Dr Sabina Faiz Rashid

Sabina Faiz Rashid is a Professor at BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health at BRAC University. She has a PhD, Masters and Bachelors in anthropology and public health, from The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, with her doctoral thesis focusing on medical anthropology and public health. She joined the school in 2004 and was appointed Associate Dean in 2011 and Dean in 2013. In September 2023, she transitioned to her new role of Professor, Mushtaque Chowdhury Chair in Health and Proverty (endowed by Late Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder of BRAC, for encouraging intellectual engagement and scholarship). The School has been featured by WHO in 2007 (https://cutt.ly/73pKvaZ) and by John Hopkins in 2019 (https://cutt.ly/L3pJ3c5). During her tenure as Dean, in addition to the overall leadership and management of the School in its four core pillars: education, training, research and advocacy, Dr. Rashid has been integral to the founding and growth of the international Master of Public Health (MPH) program and the School. Her leadership has been featured in World Health Organisation Bulletin, Geneva in 2019 (https://cutt.ly/93pJB0l) and in 2022 in the edited book, Women and Global Health Leadership. Springer, Cham. https://cutt.ly/c3p6aII 

The Master of Public Health program was established in 2005, and she is teaching in the MPH programme for 18 years and is in charge of teaching three courses: i) Introduction to Public Health, ii) Anthropology and Public Health, iii) Gender, and Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights. The courses focus on immersive learning within communities and student-centred teaching and learning pedagogy. She is responsible for oversight of the curricula and maintaining quality of the program and liaising with faculty and practitioners to ensure experiential community-based learning. She founded the Centre of Gender and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights at the School in 2008, and, in 2013, co-founded the Centre on Urban Equity and Health, which allows for meaningful engagement and research with communities, practitioners, and service delivery organizations, as well as training for professional skills development for practitioners/stakeholders, to build capacity, and leverage evidence to influence policies and programmes.

Dr. Rashid has been residing and working in Bangladesh since 1993, first at BRAC (one of the largest NGOs in the world) and she later joined BRAC University in 2004. She has research expertise with ethnographic and qualitative research with a focus on urban slum communities, adolescents, and marginalised groups (i.e., refugee populations, sexual minorities, etc.). She is particularly interested in the intersections between gender, health, and poverty; and the impact of structural and intersectional factors on these populations' ability to realise their health. Her responsibilities also entail engaging directly with development partners, and the government to influence improved curricula, research policy and health program implementation. Dr. Rashid is passionate about educational and research partnerships, building networks for advocacy and dialogues to improve health and services for communities. She currently leads several research projects, including the ARISE hub team in Bangladesh, which examines the Accountability and Responsiveness of different actors, communities, and providers in slums (GBP one million), working closely with the Urban Development Programme (UDP) of BRAC to improve services. 

Dr. Rashid serves on several national and global boards and committees to influence policies and programs, notably Bangladesh Health Watch (BHW), a citizen’s health watch group that was established in 2006 for monitoring the health of disadvantaged populations. She has established global and national partnerships with different universities (click here to see global memberships) and research institutions around the world and has led several multi country research and capacity building grants with international partners including the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK; KIT, Netherlands, University of Amsterdam, Radboud University, Netherlands; Engender Health, USA, Guttmacher Institute, USA; African Population Health Research Centre, Kenya; CREA, India, TARSHI, India; and with local partners including the Government of Bangladesh, BRAC, national SRHR NGOs, LGBT networks, and BLAST, a legal aid organization. She has been awarded research and capacity building grants from the World Bank, WHO, Gates Foundation, USAID, NUFFIC, NWOTRO, EU, Dutch Embassy, WHO, Geneva, IDRC, Canada, FCDO and IWHC.

During her career, she has been awarded more than USD 22.6 million in research and capacity-building grants, and has over 90 publications (i.e., peer-reviewed articles, books, chapters, and reports), to date. As Dean, she oversees the strategic, academic, research, and operational direction of the school, including ensuring that the school is financially independent. (Click here to view School’s Highlights)