Leadership

Rawnaq Behnam obtained her MPH and Bachelor's in Global Health from the University of California, San Diego. Rawnaq grew up in Iraq and was displaced due to the ongoing civil unrest with her family to Turkey then the United States.

Using her own and her family’s lived experience of displacement, Rawnaq wants to build the evidence on interventions and policy solutions that could improve the health and wellbeing of refugees in San Diego and globally. She has a particular interest in sexual and reproductive health research and aspires to be a future physician caring for her community and applying a culturally-competent lens to delivering public health and clinical care for displaced individuals.

She has an extensive experience in qualitative research with over 6 years of experience in behavioral health and biomedical research. More specifically, she focuses on designing and implementing qualitative research and methodologies- including, interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic observations-public health interventions, and global public health research studies. Her expertise also lies in analyzing data, writing reports and articles that translate research findings effectively to both academics and the public given her experience of being displaced and working with displaced and underserved populations. Additionally, she is an expert in designing and delivering effective educational and learning materials as well as facilitating interactive sessions for participants and communities I work with to engage with research and global and public health studies.