Siddhesh Zadey
Co-founding Director, Association for Socially Applicable Research, India
Research Aide Sr., Department of Surgery, Duke University School of Medicine, USA
“The only way to true freedom for all is through social justice. ”
Siddhesh Zadey is a Senior Research Aide in the Department of Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine (DU-SOM) and a Co-founding Director of non-profit research and advocacy, Association for Socially Applicable Research (ASAR). He completed a Bachelor of Science Master of Science (BSMS) dual degree program at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune in 2018. For his Master’s thesis, he worked at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone on non-invasive brain stimulation markers for cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease. He completed a second Master’s from the Duke Global Health Institute in 2021, working with Dr. Joao Vissoci on mapping surgical care access in rural India.
At ASAR, he focuses on systems modeling to investigate socioeconomic disparities, healthcare access, and population-level mental health problems. At Emergency Medicine Division, DU-SOM, he co-leads the Bass Connections Team with Drs. Catherine Staton and Joao Vissoci investigating cultural variations in alcohol use behaviors. He also works with Dr. Tamara Fitzgerald, Division of Pediatric Surgery, DU-SOM on improving access to gasless laparoscopy in low-income countries.
He is a member of the ‘Indian Academy of Pediatrics COVID-19 Task Force for School Reopening’ in 2021, and is currently a Fellow for the Lancet Citizens’ Commission on ‘Reimagining India’s Health System’ working with the Human Resources Workstream. He is a part of the Global Burden of Disease Collaborators Network, Mental Health Innovation Network, Global Mental Health Action Network, and the Global Alliance for Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma and Anaesthesia Care (G4 Alliance). I was recently awarded the prestigious Consortium of Universities for Global Health’s Dr. Judy Wasserheit Young Leader Award (under 30) for 2022. While he is researcher by training, he is a poet and writer at heart. Since childhood, his mother exposed him to poetry in Marathi, Hindi, and English along with translations from several other languages – leading to composing my first quatrain at 5.
His first anthology of Marathi poems, ‘Thode Nabhatun Thode Sareetun’ was published by Akanksha Prakshan (Nagpur) in 2014. His Hindi poems,’Samundar’ and ‘Hasrat’ have been competitively selected and published in the Journal of Poetry Society India (New Delhi, 2016). He currently looking for publishers for his philosophical fiction, ‘The Drone Story.’
Read more about Siddhesh Zadey on NYC Daily Post.
MEDIA AND PUBLICATIONS
- Duke Global Health Institute News Article on CUGH Young Leader Award WIN
- Duke Global Health Institute Alumni Profile
- CUGH Young Leader Award Announcement
- Article in Indian Newspaper The Hitvada covering Zadey and his collaborators’ research efforts for rural India
- ‘Changemaker’s Cassette’ podcast episode where Zadey discusses social problem-solving in India’s context through research
- Writer profile at Think Global Health
This enlists Zadey’s articles that focus on: a) the gender and mental health intersection in policies across the countries and b) suicides among housewives in India, among others. - Writer profile at Global Health Now Newsletter
It enlists articles a) advocating for better placement of rural doctors in India and b) opposing alcohol sale policies during COVID in India. - Excerpt of thesis work at DGHI on rural surgery in India
- Association for Socially Applicable Research (ASAR) Co-founder profile
At ASAR, Zadey leads several research projects and mentors Indian students and young researchers from various disciplines hoping to better build India’s independent public health research capacity in the near future. - Zadey’s project with Drs. Staton and Vissoci on alcohol use under Duke Bass Connections initiative
- Google Scholar profile
- Mental Health Innovation Network Profile
- Profile on Zadey’s research journey published in Marathi (Indian) Newspaper Loksatta
- News article about the innovation award to the team led by Dr. Tamara Fitzgerald for improving surgical care in Uganda
- Link to BMJ Blog advocating for stopping violence against healthcare workers
- Fellow profile under Human Resources Workstream of the Lancet Citizens’ Commission for Reimagining India’s Health System
- Article in The Duke Student Global Health Review proposing a call to act on neglected mental disorders
- Research article focusing on health workforce shortages in rural public health centres in India
This article presented the first-ever estimates that could be valuable for national level policymaking in India and was selected as a part of the collection sponsored by the World Health Organization. - Research article proposing ethics framework for assessing COVID-19 movement restriction policies
- Article on systemic data problems in India and their role in COVID-19 pandemic published in The Lancet
- Article in The Wire Science analyzing the surgical workforce problems in rural India
- The official guidelines from the Indian Academy of Pediatrics COVID-19 School Reopening Taskforce 2021
Zadey was the youngest member on the task force and was invited to provide inputs on the understanding the relevant epidemiological and health systems evidence for policy response. - MIT Solve ‘Equitable Health Systems’ project description for the health-tech project (IndoHealMap) led by Zadey that plans provide the most comprehensive health facilities geodatabase in India
- Data Story by Zadey and collaborators on sexual violence against women in India
This blog is a part of a new series spearheaded by Zadey to investigate India’s systemic health and social problems through a bird-eye data-driven view.
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