The Center warmly welcomes Dr. Nilufer Akalin as a new Lecturer and faculty colleague.
From very early on, Dr. Akalin has felt a commitment to civic engagement and presenting solutions to health disparities in her community. In 2013, Dr. Akalin moved from Turkey to the United States, where she met a much different healthcare system than she expected. “I came to this country in 2013 as a Ph.D. student. And I know before coming here, I had many pre-made conceptions about this country, you know, because, as a person who is raised and born in Turkey, there’s an image created about the United States. It’s presented and promoted as a first-world country- A very wealthy country. I thought that.” This realization influenced her research as a Sociology Ph.D. student at Binghamton University in New York. Dr. Akalin worked with documented Haitian immigrants and explored their relationship with the US healthcare system. Dr. Akalin recently defended her dissertation, “Healing the Immigrant Patient.”
In the Center, Dr. Akalin is teaching courses such as Introduction to Health Disparities, Discrimination and Health, and the Practicum in Health Disparities. Closely related to her research, she is also launching a course in Gender, Race, Immigration, and Health. Dr. Akalin enjoys working with medical students and other pre-health students because she recognizes the importance of studying how social factors such as gender, sexuality, and race are integral to public health. “You cannot be inclusive and support diversity without addressing structural inequality and talking about gender, race, ability, and documentation status, so I feel very lucky that students have this avenue.” While teaching, Dr. Akalin prioritizes creating a safe space in her classroom. It is essential to her that she and the students can be vulnerable without judgment.
Dr. Akalin looks forward to finding ways to build bridges between the community and the University. She aspires to become active in organizations around campus, building mentorships with students, and building relationships with faculty in other departments at the University. When she is not working, Dr. Akalin enjoys making friends and indulging in television shows such as Insecure.