Over the last twenty years, her research has focused on the liver, and in particular working in a zebrafish model on fatty liver disease and cancer. "I’d been working on alcohol-related liver disease for awhile and I started to appreciate that, as in many diseases, even if you have a genetic predisposition or risk factor for that disease, it’s not guaranteed you’ll get it."
Due to the funding structure at the University — she’s been able to expand her research into new areas.
"We’ve now expanded our work on liver cancer and liver regeneration," she explains. "I’ve also been able to shift the focus of my research to look at environmental toxins which influence disease susceptibility and we’ve focused on arsenic. Two hundred million people in the world are exposed to unsafe levels of arsenic and that’s just what we know about. To understand how this and other exposures are changing the landscape of disease — that is exciting and important. To have the money we need as scientists to push into new fields has been game-changing."
It’s a freedom she wants to share, and when the opportunity came to work on the University’s diversity and inclusion mission, she was keen to take it on. "I’ve been a longstanding advocate for women in science — inspired by Hopkins, my postdoctoral mentor who took on the gender inequity at MIT and then, in the academy as a whole," she says. "This role is much broader than that, and I realized it was important to think much more strategically about the value of not only our diversity but the inclusive practices at the institution, and why it’s critical to excellence in teaching, research, and innovation. My goal is to promote an inclusive environment where all faculty feel like they’re valued, can contribute, and can thrive as educators, scholars, and community members."
Encouraging Self Improvement
Since taking on the role last year she’s initiated an institution-wide mentorship program called Eight Weeks of Writing @ NYU Abu Dhabi designed to inspire people to focus on their scholarly writing with workshops and groups to provide infrastructure and a sense of community in writing. There’s also a new competitive award, which enables faculty members to pursue professional development opportunities at a conference or workshop outside NYU Abu Dhabi to broaden their professional network and to get industry-standard perspectives on their work. There is a Women Faculty Writing Group, a series of leadership development programs, and many initiatives done in collaboration with the University-wide diversity equity and inclusion committee. "We have a very unique population that’s already very diverse," she explains.
"Usually a role like this would focus on getting underrepresented groups in the door, but the next step, and the critical one, is inclusion. That means including diverse voices in research projects, in the classroom, in administration, and in any and every area we engage with the community. My work is to make sure we’re operating according to these institutional values."
And what about where she started, with equality and representation for women? "The most common misconception I come across about Abu Dhabi as a whole is that women can’t succeed here. That women are oppressed and aren’t valued. That’s simply not true," she states.