Our Team

Hani Mowafi, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor, Chief of the Section of Global Health in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale University. Dr. Mowafi's work focuses on developing the science and practice of emergency care with emphasis on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where the burden of emergency conditions is highest and where there is a large unmet need for emergency care. Internationally known for his work on emergency and trauma care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), Dr. Mowafi has extensive experience conducting training, research, and program development in the Middle East and Africa. He has served as an expert consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, the World Bank and the World Health Organization where he is currently an Emergency Care Consultant for the WHO's Global Emergency and Trauma Care Initiative. He is the Co-Director of two NIH-funded research and training programs, the Middle East and North Africa Program for Advanced Injury Research (MENA PAIR) and the Global Environmental and Occupational Health Hub in the Middle East and North Africa (GEOHealth MENA). Both programs are partnerships between Yale University and the American University of Beirut. Dr. Mowafi has served on scientific review panels for both global injury and humanitarian research including the National Institutes of Health Research (UK), and Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (UK). He serves as the Associate Editor for Trauma for BMC Emergency Medicine. Dr. Mowafi's research interests are assessing the health burden and impacts of trauma and injury in LMICs; health and human security in humanitarian emergencies; and developing metrics for global emergency care. Dr. Mowafi has a long track record mentoring junior investigators and practitioners in global health careers including trainees in the United States, East Africa and the Middle East. Dr. Mowafi has been recognized for his leadership and serves on the International Committee of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), previously as the Chair of the ACEP International Section, and Chair of the of the Global Emergency Medicine Fellowship Consortium. In 2017 he was awarded the Humanitarian Service Award from the Global Emergency Medicine Academy of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine in recognition of his work studying and mitigating the impacts of humanitarian crises around the world.

Nuwayhid is a Professor of the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon. He received his MD from AUB and his MPH and DrPH in Occupational Health from The Johns Hopkins University. He is American Board Certified in Occupational Medicine. He is a member of the editorial board of “International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health” and an elected fellow to the Collegium Ramazzini (since 2004). He was inducted into the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars in 2012. He is a co-editor of the landmark book on “Public Health in the Arab World” published by Cambridge University Press in March 2012. He is the Co-Director of the NIH-funded Global Environmental and Occupational Health Research and Training Hub for the Middle East and North Africa (GEOHealth-MENA program), a collaboration between the American University of Beirut, Yale University, and the University of Iowa. Nuwayhid is a strong believer in interdisciplinary and community-based research and has successfully bridged his three areas of specialization in medicine, general public health, and environmental and occupational health. His research interests include ecosystem approach to human health (Ecohealth), environmental determinants of health, and occupational health with a focus on working children.

Carine J. Sakr is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, adjunct, at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Sakr earned her medical degree from Saint Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon and her public health degree from Yale. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency at Cooper Hospital, University Medical Center in Camden, New Jersey and her Occupational and Environmental Medicine Fellowship at the Yale School of Medicine. She is American Board certified in Internal Medicine and Occupational & Environmental Medicine. Dr. Sakr conducted many research studies evaluating occupational and environmental exposures and their adverse health effects among different populations. She was the program director of the Yale Occupational and Environmental Medicine Fellowship training and lectured at the Yale School of Public Health. Dr. Sakr was the Occupational Health Services Chief at VA CT Healthcare Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Yale (Occupational & Environmental Medicine). She subsequently worked at the Ministry of Health and Prevention of the United Arab Emirates, where she was the acting director of the Visiting Consultants Office and a consultant in Occupational Medicine.In January 2018, Dr. Sakr relocated to Lebanon and joined the American University of Beirut (AUB) where she is currently the Director of Employee Health and an Associate Professor of Medicine. Her research interests include environmental and occupational exposure assessment as well as occupational health and safety of healthcare workers. In February 2020 she was appointed as the chair of the Expert Committee on COVID-19 at AUB. She was later appointed as the co-chair of the COVID-19 Vaccination Group and was heavily involved in the University and Medical Center’s preparedness and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was also the Principal Investigator of a USAID funded project at AUB: a Nation Wide Approach to Respond to the COVID-19 Spread in Lebanon. Dr. Sakr is a Co-PI on the AUB-Yale NIH funded Global Environmental and Occupational Health Research and Training Hub for the MENA Region (GEO-Health MENA).

Dr. Redlich, a graduate of Williams College and Yale University School of Medicine, is trained in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and occupational and environmental medicine. Her clinical practice and research interests focus on occupational and environmental lung diseases, in particular work-related asthma, and health effects and prevention of exposure to isocyanates, chemicals widely used to produce polyurethane foams and coatings and other products.

Professor of Environmental and Occupational health, and chair of the Department of Environmental Health at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the American University of Beirut (AUB). Habib holds a Master of Public Health, a Master of Occupational Health and Safety, and a Ph.D in Public Health and Community Medicine from the University of New South Wales. She has led research on environmental and work-related exposures and the health of displaced, refugee, and migrant populations. She served as chair/co-chair of the Technical Committee on Gender and Work in the International Ergonomics Association for 9 years between 2009 and 2018. Habib was awarded the Occupational Health and Safety Section’s International Award of the American Public Health Association in November 2017; and was elected a fellow of the renowned Collegium Ramazzini in 2017. Dr. Habib's research activities and contributions have focused on the following research themes: (1) Work-related exposures and human health; (2) Ecosystem approaches to human health in poor rural communities; and (3) Health of displaced, refugee and migrant populations. Her research - doubly focused on marginalized workers and unrecognized labor - aims to highlight the intersections of work, gender, environment, and health in Lebanon and the Arab region, often pushing beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy within her field.

Dr. Deziel obtained a Master’s of Industrial Hygiene and Doctorate in Environmental Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research is focused on applying statistical models, biomonitoring techniques, and environmental measurements to provide comprehensive and quantitative assessments of exposure to traditional and emerging environmental contaminants in population-based studies. Her research uses a combination of large, administrative datasets and detailed community-focused studies to advance understanding of environmental exposures to chemicals, particularly carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. This research also serves to illuminate exposure mechanisms underlying associations between environmental chemicals and disease, thereby informing more effective policies to reduce exposures and protect public health. Dr. Deziel's contributions have been directed at two main areas: (1) exposure and human health impacts of unconventional oil and gas development (“hydraulic fracturing”) and (2) residential exposure to chemicals in common consumer products (e.g., pesticides, flame retardants) and cancer risk (particularly thyroid cancer). In addition, she consider disproportionate burdens of exposures (“environmental justice”) and the combination of environmental and social stressors in the context of her work.

Dr. Khoshnood is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Yale School of Public Health and executive committee member at Yale Council on Middle East Studies. He is Faculty Director for Humanitarian Research Lab. Dr. Khoshnood is trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist and has more than three decades of domestic and international experience in HIV prevention research among people who use drugs and other at-risk populations. Dr. Khoshnood's research interests include: 1) epidemiology and prevention of HIV/AIDS, 2) research ethics and 3) humanitarian health.

Dr. Pollitt’s research explores the human exposome through characterisation of environmental and biological samples using analytical and mass spectrometry (MS) techniques. Her group has developed various mass spectrometry (ICP-MS, LC-MS and GC-MS) to measure exposure to complex mixtures of trace elements and organic compounds. She has applied these exposure assessment methods in numerous in epidemiological studies.  Visit our lab website: pollittlab.weebly.com