Erin Coughlan de Perez
Principal Investigator
Erin joined Tufts University as an Associate Professor in March of 2021, after working almost 10 years with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. Her PhD was focused on Anticipatory Action; analyzing the skill of weather and climate forecasts to predict disasters and setting thresholds for early action. She is an author of the recent IPCC report on climate change; she also studies extreme weather events around the world.
Evan Easton-Calabria
Co-Investigator
Evan Easton-Calabria’s research focuses on the structure of humanitarianism and development, including anticipatory action, refugee self-reliance, and local governance.
She conducts qualitative research on humanitarian interventions in east and the Horn of Africa with partners including the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP). She also works to improve recognition of the impacts of extreme weather events on displaced populations.
Erin Hennessy
Co-Investigator
Erin Hennessy is Director of ChildObesity180 and Associate Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and the Medical School at Tufts University. Dr. Hennessy has focused her career on helping all children eat better, move more and achieve a healthy weight with a particular emphasis on helping those most in need. Her work addresses modifiable risk factors across levels of influence including the individual, interpersonal, organizational, community and public policy.
Elena N. Naumova
Co-Investigator
Elena N. Naumova is the Chair of the Division of Nutrition Data Science, as well as a Professor at the Friedman School. Her research activities span a broad range of research programs in emerging and re-emerging diseases, environmental epidemiology, molecular biology, nutrition, and growth. Her primary expertise is in the development of analytical tools for spatiotemporal and longitudinal data analysis applied to disease surveillance, exposure assessment, and studies of growth; creation and application of statistical tools to evaluate the influence of an extreme and/or intermediate event on spatial and temporal patterns.
Komal Rathod
Senior Researcher
Komal Rathod is a senior researcher on the CORD project. She designs econometric evaluations, analyzes data, writes research findings, and works with partners to draw lessons for programming based on the data. She also advises anticipatory action practitioners and university partners on evaluation designs and data analysis.
Prior to joining at Feinstein, Komal worked in international development in India, where she focused on financial inclusion, agriculture, livelihoods, and education. She has designed and implemented programs, set up monitoring systems for programs, conducted evaluations, and worked on a variety of research studies. On the whole, she has focused on understanding factors that influence the decision making of households in resource constrained settings.
She has a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University; a masters degree in development economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London; and a bachelors degree in economics from Stella Maris College, the University of Madras.
Akriti Sharma
PhD Student
Akriti is a PhD student at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy within the Agriculture, Food and Environment department. She joined 4As in September 2022 and assists on data analysis and primary research design and implementation. Prior to this she had 6 years of work experience in international development in South Asia on projects ranging from irrigation, environmental flows and mechanization studies. She completed her degree in Economics (Bsc) and Environmental Science and Policy (Msc) both from Clark University and is always keen on applying her interdisciplinary learnings in her research. Akriti was raised in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Leah B. Poole-Selters
PhD Student
Leah is a PhD student at Tufts University studying the intersection of climate and public health. Prior to continuing her education, Leah worked as a researcher for the 4As project where her work focused primarily on sovereign insurance systems. She holds an appointment at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre on the Health team where she has been exposed to many facets of health as it pertains to climate change.
Maya Sandhofer
Master’s Student
Maya earned her undergraduate degree in public health from UC Berkeley with a focus on environmental health and epidemiology. Currently, she is a first-year master’s student at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition in the Agriculture, Food, and Environment program.
Carolyn Van Sant
Project Manager
Carolyn joined Tufts University as a Research Assistant in April 2021 after earning a Masters degree in Nutrition Science and Policy at the Tufts Friedman School. As the 4As Project Manager she blends her past project management and research experience to provide support to the consortium. Her research interests are in methodology and nutrition program design and evaluation.