Dr. Anita V. Shankar is an Associate Scientist in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Trained in microbiology, biology, and anthropology, she has over three decades of experience conducting global health research at the intersection of gender equity, health, and development. Her work spans maternal and child health, women’s empowerment, gender-based violence, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, and livelihoods across Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Over the past 15 years, Dr. Shankar has focused on designing and evaluating psychosocial interventions that strengthen personal agency to improve health, well-being, leadership, and economic outcomes among marginalized populations. She has led numerous mixed-methods studies and randomized controlled trials in humanitarian and low-resource settings. As Executive Director of the Self-Empowerment and Equity for Change (SEE Change) Initiative, her work has focused on developing and testing open-source training tools and supporting the integration of agency-based approaches into health and development programming.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anita-shankar-3018a16/

Detailed Profile: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/faculty/635/anita-vernekar shankar