Ayse Ercumen

Ayse Ercumen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on improving child health through water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions, antimicrobial resistance mitigation, and environmental health equity. She leads large-scale randomized controlled trials in low-resource settings such as Bangladesh and Malawi.

Her work emphasizes understanding how household environments (e.g., flooring materials, animal husbandry practices) influence disease transmission. Key areas include soil-transmitted helminths, enteric infections, and antibiotic resistance. She collaborates with global partners, including Bangladeshi institutions, to design evidence-based policies.

Grants include a NIH-funded trial assessing concrete floors' impact on child health (2022–2027) and an NSF-funded program providing student research experiences in Malawi (2023–2026). Her research bridges environmental science, public health, and social justice.

Recent publications highlight interventions reducing antibiotic use in children, pathogen contamination pathways, and climate change impacts on WASH effectiveness. She advocates for interdisciplinary approaches to address systemic health inequities in resource-constrained regions.