Tim Thomas is a postdoctoral scholar and research director at the Urban Displacement project specializing in urban sociology, demography, and data science. His research focuses on how neighborhood change, housing, and displacement affects household socioeconomic stratification by race and gender in the United States. Tim is also the Principal Investigator for the Evictions Study, a multi-metropolitan analysis on the neighborhood drivers of eviction using census data and text mining court records. Tim’s research agenda is marked by an intellectual foundation in policy-relevant research operationalized through civic and academic collaborations that address real-world problems and advances scholarly research. In 2019, his team’s work on evictions provided empirical evidence that helped pass several tenant protection laws in Washington State.
In addition to his work on evictions, Tim has published academic articles and reports on migration, gentrification, homelessness, hate crimes, and displacement. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Washington and was a Moore/Sloan Data Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington’s eScience Institute.
Carmen Gonzales is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington and an Associate Director for the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity. Her research employs community-based and participatory methods to examine technology engagement and health disparities among immigrant and minority populations. She has 10 years of experience conducting research in under-served communities, more recently on connectivity and digital equity. Her work on digital equity has been supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, through which she identified the supports that Limited English Proficiency families need as more health resources migrate online. She was previously a research assistant and postdoctoral researcher on a study funded by the National Cancer Institute that examined the barriers and conduits to cervical cancer prevention among Latina women in Los Angeles.
Jane Lee’s program of research focuses on reducing health disparities among racial/ethnic and immigrant populations. She studies the unique role of migration-related processes in shaping health behaviors and identifies novel approaches to reach and engage immigrant groups. Her current work aims to reduce HIV-related disparities among immigrants who are at high-risk for HIV with specific attention to increasing HIV testing and linkage to care. The long-term goal is to develop effective, evidence-based interventions to decrease risk behaviors and health disparities among immigrant communities.
Prior to joining the faculty at the UW School of Social work, Lee was a research scientist at the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health. She received her PhD in 2017 from New York University Silver School of Social Work and earned a Master’s of Science in Social Work from Columbia University in 2011.
The nexus of Lee’s research and teaching is an emphasis on community involvement and collaboration. Through community-based and participatory approaches, her work acknowledges communities’ strengths and expertise and is grounded in their priorities. By developing interventions that can be translated into practice within communities, she focuses her research on underserved immigrants groups that often lack access to traditional health care and clinical services.
Kim England is an urban social geographer with research interests in employment, migration, critical social policy and inequalities. Her research focuses on three major themes: (i) migration of care workers (especially nurses and domestic workers) and the impacts on workers of reformulating health care policy and changing labor laws; (ii) socioeconomic restructuring, local labor markets, and workplaces, especially clerical work; (iii) families and the home, connecting everyday experiences and social policy formation (e.g. work-life balance). She conducts research on these three themes largely in North America and Europe. She is also known for her writing on critical methodologies, including the politics and ethics of doing social science research.
I am a biological anthropologist investigating evolutionary and ecological influences on growth and development, and the implications of those relationships for public health. My research, conducted with two indigenous populations—the Tsimane of Bolivia and the Qom/Toba of Argentina—combines field research (focal follows, ethnographic observations, interviews) with laboratory analysis of non-invasive biomarkers and mixed-modeling approaches. My specific investigative questions have been informed by two related tenets of evolutionary biology relevant to human health: (1) that nutritional and ecological conditions in early life can influence metabolic, immunological, and reproductive responses to stimuli in later life, and (2) that many non-communicable diseases result from a mismatch between a people’s current environments, developmental calibrations to environments in early life, and our evolved biology and life history. In working with the Tsimane and the Qom, I am able to study health outcomes in relation to certain behavioral and ecological factors that are more representative of conditions during much of human ancestry—e.g. universal and prolonged breastfeeding, ubiquitous microbial exposure, high infectious disease burdens, early reproduction, and high fertility. At the same time, these study populations are experiencing rapid environmental and social changes affecting developmental and health outcomes across the life course, with broader implications for global health.
Emmanuela Gakidou, MSc, PhD, is Professor of Health Metrics Sciences and Senior Director of Organizational Development and Training at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. She is also a Faculty Affiliate for the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences at the University of Washington.
Dr. Gakidou’s research interests focus on impact evaluation, methods, and tools development for analytical challenges in global health. Examples of current research projects include the evaluation of community-based interventions to improve non-communicable disease management in underserved populations, the assessment of facility efficiency in the provision of health services, and the measurement of poverty and educational attainment at the small area level.
A founding member of IHME, Dr. Gakidou oversees the Organizational Development and Training team as they strengthen and support our high-achieving, diverse, and ambitious staff. She is passionate about training the next generation of leaders in the field of health metrics and evaluation both at the University of Washington and around the world, and enjoys mentoring and teaching.
Before joining IHME, Dr. Gakidou was a research associate at the Harvard Initiative for Global Health and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Prior to moving to Harvard University, Dr. Gakidou worked as a health economist at the World Health Organization (WHO), where she led work on the measurement of health inequalities.
Originally from Greece, Dr. Gakidou moved to the US for higher education and received her degrees – a BA, a Master of International Health Economics, and a PhD in Health Policy – from Harvard University.
IHME was established at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2007. Its mission is to improve health through better health evidence.
Andrew Foster is a visiting Professor from Brown University where he is a Professor of Economics, Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice, and Director of the Population Studies and Training Center. He is an empirical microeconomist with interests in the areas of population, environment, development, and health. Recent work has examined economic growth in rural India, exploring such issues as growth in the non-farm economy, the effects of local democratization, groundwater usage, forest cover, household structure, inequality, and schooling. He also is exploring the effects of recent changes in air quality in Delhi. Foster also has a series of projects with colleagues in the Center for Gerentology examining the market for nursing home care.
Himanshu Grover has a broad background in urban planning, community resilience, spatial analytics, social equity analysis, risk perception, and hazard mitigation. He has significant training and expertise in ethnographic and survey research and secondary data analysis on risk perception to natural hazards, policy impact analysis, and social vulnerability assessments. Himanshu’s research interests lie at the intersection of ecological sustainability, local development policies, and community resilience.