Bell Fellow Profiles

2021–2023

2019–2021 Cohort

2018–2020 Cohort

2018–2019 Cohort

2017–2019 Cohort

2016–2018 Cohort

2016–2017 Cohort

2015–2017 Cohort

2014–2016 Cohort

2013–2015 Cohort

Fahad Razak, MD, is an internist and clinician scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto and a research scientist in the Keenan Research Centre, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute. He has a multidisciplinary background including biomedical engineering, epidemiology and public health, and a medical degree with specialization in general internal medicine. As a Bell Fellow, he studied the causes and consequences of the changing shape of chronic disease risk factor distributions at the population level, with a special focus on body weight. His recent work with SV Subramanian showed that in low and middle income countries, reliance on conventional and widely used metrics of population change may underestimate the degree of weight gain among high weight individuals and overestimate weight gain in low weight individuals. At the Harvard Pop Center, he extended these findings to other risk factors for chronic disease and examined the patterning of these changes on social and demographic factors. Fahad completed his undergraduate degree in engineering science and medical doctorate at the University of Toronto, and MSc from McMaster University. (Fahad is currently an internist and clinician scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, a research scientist at the Keenan Research Centre, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto School of Medicine.)

J.M. Ian Salas, PhD, is an applied microeconomist with research interests in the fields of development, labor, demography, and health. He completed his PhD at the University of California, Irvine. His recent research focused on the causal explanations for high fertility in many developing countries, with an eye towards credibly identifying the contributions of several supply-side and demand-side factors in shaping fertility behavior. As a Bell Fellow, he investigated the behavioral mechanisms behind the persistence of fertility differentials by socioeconomic status. He also continued his research on the effects of recurring natural disasters on fertility and health at birth and early childhood, including its ramifications for later life outcomes. (Ian is currently an assistant scientist in the department of population, family, and reproductive health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.)

2012–2014 Cohort

Clemens and Dan Corsi_1012-2014 Bell Fellows

2012–2014 Bell Fellows (left to right: Clemens Noelke, faculty member Wafaie Fawzi, Dan Corsi)...See a larger photo!

Daniel Corsi, PhD, was awarded his doctorate in health research methodology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. His primary area of research is in social and environmental determinants of health. As a Bell Fellow, he focused specifically on issues of intergenerational health and nutrition in low and middle income countries. Daniel’s previous research included the social and geographic distributions of smoking, diabetes, body mass index, and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease in populations worldwide. Prior to his time at the Harvard Pop Center, Daniel was a Research Fellow at McMaster’s Population Health Research Institute. (Dan is currently an assistant professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Ottawa.)
Clemens Noelke, Dr.rer.soc., is a sociologist studying the effects of institutions and policies on skill formation, health, educational attainment and labor market outcomes. He was awarded his Dr. rer.soc. from the University of Mannheim in 2010. His recent work focused on institutional determinants of youth labor market performance and the formation of cognitive and non-cognitive skills in childhood and adolescence. As a Bell Fellow, he examined the relationship between institutions, labor market dynamics and health outcomes. Part of this project dealt with how institutions regulating the incidence or consequences of unemployment shaped health outcomes over the life course and across generations. (Clemens is currently a research scientist and research director for the diversitydatakids.org 2.0 project at the Institute for Child Youth and Family Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Administration, Brandeis University.)

2011–2013 Cohort

2011–2013 Bell Fellows Rania Salem (front right), Beltran-Sanchez (back row)... See a larger photo!

Hiram Beltran-Sanchez’s research focuses on developing and applying demographic methodologies to studying adult population health at national and individual levels. He obtained a PhD in Demography at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009. His research comprises two areas: national trends in adult morbidity, mortality and longevity, and health, health behaviors, and biomarkers in the adult Mexican population. As a Bell Fellow, he furthered his research by linking increases in life expectancy with human longevity, and by studying the implications of longer life expectancy on compression/extension of morbidity. He also continued his research on physiological and health patterns in the adult Mexican population and their links with earlier life conditions. (Hiram is currently an associate professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.)
Rania Salem’s research lies at the intersection of the sociology of families, gender, economic sociology and development studies. She obtained her PhD in sociology at Princeton University in 2011. Her dissertation examined the cultural and economic underpinnings of marriage in Egypt through a mixed-methods study of matrimonial transactions, and looking specifically at the gender and class meanings matrimonial transactions convey. As a Bell Fellow, she extended her previous research on the measurement of women’s work in Egypt to other Arab countries, where the low rate of female labor force activity is believed to be an artifact of the male bias of conventional labor force surveys. She also collaborated on a project in rural Egypt that investigates interactions between women’s wage work and experiences of intimate partner violence. (Rania is currently an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.)

2010–2012 Cohort

Analia Olgiati, PhD, is concerned with the impact of individuals’ health status and their access to health services on South-South migration flows. Her research mostly focuses on within-country migration in South Africa. She obtained her PhD at Princeton University in 2010. Her thesis examined the funeral expenses, the mortality-related predictive power of self-assessments of health, and the internal migration flows of the population in a South African demographic surveillance area. As a Bell Fellow, Analia developed a research agenda focused on the health-related determinants of return migration. In particular, she studied the role of poor health outcomes on the decision to search home-based care by comparing migrants who were about to go back to their sending regions to migrants who remained in the receiving community. Analia also analyzed the role of public antiretroviral programs as attractors of returning migrants in poor health. She is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina and obtained a BA and MA in Economics from Universidad de San Andres. She has worked for the Argentine National Institute of Statistics and Censuses, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. (Analia is currently managing director and partner at the Boston Consulting Group, Amsterdam, Netherlands.)

Yuhui Zheng’s main research area is health economics. Her research focuses on trends in population health and the attendant social and economic consequences, as well as on economics of chronic disease prevention and management. She obtained her PhD in policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her dissertation investigated how economic factors – including food prices and retirement – affected dynamics of body weight among older Americans. She has also co-authored papers on topics related to the impact of accelerated medical technology advance on aging in America, lifetime benefits of preventing risk factors among older Americans, effects of pharmacy benefit design, and how neighborhood design impacts walking. As a Bell Fellow, Yuhui examined how demographic and health transitions affect population health and economic growth in China as well as the roles of medical technology and government policies. She also worked on addressing various issues related to chronic disease prevention and treatment in developing countries. She holds an MS in management science and engineering and a BS in engineering, both from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. (Yuhui is currently a biostatistician at Centene Corporation.)

2009–2011 Cohort

Rocío Calvo, PhD, addresses policy-relevant research questions on the impact of the welfare state on the incorporation of foreign-born individuals and their descendants into recipient societies. Rocío completed her doctoral degree in social work at Boston College. Her thesis examined the role of different welfare systems on the economic and social incorporation of foreign-born individuals as compared to the native population. As a Bell Fellow, Rocío continued to focus on the relationship between social policy and immigrant incorporation. She investigated the role of different welfare systems on the social capital accumulation of the children of immigrants as compared to their parents and to the native-born population. Additionally, she explored whether two characteristics of the welfare state, size and scope, are related to social cohesion indicators on diverse societies. Rocío also holds a BA in psychopedagogy from the University of Salamanca and a European master’s in international humanitarian action from Deusto University. (Rocío is currently an associate professor in the Global Practice concentration at Boston College School of Social Work (BCSSW), a research affiliate of the Risk Project, and director of the Latino Leadership Initiative at BCSSW.)

Santosh Kumar, PhD, is a development economist with an interest in understanding the causes of special problems, like poor health and low standard of living, faced by the developing countries. His research mostly focuses on India. He has vast experience evaluating various anti-poverty projects while working at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Delhi, where he worked from 2002-2004. Currently, he is involved in evaluating the impacts of a child vaccination program “Universal Immunization Program (UIP)” and “Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) – a rural road infrastructure project” in India. Besides these projects, he is also exploring the role of international trade on intergenerational mobility in India. Santosh holds a PhD in economics from University of Houston. In his dissertation, he examined the long-term effects of child vaccination program on mortality and education of children. He also holds an MA in economics from the Delhi School of Economics and a BA in economics from Delhi University. During his Bell Fellowship at the Harvard Pop Center, Santosh continued to conduct policy-relevant research related to poverty, health, and education and made policy recommendations with the aim of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing poverty and disparities by 2015. (Santosh is currently an associate professor of economics at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX.)

2008–2010 Cohort

Mauricio Avendano’s research integrates econometric and epidemiological approaches to study the impact of social policy on health in Europe and the US. Additionally, he studies the impact of family support policies on the health of mothers, and whether cross-national differences in family support policies explain life expectancy differences between the US and European countries. He has also explored the impact of health insurance coverage and social protection programs on health in Colombia and other Latin American countries. He was previously a research fellow at the Department of Public Health of the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He obtained his PhD at the same University. His thesis examined the impact of socioeconomic status on stroke risk across different world regions and explored possible explanations. He holds an MSc in public health from the Netherlands School of Public Health, and an MSc in epidemiology from the Erasmus University. (Mauricio is currently professor of public policy and global health, and head of the department of global health and social medicine at King’s College London; and adjunct associate professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.)

Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, PhD, was senior programme manager of academic programmes with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), a Public Private Partnership of the Government of India, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other private stakeholders. She earned her PhD at the School of Social Sciences at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. In addition to her Bell Fellowship at HCPDS, she received a Balzan Fellowship at University College, London for research in social epidemiology and to develop research networks in the area of society and health. Her research focal areas include aging and elderly, global health, the history of public health, and infectious diseases. She has published numerous peer reviewed publications in national and international journals and authored a monograph titled Old Potions, New Bottles: Recasting Indigenous Medicine in Colonial Punjab.” (Kavita is currently an associate professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University.)