Purnima Madhivanan, PhD, MPH, MBBS
Purnima Madhivanan, PhD, is a tenured associate professor of health promotion sciences at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. She is the director of the Global Health Training Program at the University of Arizona and serves as one of the principal investigators for the Global Health Emerging Scholars consortium in collaboration with Stanford University, Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley. She also directs the Fogarty-Fulbright Fellowship program.
She is a physician trained in India with a Master's of Public Health and a doctorate in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her postdoctoral training in clinical trials in 2010. She is the Founding Director of Public Health Research Institute of India located in Mysore, Southern India.
Madhivanan has extensive experience in conducting multi-site domestic and international clinical and translational studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, ICMR, Merck & Co., ViiV Healthcare, and more. For the past 25 years, her research has focused on disadvantaged populations, elucidating the dynamics of poverty, gender, and the social determinants of health, in particular the impact on women and children living in rural and limited resource communities. She has worked in India, Peru, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa and the United States. To situate her research close to the communities she serves, she established a clinical site in Mysore, India, in 2005 while completing her doctoral dissertation. For over a decade, the Prerana Women's Health Initiative has delivered low-cost, high-quality reproductive health services to 50,000 low-income women living in Mysore District.
Madhivanan's work focuses on addressing the systemic inequities that put women at-risk for poor health outcomes. Her current research is examining the intersection of infectious and chronic diseases with a focus on cancer. Her work has resulted in more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. She continues to develop novel lines of research and has been supported by foundations, biotechnology companies, federal and international funding organizations.
She is a recipient of multiple national and international awards including the prestigious International Leadership Award from the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation for her work on HIV prevention. She is the recipient of several teaching and mentoring awards, including the Maria Valdez Mentoring Award at the University of Arizona and the Outstanding Mentorship Award from American College of Epidemiology. Most recently, she was awarded the Gamechanger Award by the NAACP and the Fulbright-Nehru Distinguished Scholar Award. Madhivanan serves as an advisor to a number of state departments of public health, nonprofits and governmental research organizations. Sje has been a principal investigator of multiple federal and foundation grants, as well as a mentor and investigator of numerous NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and industry-sponsored studies and clinical trials.