Sameena Azhar
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Social Service; Affiliated Faculty and Advisory Board Member, Master’s in Health Administration Studies Program (MSHA), Gabelli School of Business
Areas of Research:
Gender, sexuality, and HIV; International social development; Mental health of communities of color; Addiction treatment; Social work in South Asia; Power, privilege, and equity in social institutions
Dr. Sameena Azhar is an Assistant Professor at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. She has nearly two decades of clinical and research experience in the fields of mental health, addiction and HIV care. Sameena is a licensed clinical social worker in the states of California and Illinois. She previously worked for Ward 86 at San Francisco General Hospital; the California HIV/STD Prevention Training Center at the California Department of Public Health; Congreso de Latinos Unidos in Philadelphia; and Mamta Health Institute in New Delhi, India. Guided by the lenses of critical race theory and postcolonial feminism, her research focuses on three main areas: (1) gender, HIV and sex work; (2) race, health and criminal legal involvement; and (3) social work practice with communities impacted by intersectional marginalization. Her research has been funded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the U.S. Department of Education, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Ford Foundation, and the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). She is the recipient of the 2021 Affilia Award for Distinguished Feminist Scholarship and Praxis in Social Work and the 2018 Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) Doctoral Fellows Award.