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CSDE Welcomes 5 New External Affiliates in Summer 2025

Posted: 7/24/2025 ()

CSDE is pleased to introduce three of our new External Research Affiliates as well as welcome back two of our former T32 trainees and fellows as External Research Affiliates! Kristine Joy Chua (Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame) utilizes methods from anthropology, biology, and public health to explore the social and biological factors that create and sustain peri- and postnatal inequities. CSDE Alumna April Fernandes (Associate Professor, University of Southern California) focuses on a range of outcomes, from physical and mental health, employment prospects and wage outcomes, as well as the impacts of monetary punishment from legal financial obligations and practices such as pay-to-stay, where states sue incarcerated people for the room and board costs of their incarceration. Dornell Pete (Assistant Professor, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center) is an epidemiologist who uses community-engaged approaches to study the factors influencing stomach cancer, including lifestyle, environmental, and pathogenic factors in Native American communities. CSDE Alumna Maria Rodriguez’s (Principal Research Scientist, University at Buffalo) research is at the intersection of applied demography, computational social science, and social policy, and her work explores systems of care across technology and human services. Muaza Alhaji Shamaki (Professor, Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto) does research in human development demography and population health, health geography, and cultural anthropology. Learn more about each affiliate in the full story!

 

  • Kristine Joy Chua – Dr. Chua is the Director of the Reproductive Biology and Culture Laboratory at Notre Dame. Her research combines evolutionary and biocultural anthropology perspectives to understand how chronic stress “gets under the skin” during pregnancy. She utilizes methods from anthropology, biology, and public health to explore the social and biological factors that create and sustain peri- and postnatal inequities. She also studies the role that cultural practices play in shaping health norms. Chua works closely with pregnant women in the Philippines and the U.S. Chua is currently co-leading a project addressing how the maternal immune system responds to fetal cells circulating throughout pregnancy (Co-director: Amy Boddy, UCSB). This is part of a larger international, multidisciplinary project (“Microchimerism, Human Health and Evolution Project”) funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Because adverse pregnancy-related outcomes (e.g., preterm birth) have been linked with maternal immune dysregulation and an influx of fetal cells, an important component of this project is incorporating the social environment to provide a more holistic understanding surrounding the experience of pregnancy, stress, and biology. Chua also leads the Pinoy-Pinay Health (PH) Project in collaboration with Mariano Marcos State University, Northwestern University, Laoag City, and the Governor Roque B. Ablan Sr. Memorial Hospital. This project examines how ecological stressors, including socio-political conditions, influence maternal-fetal dynamics and their biological systems among pregnant Filipina mothers. This project explores the political landscape and the range of political beliefs, cultural norms, and stress responses, connecting them to pregnancy and birth outcomes. The overarching goal is to understand what causes preterm birth, how health disparities manifest in this population, and how to address specific health-related needs. Ongoing projects include exploring when preterm birth may be an adaptation and why gestation varies considerably across species. Chua also investigates how stress is conceptualized in different cultural contexts and its implications for public health initiatives in order to mitigate mental health disparities. Chua was recognized as a 2023 STAT Wunderkind for her contributions to health and medicine. Her work has been published in Scientific Reports, Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, and other scholarly journals.

 

  • April Fernandes – April Fernandes’ work focuses on a range of outcomes, from physical and mental health, employment prospects and wage outcomes, as well as the impacts of monetary punishment from legal financial obligations and practices such as pay-to-stay, where states sue incarcerated people for the room and board costs of their incarceration. This work has succeeded in expanding inquiries beyond felony incarceration and bringing compelling theoretical and empirical analysis to both seen and unseen forms of social control and punishment. In addition, Dr. Fernandes’ future research will include an expanded exploration of the intersection between criminal legal contact and disability, looking specifically at the prevalence of people with traumatic brain injuries in jails and prisons and focusing on the experience and outcomes of their time in confinement. Dr. Fernandes has a robust pipeline of publications of both co-authored and sole-authored pieces and public and private grant applications that will ensure continued productivity within the field as well as transmission of these findings through public and policy-related scholarship.

 

  • Dornell Pete – Dr. Dornell Pete is a member of the Navajo Nation and an epidemiologist who uses community-engaged approaches to study the factors influencing stomach cancer, including lifestyle, environmental, and pathogenic factors (such as H. pylori infections and gut microbiome) in Native American communities. Dr. Pete aims to identify strategies for cancer prevention and intervention while improving overall gastrointestinal health. Current projects include the Navajo ABID (Stomach) Study, which is designed to be tribally based and driven.

 

  • Maria Rodriguez – Maria Y. Rodriguez, MSW, PhD Rodriguez joined the University at Buffalo in 2020. Her research is at the intersection of applied demography, computational social science, and social policy. Dr. Rodriguez’ work explores systems of care across technology and human services. From offline child welfare systems to online social media platforms, her work examines the systems we build to care for marginalized groups, particularly how we make decisions about whom those groups are. Based on a central tenet of ethical social work practice, the aim of Dr. Rodriguez’ work is to support the reorientation of systems towards working best for outlier cases. In her work, Dr. Rodriguez explores if and how the values and ideals that define systems can come from the lived experience of the system involved.

 

  • Muaza Alhaji Shamaki – Muazu Alhaji Shamaki works at the Department of Geography, Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto. He is currently on sabbatical with Demography and Social statistics Department, Federal University Birnin Kebbi-Nigeria and is the present HOD. Muazu does research in Human Development Demography and Population Health, Health Geography and Cultural Anthropology. Their current project is ‘Maternal Health’.

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