What brought you to the UAB School of Public Health?

In 2002, I was a trained labor economist. I was in a very typical department of economics, and I was doing research on the factors that were dictating women’s labor force participation and family interplay. I had become interested in policies around labor force, reproductive rights, access to different types of reproductive services and how that was playing into women’s labor force participation. My CV was beginning to look more and more like health economics rather than labor economics, and it happened that UAB was recruiting at that time. They reached out to me and said they had a group of policy-focused individuals like me, from an economics background, and they were interested in hiring somebody with my area of research. I came, I liked the people, and I was intrigued by the research possibilities here, never having been outside the department of economics in my entire life. So I decided I would take the plunge! I came to UAB thinking, “Well, I’ll be here for three to four years and then I can move on.” That was in 2002, so clearly I liked it here!

What is the broad focus of your research?

The broad focus is how policies, environmental factors and programs impact the health outcomes, the health decisions and health behaviors of vulnerable populations broadly. But of those vulnerable populations, most of my research right now does focus on low-income women and low-income minors, teens, children and infants.

Where did you receive your training and degrees?

I received my PhD in economics from Ohio State University. Prior to that, I was born and grew up in India, so I received my bachelor’s degree in economics at University of Calcutta.

What is the most exciting project you are currently working on?

We have a body of research that is very focused on community-based, community-level social determinants of health and how that impacts some of the health outcomes of the publicly insured population, those insured through Medicaid or through children’s health insurance programs. We have begun layering on environmental factors like air pollution, lead exposure, proximity to toxic sites, Superfund sites, etc. to explore how that drives health outcomes. Initial findings have been fascinating, so I think if left to myself, I would love to explore and develop that area for the next few years and see where it goes. I think it’s also a very happy coincidence that we have a major climate change and sustainability push in research going on at the school level, and I think this is an intersection between that and what we do in our world of health policy, health disparities and vulnerable populations.

What is your favorite self-authored manuscript?

Oh, I don’t think I can choose! This is like choosing my favorite child. I’ll talk about one that is foremost in my mind: there is a method that was used in labor economics to understand what drove the income disparities between men and women, and I decided I would apply that understanding to what drove racial disparities in obesity. I imported the technique, and it was the single-author paper that I published in 2014 in one of the leading obesity journals. It kind of set off a mini cottage industry in that area. So that’s one that I’m very proud of.

I’ll also talk about another “contender to be favorite” article – I never thought I would end up doing so much research in the area of pediatric dental care, but we started that project around 2013-2014, and we thought it was going to be a very simple paper. But then we looked at the existing literature and discovered there were major methodological flaws in the existing literature. So we went to the journal that had published one paper that was driving policy, realizing it had not been done well, and said, “Here’s the flaw in the literature, and here’s our paper, our methods, and our results.” They published it, and eventually the paper made it into the New York times.

What professional accomplishment are you most proud of so far in your career?

Early in my career, before President Obama restored funding, there had been a ban on funding for gun policy research. I wrote and published a paper on gun policy research, and a non-profit organization reached out to me saying they were involved in a publicity campaign to draw attention to the fact that the government had stopped funding this type of research, but faculty wanted funding to do rigorous policy-oriented research in that area. They asked if I would be willing to conduct crowdfunding, and in a moment of utter madness, I said, “Yes, I will!” Suddenly there were spotlights – news outlets like BBC and Scientific American were writing about me, showing what it takes to get funding for gun policy research. The goal was to raise $25,000, which I did via crowdfunding, and it’s a pretty small amount in the research world, but the campaign was all over the press. I don’t think I can personally take credit for the fact that Obama restored funding a couple of years later, but I would love to think I had a teeny tiny little bit of something to do with it. It was very cool. And just a few years ago I found the perfect doctoral student to work with, using the $25,000 of funding to publish the papers I had wanted to write, and we showed how neighborhood states’ gun policies were having spill-over effects in the other states’ gun-related deaths. I think that’s probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

What is the coolest training or program you've been a part of, or your favorite conference you've attended?

I go to an NIH funded conference each year organized by Dr. David Allison, who used to work at the UAB School of Public Health once upon a time. The program provides training for new researchers and researchers from a variety of fields like government or private industry in the cutting-edge methods in obesity research. It’s one of my favorite conferences to attend; I get to see what some of the latest methods are, I get to present my own methods, and I love seeing the reactions, especially when they’re learning something new and getting excited about it.

What kind of research would you like to be doing that you haven’t yet had the opportunity to do?

I want to go deeper and deeper into the environment and health research. I think the findings that are coming out on health effects of green space, tree cover, etc. are fascinating. I think cities are finally waking up to things like stormwater management and needing trees and restorative green spaces. It fascinates me personally. I feel like I’ve barely had the opportunity to get my toes wet, so I’d love to go much deeper into that.

If you had the funding to answer one research questions what would that question?

Similar to the above.

If you weren’t in academia, what would your career be?

I would be designing native plant gardens that restored habitat while being beautiful. I’m not sure I could pay my bills doing that, but that’s what I’d do!