Doctoral student and graduate research assistant
University of South Carolina
Fahmida Akter is a PhD candidate in the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior at the Arnold School of Public Health, UofSC. She completed her Master’s in Psychology in Bangladesh with the highest honors, focusing on advanced child and adolescent development. She also received a second Masters in Business Administration. She has nearly 10 years of experience with quantitative and qualitative research at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, primarily focusing on psycho-social stimulation interventions, nutrition, responsive parenting, childhood maltreatment, mental health, cognitive behavioral therapy, and environmental health. In addition, she has experience in imparting training at both national and international levels on different psychological and child development assessment tools. Recently she led the process evaluation of the Mother and Child Benefit Program in Bangladesh and conducted implementation research to examine the sustainability and scalability of the program. Her research interest is focused on determining the risk factors for diagnosing developmental delays and identifying, implementing, and evaluating multi-component interventions for early childhood development.