Researcher in Social Epidemiology, background in Medical Anthropology, Epidemiology & Global Health. Interested in social networks and the construction of vulnerabilities across the life course.
My academic background is interdisciplinary, with degrees in Medical Anthropology (M.A.), Epidemiology, and Public Health (M.Med.Sc.). I hold a PhD focused on social network epidemiology and international aging research, which I completed in 2021 with a dissertation titled “Diversity, Dynamics, and Deficits: The Role of Social Networks for the Health of Aging Populations in Indonesia”. My doctoral research examined the health effects of social network diversity among older adults, as well as network dynamics before and after the implementation of Universal Health Coverage, particularly in relation to healthcare utilization. Additionally, I conducted qualitative fieldwork in Central Java to explore how social, demographic, and epidemiological transitions influence old-age care networks, and how network deficits and loneliness emerge among the demographic of 'older adult children.'
Following my PhD, I undertook a postdoctoral position at the Department of Sociology and the Centre for Demographic and Aging Research (CEDAR) at Umeå University. In the ERC-funded HEALFAM project—focused on the effects of unemployment on family members’ health—I studied intergenerational dyadic transmission of social inequalities in health. Specifically, I examined how unemployment among adult children impacts the health of parents, applying an international comparative approach utilizing data from the Västerbotten Intervention Programme (VIP), Swedish population registers, and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).
Since 2024, I have been employed as a researcher in Social Epidemiology at the Department of Epidemiology and Global Health. My primary research interests lie in applying social network theory and analysis to understand social and health vulnerabilities across the adult life course. My current work spans Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, and Somalia, and Sweden for which I am the Principal Investigator of two projects:
1. SNI-LINKS Network (2022–2026), funded by the Swedish Research Council, aims to design effective, efficient, and equitable social network interventions for health and poverty reduction. This project is a collaboration with partners in Nepal (Herd International, Ministry of Health and Population) and Indonesia (Gadjah Mada University). We focus on the development social network interventions targeting food and healthcare insecurities with special focus on the interplay of social networks and poverty, i.e., how social and economic networks pave ways in/out of poverty and the crucial role of tie activation in times of need.
2. Cognitive Consequences of Social Frailty (FORTE-funded, 2023-2026), where I lead a cross-national comparative project exploring the cognitive effects of social frailty in India and Sweden. Using mixed methods and data that offer pre-, during-, and post-pandemic perspectives (the SHARE and LASI surveys), we investigate precarity and resilience among aging populations. Our collaboration partners include the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies (Trivandrum, Kerala) and the International Institute for Population Studies (Mumbai, Maharashtra).
I also collaborate on various projects that integrate qualitative social network approaches. I am involved in a project strengthening child mental health services in Cambodia, studying perceptions of mental health and children with psychological difficulties, as well as evaluating an integrated community- and group-based parenting program. In Somalia, a country with one of the most fragile health systems, as part of the SomSwe Network (VR-funded, 2021-2024) and the Somali Swedish Research Collaboration for Health (SSRCH), I am evaluating a health research capacity-building project by mapping the social networks of Somali academics using collaboration and co-authorship network analysis.
Since 2021, I have served as an academic editor for Global Health Action, an international open-access peer-reviewed journal, after previous roles as editorial assistant (2013–2015) and managing editor (2015–2017).
I facilitate the research space Emerging Global Health Challenges at the Department of Epidemiology and Global Health.
In 2024, I was awarded a 3-year fellowship from the Sweden Korea Education, Research, Innovation Collaboration (SKERIC) Future Laureates Societal Challenges Programme (Theme 4: Dynamic, Secure, Sustainable Society), co-financed by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT).
At present, my teaching focuses on social epidemiology, research synthesis methodology, and academic writing.
I serve as the course coordinator for Social Epidemiology – Theory and Methods (7.5 credits), where I teach core concepts, theories, and methods in social epidemiology.
I am responsible for a Scoping Review module within the Epidemiology (10 credits) course and also teach meta-synthesis in the Evidence-based Public Health course.
As part of the Somali-Swedish Research Collaboration for Health, I contribute to a Training-of-Trainers (ToT) Course in Health Research Methodology for young academics in Somalia, supported by the Public Health Agency of Sweden (FHM) and the Swedish Research Council (VR).
I also coordinate the ‘From a Thesis to a Paper’ summer course (5 ECTS), which focuses on academic writing at the advanced level (Master’s, PhD). Since 2019, this course has been supported by a Scholarship Fund from Taylor & Francis, covering tuition fees for non-EU/EEA students.
Additionally, I supervise PhD students, and several theses each year from students in the Master’s Programme in Public Health and the medical programme (T10) at Umeå University.