Appiah’s research interests lie in socio-behavioral approaches for exploring public health issues, global health and environmental health with emphasis on socio-behavioral change communication, public/community engagement interventions, and dissemination of information/knowledge through culturally appropriate communication channels. He is published in several journals, including Psychiatry Research, BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) mHealth and uHealth, and authored book chapters, technical reports, and many articles for mass media. He has presented at the International Workshop for Practitioners of Engagement Between Health Researchers and Schools in Kilifi, Kenya, the West African Society of Pharmacologists (WASOP) Conference in Ghana, and the Academy for Future International Leaders (AFIL) Open Session Seminar on Global Health Issues. Appiah’s research has received support from the Wellcome Trust, UK, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, USAID Ghana, and Texas A&M University.

Appiah earned his Dr.PH in Health Promotion and Community Health Sciences in 2013 and his M.S. in Science and Technology Journalism from Texas A&M University’s School of Public Health and College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, respectively. He earned his master’s in Development Communication from the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) and his B.Pharm in Pharmacy from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana.

Professor Ma is the co-editor of (2017), which has won the Honorable mention of the Best Book Award from the Study Abroad and International Students Section, Comparative and International Education Association. Her new book, , discusses how a students from China must navigate both their life as young adults and the complications between U.S. and China relations while attending American universities and what this experience means to them.

Professor Ma has received grants from the National Science Foundation, Alfred Sloan Foundation, and Association of Institutional Research. Ma is also a Public Intellectual Fellow (2019 – 2020) for the National Committee of Us-China Relations. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Johns Hopkins University in 2007.

Informed by his interest in medical sociology, aging and the life course, and disability theory, the majority of his research focuses on health and mortality trends across the life course for those with developmental disability, and for veterans. His other primary research focus addresses the intersections of intellectual disability and social theory.

Landes received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Florida in 2014.

Professor Meyer serves as a senior research associate at the and as a faculty affiliate in both the and the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion. She studies social policy at the intersection of aging, gender and life course.

Meyer is co-author of Grandparenting Children with Disabilities (2020) and co-editor of Grandparenting in the United States (2016), both with Ynesse Abdul-Malak. In 2007 she co-authored Market Friendly or Family Friendly? The State and Gender Inequality in Old Age, which won the Gerontological Society of America’s Kalish Book Award. In 2016 she was named winner of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on Aging and the Life Course (SALC) Matilda White Riley Distinguished Scholar Award.

Meyer has published over 50 scholarly articles and her work appears in leading journals including American Sociological Review, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Gender & Society, and Social Problems. Her research has been reported in the media including New York Times, NPR, US News and World Report, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and LA Times.

Monnat’s research interests broadly fall at the intersection of place, public policy, and health. A common theme binding much of her research is a concern for rural people and places. Her most recent research has focused on fatal drug overdose and other diseases and deaths of despair, particularly trying to understand why rates of substance abuse and mortality are higher in some places than others.

She has published over 70 peer-reviewed academic journal articles, book chapters, research briefs, and reports, and has presented her research to numerous public, academic, and policy audiences, including the United Nations, the National Academy of Sciences, the Aspen Institute, and at Congressional briefings. Her research has been featured in several media outlets, including CNN, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic.

Montez’s research examines the large and growing inequalities in adult mortality across education levels and geographic areas within the United States. She is particularly interested in why the growing inequalities have been most troublesome among women. Her current work on this topic blends perspectives from social demography and feminist geography to investigate the role of U.S. states in shaping women’s and men’s mortality in unique ways. In another line of research she examines whether and why experiences in childhood, such as poverty and abuse, have enduring consequences for health during later life.

She received her PhD in Sociology with a Demography specialization at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011. Afterwards Montez spent two years at the Harvard School of Public Health as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar, and then two years at Case Western Reserve University as an Assistant Professor of Sociology.