Goleen Samari is an Assistant Professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Samari’s research focuses on disparities at the intersections of migration, race/ethnicity, and gender and sexual and reproductive health (SRH). She is a public health researcher and demographer and one of a few junior scholars and early thought leaders of migration-based inequities in family planning.

The Changemakers in Family Planning award will support focused career development of Dr. Samari as a reproductive justice-informed leader in the science of migration, race/ethnicity, and family planning. Her goals are:

1) Leadership: to gain research program management, team-building, student mentoring/training, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) leadership skills to impact change within the family planning pipeline, field, and research institutions;
2) Research: to produce evidence to develop and evaluate community-driven strategies to reduce family planning disparities among immigrants; and
3) Policy: to translate research findings to policy to achieve family planning equity.

She envisions her future leadership will help combat systemic racism, elevate diverse community-driven perspectives, and center family planning needs of intersectional immigrant communities. Her training aims include mentored skill development in grant writing, research team leadership and management, community engaged and policy translational research, and development of DEI leadership. This award will enable Dr. Samari to refine and advance a new, timely academic research program in migration and family planning to fulfill her goals and help her produce DEI change in the field of family planning and academic research systems.