Ahlam Abuawad, PhD

PhD, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Environmental Health Sciences, 2022

MPhil, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Environmental Health Sciences, 2020

MPH, University at Albany, School of Public Health, Environmental Health Sciences, 2017

BS/BA, University at Albany, State University of New York, Biology/Chemistry, 2015

Dr. Ahlam Abuawad’s research primarily focuses on arsenic, nutrition, and metabolic outcomes such as BMI and diabetes. During her doctoral training, Dr. Abuawad became an expert on arsenic exposure, toxicity, adverse health-related outcomes and methods of intervention and prevention primarily in Bangladeshi populations. In the third year of her program, Dr. Abuawad was granted a NIEHS F31 Fellowship to study the role of lipid metabolites in the association between arsenic and diabetes incidence in the US Strong Heart Family Study, an ongoing population-based cohort of American Indian adults. Additionally, she completed a Superfund Research Program KC Donnelly Externship at Dartmouth, where she researched the role of maternal blood metabolites in the association between maternal arsenic exposure and gestational diabetes in the New Hampshire Birth Cohort (NHBC). In her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Abuawad is expanding on her previous research in the NHBC to further understand the role of other metabolites on the association between arsenic exposure and metabolic outcomes.