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Alasdair Cohen, PhD, MPH, MSc

Assistant Professor
  • Environmental Epidemiology
Alasdair Cohen
Department of Population Health Sciences
VA-MD College of Veterinary Medicine
Virginia Tech
205 Duck Pond Drive
Blacksburg, VA 24061

PhD, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, 2016
University of California Berkeley, College of Natural Resources
Berkeley, CA

MPH, Epidemiology, 2016
University of California Berkeley, School of Public Health
Berkeley, CA

MSc, Water Science, Policy, and Management, 2007
University of Oxford
Oxford, England

Dr. Cohen conducts research on drinking water (contamination, treatment, and supply), sanitation, and environmental health in lower-income and rural areas, with a focus on developing and improving safe water programs. Dr. Cohen's research website can be found here

Dr. Cohen has more than 10 years of international water and development experience and has worked for three United Nations (UN) agencies: IFAD, FAO, and WFP. Most of his professional work has focused on developing and evaluating water- and poverty-related metrics and indicators. From 2008-2014, he designed and managed an IFAD-led project (with field-testing in Bangladesh, China, India, and Mozambique) to create the Multidimensional Poverty Assessment Tool, an open-source, survey-based monitoring and evaluation tool that has since been used in multiple countries around the world.