معرفی
Dr. Maria De Jesus is an Affiliate Faculty member at the Center on Health, Risk, and Society, and Senior Associate Director of Community-Based Research at American University. She holds a PhD in Applied Developmental Psychology from Boston College and completed post-doctoral research at Harvard School of Public Health. Her research focuses on global health inequities, migration, and culturally responsive health communication for marginalized populations. Dr. De Jesus has conducted fieldwork in Central America, Mexico, France, and the U.S., collaborating with NGOs to design community-driven interventions. She teaches courses on global migration, health equity, and environmental sustainability.
Education: PhD, Boston College (2010); MA, Boston College (2007); BA, McGill University (2004).
Research interests include social determinants of health, migrant health resilience, HIV/AIDS disparities, and cancer screening inequities. She has authored over 30 peer-reviewed articles in journals like Global Public Health and AIDS and Behavior, and contributed policy analyses to The Conversation and The Globe Post.
Her work has been supported by NIH grants, the DC Center for AIDS Research, and the Fulbright Foundation. Awards include the 2023 AU Outstanding Scholarship Award and the 2022 F. Gunther Eyck Teaching Award.
Grants include NIH-funded studies on breast cancer screening for Latinas and maternal mortality in the Dominican Republic. She leads AU’s Global Migration graduate certificate program and advises students in health policy and community engagement.
Labs/Teams: Center for Latino and Latin American Studies, Metropolitan Policy Center.
