Marisa Westbrook¹
Biography
Marisa Westbrook is a Health Promotion and Community Health faculty member in the School of Public Health, teaching courses related to program planning and evaluation, urban and community health, health equity, and social justice. She is a community-engaged researcher studying the impacts of the affordable housing crisis and urban inequity on mental health and wellbeing among low-income communities of color. Her ethnographic research projects examine the embodied experiences of housing insecurity and displacement pressure in changing neighborhoods. Currently, Westbrook is engaged in collaborative research projects that follow the impact of state-led neighborhood transitions on residents (highway expansion, public housing redevelopment), and documenting the impacts of unconditional cash transfers on the health of people experiencing homelessness. As a researcher studying topics of policy debate, she works in partnership with community groups to incorporate these findings into actionable change through participatory action research methods. Her work has been published in numerous outlets including Critical Public Health, SSM-Mental Health, Journal of Adolescent Health, and Geoforum.
Education, Degrees
2022 – PhD Health and Behavioral Sciences, University of Colorado Denver
2017 – MPH Health & Social Behavior, University of California, Berkeley
2012 – BA International Affairs, George Washington University
Awards and Honors
- CU Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Outstanding PhD Graduate – 2022
- Colorado Public Health Association, Outstanding Community Service Award – 2022
- CU Denver Dept. of Health and Behavioral Sciences, Outstanding Doctoral Student Award – 2021
- CU Denver Dept. of Health and Behavioral Sciences, Student Research Award – 2020
- CU Denver Dept. of Health and Behavioral Sciences, Student Teaching Award – 2019
¹ CEPH Primary Instructional Faculty
² CEPH Non-Primary Instructional Faculty
Experienced Faculty With Diverse Backgrounds
More than 150 faculty members work within the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. They have a wide range of expertise, from monitoring and assessing health risks and opportunities in populations, to helping build health-supporting social environments through policy, advocacy, and programs. They are educators, advisors, researchers, practitioners and community leaders. They come from backgrounds in quantitative, behavioral, environmental and social sciences, policy and government, exercise and health sciences and anthropology, among many other areas. They all work in collaboration with each other and with community partners, and are especially focused on the training and education of future leaders and practitioners in the public health fields.
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