Dean and Faculty

Dr. Varduhi Petrosyan is a Professor of Health Sciences from the American University of Armenia (AUA) Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health (SPH). She is the Dean of the SPH and Director of the Center for Health Services Research and Development. Dr. Petrosyan was the Associate Dean in 2007-2015. She earned her PhD from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management. She also has a Master of Science, focusing on environmental health, from the University of Idaho and a degree in biochemistry from Yerevan State University. She has successfully led health services research projects in Armenia and the region focusing on public health services, tobacco control, tuberculosis control, primary care, ophthalmic care, diabetes care, environmental health, and other important projects. Dr. Petrosyan teaches graduate courses in health services research, program evaluation, and comparative health systems. In 2011-2016, she was a member of the Country Coordination Mechanism for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs in the Republic of Armenia. In 2012-2014, Dr. Petrosyan was the Advisor on Health Reforms to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia on a voluntary basis. Currently she is a member of the Public Council next to the Minister of Health of the Republic of Armenia (MOH), the Management Council of the Health Inspectorate of the MOH, and the Working Group on Cancer Control Strategy of the MOH. Prior to her arrival to AUA, she held a position of Research Assistant at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she conducted research on comparative health systems (focusing on health spending and cross national comparison of quality) in member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Dr. Petrosyan has authored many peer-reviewed publications and has extensively presented her work at international scientific meetings and conferences. She is currently the Associate Editor of the International Journal for Equity in Health, an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal presenting evidence relevant to the search for, and attainment of, equity in health across and within countries.

Dr. Haroutune K. Armenian is Professor in Residence of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and was the Associate Dean of Academic Programs; he is Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he received his MPH, and Dr.P.H. degrees (1972-4) and his M.D. from the American University of Beirut in 1968 where he has specialized in internal medicine. His career in epidemiology has spanned a number of countries and regions of the world. He has special interests in the application of epidemiologic methods to health services research and chronic diseases. He is one of the earliest to apply epidemiologic methods to study the effects of the civil war at the population level during the 1980s in Lebanon, and the long-term effects of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia. In the 1980s, he pioneered epidemiologic research by using Armenian Church parish records to study infant mortality as well as other health indicators in 16 diasporan countries over a timeframe of 300 years. More recent research includes the 23 year follow up of the survivors of the earthquake in Armenia. Dr. Armenian’s academic and development leadership has included program development at the Ministry of Health in Bahrain, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the American University of Beirut, Director of the MPH Program at the Johns Hopkins University, and Dean of the School of Public Health at the American University of Armenia. Dr. Armenian is President Emeritus of the American University of Armenia (AUA). As President of the AUA for fourteen years, he was at the forefront of the establishment of novel educational and development programs in Armenia and the Middle East. Recent awards include the Ernest Lyman Stebbins Medal for Excellence in Education and the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Movses Khorenatsi Presidential Medal of Service in 2001 from the Republic of Armenia, Presidential Medal of the Order of Cedars from the Republic of Lebanon, and membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha medical and Delta Omega public health honorary societies. Dr. Armenian is also a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London, and a member of the American Epidemiological Society. He has been on the central executive council of the Armenian Church in Lebanon as well as on the executive of the Hamazkaine Cultural Association and the Karageuzian Foundation. Dr. Armenian has been for 15 years the Editor in Chief of Epidemiologic Reviews and on the editorial board of a number of professional journals and publications. He has published over 100 scientific papers and peer reviewed chapters as well as 20 books. He recently published two collections of his watercolors and prose-poetry in Armenian and English: Colors and Words and Past Here Does Not Yet Melt. The latter was composed while they climbed Mount Ararat in an AUA expedition led by Sona Armenian to Ararat and Western Armenia in 2006. In 2009 he published a new textbook on the Design and Applications of the Case-Control Method at Oxford University Press, and became the supervisor of the Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health at the King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In Armenia, he continues to lead the Turpanjian Rural Development Program with over 250 businesses established in the villages and 600 people trained in entrepreneurship.

Dr. Lusine Abrahamyan is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She also works as a Clinical Epidemiologist at THETA Collaborative, a multi-disciplinary research group supporting policy decision-making regarding new drug and non-drug health technologies in Ontario, Canada. Dr. Abrahamyan’s PhD thesis was focused on methodological aspects of designing randomized controlled trials in rare diseases. As part of her post-doctoral work, she conducted a systematic review of cardiovascular quality indicator development initiatives which created a foundation for the “Best practices to develop pan-Canadian cardiovascular quality indicators”, adopted by the Canadian Cardiovascular Society. Dr. Abrahamyan’s current research interests include health technology assessment (including clinical trials, economic evaluation), health services outcomes research and evaluation, and use of administrative databases for health research. Dr. Abrahamyan is an invited lecturer for the course of Community Dentistry at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the AUA Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health and is supervising MPH students since 2006. She is currently teaching graduate courses in health survey research methods and systematic reviews.

Dr. Adam Atherly is the founding Director of the Center for Health Services Research at the Lerner School of Medicine, where he is also a Professor in the Department of General Medicine. Dr. Atherly served previously as a professor of health systems, management, and policy at the Colorado School of Public Health, which he joined in 2009 as associate professor and founding chair of the Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy. His previous academic appointments include associate professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and assistant professor at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He holds a PhD in health services research, policy, and administration from the University of Minnesota and an MA in economics from the University of Washington.Dr. Atherly’s research targets health economics, with a particular focus on healthcare spending and expenditure modeling, scale development and psychometric analysis, evaluation of efforts to improve quality of care and patient safety, and cost-effectiveness analysis. He has published more than 70 journal articles and book chapters and has presented at more than 75 national and international professional meetings. Since 2002, he has been consistently funded by agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Dr. Robert Bagramian is a professor in the Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health and was the Dean in 2007-2015. He is a Professor in the School of Dentistry and Public Health at the University of Michigan, where he also served as a Professor and Chair in the Department of Community Dentistry for seventeen years. He is an accomplished scholar and the recipient of many awards in the dental and public health spheres and currently provides consultancy services both nationally and internationally. In addition to teaching at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels at major universities such as the University of Michigan and University of California, he has served as Visiting Professor at the University of Berne, Switzerland, and the National University of Singapore.

Dr. Brett Burnham is an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences in Public Health at the American University of Armenia (AUA) Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health (SPH). He earned his EdD from Teachers College of Columbia University in Health Education within the department of Health and Behavior Studies. Additionally, Dr. Burnham possesses four interdisciplinary master’s degrees in the fields of: [1] Conflict Transformation (MA, Eastern Mennonite University); [2] Cancer Biology, Prevention & Control (MS, University of the District of Columbia/Georgetown University); [3] Secondary Social Studies Education (MAT, University of the District of Columbia); and [4] Community Health Education (MPH, Southern Illinois University). At AUA, Dr. Burnham teaches behavioral health science courses to both undergraduate and graduate students; his research interests include bio-behavioral and biopsychosocial community health education research that aims to address both cancer and LGBT health disparities in Armenia and beyond. Prior to his arrival at AUA, Dr. Burnham practiced over five years of multidisciplinary teaching and learning in various settings, including clinical and community health education sites, secondary social studies education, undergraduate-level allied health education, and graduate-level health education for teachers; group facilitation and conflict mediation at a federal political action committee (PAC); US nationwide grassroots community organizing to bolster lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) healthcare equity; clinical cancer prevention and control health behavior research; and lastly, HIV, STI and HPV prevention and control health behavior research and outreach activities comprising needs assessments, program planning, program implementation, program evaluation and policy analysis/reform efforts. In the summer of 2015, Dr. Burnham was selected to participate in the prestigious Ryan White Internship for the Minnesota HIV Services Planning Council, in which he participated in HIV health disparities and epidemiological research, program planning and evaluation activities. Dr. Burnham has authored peer-reviewed journal articles and has also co-authored one book chapter.

Dr. Tsovinar Harutyunyan is an Assistant Professor at the Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health (SPH) of the American University of Armenia (AUA). She is a Research Consultant at the Center for Health Services Research and Development (CHSR). Dr. Harutyunyan earned her PhD in Health Services Research from the College of Health and Human Sciences of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Charlotte in 2011. She obtained her MPH degree from the American University of Armenia in 1999. After graduating from AUA, she worked for more than 7 years at the Center for Health Services Research and Development on the number of studies focusing on needs assessment and evaluation of public health interventions. Currently Dr. Harutyunyan teaches graduate courses in program development and evaluation, survey research methods, and problem solving in public health. Dr. Harutyunyan has authored several peer-reviewed publications and has presented her work at international scientific meetings and conferences. Before joining AUA Dr. Harutyunyan worked as a Graduate Research Assistant/Teaching Associate in the UNC Charlotte, where she instructed courses in social determinants of health and issues of health and quality of life.

Dr. Kim Hekimian is Assistant Clinical Professor of Nutrition (in Pediatrics and the Institute of Human Nutrition) at Columbia University and the Associate Director of the Medical Nutrition Program for Health Professionals, Institute of Human Nutrition, Columbia University. She teaches survey research, qualitative methods, health promotion planning and public health nutrition. Before joining Columbia University, she taught at the American University of Armenia’s Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health where she was the Associate Director of the MPH Program and Director of the Center for Health Services Research and Development. She is a consultant for international health projects and has worked for USAID, UNICEF, World Vision and the World Bank among others. Dr. Hekimian received her PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Hygiene in the department of Health Policy, division of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education. Her research has focused on determinants of infant feeding practices, breastfeeding promotion, and nutrition during pregnancy and lactation. Currently, she is working on nutrition initiatives with focus on determinants of stunting in children under five in Armenia. Her dissertation involved conducting the first national survey of infant nutrition practices in the newly independent nation of Armenia. The findings from this study led to a four year nation-wide breastfeeding promotion program, and she was involved in the design and evaluation of the program which was funded by USAID, UNICEF, and the Ministry of Health of Armenia. At the end of the promotion program, breastfeeding rates tripled and post-neonatal mortality declined.

Dr. Sarah H. Kagan is the Lucy Walker Honorary Term Professor of Gerontological Nursing at Penn and holds clinical appointments in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery and in the Penn Center for Human Appearance. She is Adjunct Professor at the American University of Armenia, Visiting Professor at the Oxford Brookes University Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, and Honorary Professor in the Department of Community Medicine, University of Hong Kong. Dr. Kagan’s education and training includes a bachelor of arts in behavioral science from the University of Chicago, a bachelor of science in nursing from Rush University, and a master’s degree in gerontological nursing and a PhD from the University of California San Francisco. Since arriving at the University of Pennsylvania in 1994, Dr. Kagan’s has developed an educational focus in undergraduate nursing education. She currently directs the University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Nursing Honors Program and two clinically-based undergraduate international exchange programs in nursing – one in the United Kingdom and one in Australia. In addition, Dr. Kagan teaches short term study abroad for the University of Pennsylvania in partnership with the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health. She also maintains an active program of clinical scholarship and practice in geriatric oncology which serves as a wellspring for her undergraduate pedagogy and anchors her understanding of the nurse-patient relationship and nursing care. Dr. Kagan’s work is acknowledged nationally and internationally as innovative, sophisticated and clinically relevant. She is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Academy of Nursing. Dr. Kagan has held numerous visiting professorships at many notable institutions nationally and internationally. Among the awards she has received for her practice, research, and teaching are the Sigma Theta Tau International Founders Award for Excellence in Nursing Practice and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship.

Vahe Khachadourian, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor at the Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health (SPH) of the American University of Armenia (AUA). He completing his PhD studies at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Fielding School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology. His PhD focuses on mediating effect of post-disaster experiences on long-term health outcomes among the 1988 Spitak earthquake survivors. Dr. Khachadourian was a visiting lecturer in the AUA SPH teaching Epidemiology, Graduate Research Seminar, and advising MPH students with their capstone projects. Dr. Khachadourian has been involved in various research studies as a Graduate Student Researcher and has served as teaching assistant and teaching fellow in several graduate and undergraduate level courses at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He currently leads the journal club in the Epidemiology Department at UCLA and is a member of the UCLA Epidemiology Seminar Series’ organizing committee. His research interests include effectiveness research and causal inference using data from observational studies. He is also a fellow with the WORLD Policy Analysis Center studying policy analysis and advanced multilevel modeling. In 2016, he received a grant from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study risk factors of back pain among US farm workers.Dr. Vahe Khachadourian earned his MD (Medical Doctor) from Yerevan State Medical University and Master of Public Health (MPH) from the AUA’s SPH in 2011. After graduating from the AUA MPH program, he worked at Zvart Avedisian Onanian Center for Health Services Research and Development (CHSR) on a number of research projects including psychopathology of earthquake survivors, health sector needs assessment in Artsakh, and environmental and health impact assessment in mining communities in Armenia. He also served as a Monitoring and Evaluation consultant for the National Tuberculosis Control Center of the Ministry of Health in the Republic of Armenia, overseeing practice in and performance of more than 70 Tuberculosis outpatient clinics in Armenia. His collaboration with the AUA’s CHSR continued during his time at UCLA working on a randomized clinical trial evaluating effectiveness of an innovative tuberculosis management strategy in Armenia. He has published his work in peer-reviewed journals and presented his research at various international scientific meetings and conferences.