Priyanjali Chakraborty

Priyanjali Chakraborty

 

Research Interests

  • Social and structural determinants of reproductive healthcare 
  • Health disparities  
  • Feminist theory  
  • Violence against women  
  • Gender-sensitive and culturally responsive mental health  

Teaching Interests

  • Research and evaluation  
  • Social policy  
  • Statistics  
  • Qualitative methodology  
  • Theories of human behavior  
  • Immigrant and refugee populations  

Priyanjali Chakraborty (She/Her/Hers) earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India in 2014 and a Master of Arts in Women’s Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Hyderabad, India in 2016. She also holds a Human Rights Duties and Education diploma from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. Presently, she is a PhD candidate in Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington.  

Her doctoral research uses a mixed-methods approach and is focused on unmet family-planning needs of low-income and immigrant populations in the United States, examining the role of health literacy interventions in healthcare access. This research is informed by her academic background and field experiences in managing community-based programs for women’s reproductive and maternal health, and their economic empowerment in her roles with the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, as a Corporate Social Responsibility Manager in Mumbai, and a multilingual, proficient in the Bengali, Hindi, and Madwadi languages. Her experience driving volunteer initiatives with grassroots NGOs in India, addressing mental health, disaster relief, and educational needs for older adults, children, and youth, has reinforced her commitment to researching health disparities among vulnerable populations.  

Through her work on federally funded research projects, Priyanjali has furthered her training and expertise in policy data collection, secondary data analysis, survey research, and qualitative methods. She has co-authored seven peer-reviewed publications and presented at prestigious conferences organized by the Society for Social Work and Research, the Southwestern Social Science Association, and the American Public Health Association.  

She also serves as a student member of the SSWR Doctoral Student Committee and the South Asian Social Work Educators Association and has served as a Treasurer for the School of Social Work’s Doctoral Student’s Association. She is committed to the cause of women’s health and economic empowerment and is enthusiastic about helping social work students build a composite of awareness, values, knowledge, and skills needed to conduct practice with and research on social justice issues that transcend geographies.