe the mechanisms of neighborhood- and family-level influences on developmental outcomes, including functional MRI, genetics and epigenetics, and physiological markers of stress. A prominent feature of my work is to increase sociodemographic representation in neurobiological research by including historically under-represented groups in research design and implementation.

Sebastian Galiani is a Professor of Economics at University of Maryland and Visiting Professor at Universidad de San Andres, Argentina. He is a member of the executive committee of LACEA. In the past, he held positions at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and Universidad de San Andres in Argentina and was Tinker Visiting Professor at Columbia University and Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) and visiting Scholar at Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Trained as behavioral scientist, Dr. Fryer utilizes mixed methods to examine the sociocultural context of health and health status, with an emphasis in community-engaged research. His work focuses on racial and ethnic health disparities in substance use and dependence, specifically tobacco and marijuana use among urban youth and young adult populations. Dr. Fryer is the Principal Investigator of the five-year, NIH-funded (National Cancer Institute) K01 career development award, Correlates of Nicotine Dependence among Urban African American Youth.

Typhanye Dyer, PhD, MPH, is an epidemiologist and health disparities scholar
whose research examines the influence of social, psychological, and behavioral and
structural factors on HIV-related outcomes in vulnerable populations. She has over 25
years of experience conducting research exploring HIV acquisition and health-related
outcomes among marginalized populations.

Dr. Dunbar is a Developmental Scientist whose research focuses on understanding the unique developmental challenges that children of color encounter and the family processes and individual factors that influence positive adaptation in the face of these challenges.

How do everyday interactions become sites where social inequalities are produced, proliferated, and perpetuated? Using social psychological theories of intergroup relations, emotions, and identity, Dr. Long Doan studies how people react to the structural conditions and cultural expectations in which they find themselves, as well as how people’s sexual, gender, and racial identities shape others’ expectations of, reactions to, and treatments of them.

Maureen Cropper is a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future and a former Lead Economist at the World Bank. Dr. Cropper has served as chair of the EPA Science Advisory Board Environmental Economics Advisory Committee and as past president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Philip Cohen, Professor of Sociology, has a long-standing research interest in the area of Gender, Family, and Social Change. In particular, he has published extensively on the gender division of labor within families, and between men and women outside of families. In addition to the substantive aspects of this research, he has maintained a strong interest in measurement issues in the area of household and family structure, which has included participating in Counting Couples research conferences at NICHD and consulting with the U.S.

Dr. Jie Chen is Chair and Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration, School of Public Health, at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her PhD (2008) degree in economics from Stony Brook University. Dr. Chen conducts research in two fields (1) health disparity and (2) health policy analysis. Her health disparity research focuses on identifying and quantifying the factors associated with the disparities in health care access, utilization and expenditure among different racial and ethnic groups and immigrants in the United States. Dr.