Jennifer Beam Dowd is an American social scientist who is a Professor of Demography and Population Health and deputy director of th
Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science
at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. Her research considers the

social determinants of health The social determinants of health (SDOH) are the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status. They are the health promoting factors found in one's living and working conditions (such as the d ...

and the relationship between infections and immune function. She is a member of ''Those Nerdy Girls'', an all-woman team of public health researchers who are relaying COVID-19 information as part o
Dear Pandemic.

Early life and education

Dowd studied political science and Spanish at

Washington and Lee University , mottoeng = "Not Unmindful of the Future" , established = , type = Private liberal arts university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.092 billion (2021) , president = William C. Dudley , provost = Lena Hill , city = Lexingto ...

, and graduated in 1996. After graduation she spent a year as a

Henry Luce Scholar A Luce Scholar is a recipient of a cultural exchange and vocational fellowship sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation, a private foundation established by Time, Inc. founder Henry R. Luce. The program Founded in 1974, The Luce Scholars Progra ...

East Java East Java ( id, Jawa Timur) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia located in the easternmost hemisphere of Java island. It has a land border only with the province of Central Java to the west; the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean bord ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

where she worked on agricultural and reproductive health at the Rural Development Foundation. Dowd completed her graduate studies in Demography and Economics at th
School of Public and International Affairs
and th
Office of Population Research
at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, where she studied the relationship between socioeconomic status and health. In 2006 Dowd moved to the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Scholar.

Research and career

Dowd started her independent scientific career at the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

in th
CUNY School of Public Health
an
CUNY Institute for Demographic Research
first as an assistant then an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She moved to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

in 2016, where she was made an associate professor at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

. In 2019 Dowd left King's College for the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. Her research considers the social factors that impact health, including how socioeconomic status influences the human microbiome and immune function. She has makes use of data from the TwinsUK and NYC Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NYC HANES) studies; population-based cross-sectional surveys of public health. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Dowd joined ''Dear Pandemic'', sharing public health information through an all-woman collective known as ''Nerdy Girls''. Dowd looks to curate reliable and accurate information about the pandemic. The group engage in public health outreach on a variety of different platforms, including mainstream media outlets, on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

. By employing the same platforms and approaches as those who spread misinformation, the nerdy girls look to debunk myths and arm people with the knowledge to make informed decisions. In 2020 Dowd was awarded a

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

Consolidator Grant. Her research proposal looks to understand why life expectancy is no longer increasing in some parts of the world.

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dowd, Jennifer Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American women epidemiologists American epidemiologists Academics of the University of Oxford Washington and Lee University alumni Academics of King's College London COVID-19 researchers American social scientists