Justine Dowden, MPH is a graduate of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health where she studied population and family health with a focus on health and human rights. In partnership with Columbia’s Millennium Villages Project in Rwanda, Justine is currently the Co-Investigator of a research study that investigates how having access to sanitary pads and/or reproductive health education affects the psychosocial well-being of adolescent girls.

Previously, Justine has worked for the UN in Geneva, an African development organization in Amsterdam, a health care access project for marginalized children in California, and for non-profits that support women’s rights both globally and domestically. In India, Justine has taught science at a primary school and worked at a maternal health and rights organization for one year.

Justine is also currently a Data Analyst at Columbia University’s Earth Institute where she helps to lead a research study about youth empowerment in rural India. In this capacity, Justine and her team are using a biometric approach to tracking student absenteeism paired with targeted individual interventions with chronically absent students toward painting a more accurate picture of the local school attendance crisis and helping reduce dropout.