PFRH Wednesday Seminar Series: Advances in Adolescent Health, 2010 - Present

Robert Blum is the emeritus William H. Gates, Sr. Professor Bloomberg School of Public Health and the immediate past Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. He has edited two books, and has written over 325 journal articles, book chapters and special reports. Past-President of the Society for Adolescent Medicine and Health he has served on the American Board of Pediatrics; is a past chair of the Guttmacher Institute Board of Directors and was inaugural chair of the National Academy of Sciences (NAM) Committee on Adolescent Health.  In 2006, he was elected into membership into the NAM.  He is a consultant to The World Bank, UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) where recently he authored the guidance on adolescent pregnancy, the WHO where he has served on the TAG of the MCH Department as well as the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group of the Human Reproductive Program. In 2021 he led the qualitative research for UNICEF’s State of the World Children’s Report on Adolescent Mental Health. He has been awarded the Society for Adolescent Medicine’s Outstanding Achievement Award (1993); the APHA Herbert Needleman Award “for scientific achievement and courageous advocacy” on behalf of children and youth; Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Vince Hutchins Award “…to a lifetime of distinguished service to improve the health of MCH populations;” In 2014 he received the American Public Health Association’s Martha May Eliot Award honoring “extraordinary service to mothers and children [and adolescents]”; and the University of Minnesota Outstanding Alumnus Award from the School of Public Health. In 2023 he was invited to be a scholar-in residence at the Rockefeller Foundations Bellagio Center. Over the past decade he served as the PI on a 10-country study of gender norms and their consequences among young adolescents—the Global Early Adolescent Study; and from 2018-2023 he co-led a three-country adolescent mental health study in Kenya, Indonesia, and Vietnam. So too, from 2021 to the present he has co-led with WHO a stocktaking exercise synthesizing what has been learned since 2010 in adolescent health. 

Sam Beckwith, PhD, is a Senior Research Analyst in the Youth Development program area of the non-profit research organization Child Trends. Dr. Beckwith brings nearly a decade of experience conducting qualitative and quantitative research with the aim of supporting the well-being and achievements of adolescents. He completed his doctoral training in the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he also worked as a Research Assistant on the Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS). There, he conducted research related to young adolescents’ experiences of gender, including on the effects of inequitable gender norms on peer violence and internalized distress. He also contributed to the World Health Organization’s initiative to take stock of recent developments in the adolescent health field. Within Child Trends, Dr. Beckwith has conducted research on a variety of topics related to adolescent well-being. He was a co-developer of the El Camino sexual health promotion program which was implemented in Maryland with federal Teen Pregnancy Prevention funding and is currently undergoing rigorous evaluation. Currently, Dr. Beckwith is a member of the Research Translation team at the Activate Center co-led by Child Trends, developing evidence-based guidance for youth-supporting professionals working with adolescents who are experiencing homelessness, disconnected from school and work, or who have contact with the child welfare or juvenile justice systems. Additionally, he provides technical assistance for grantees in the federal Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention program. Throughout his work, Dr. Beckwith employs a Positive Youth Development lens with an emphasis on building opportunities for young people to thrive.

Kristin Mmari, Dr.PH, MA, is the Bloomberg Associate Professor of Adolescent Health in the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. With expertise in qualitative, mixed methods, implementation science, and evaluation research, Dr. Mmari has focused her career on improving the health and well-being of adolescents both domestically and globally. The aim of her research and practice activities is to understand, inform, evaluate, and enhance adolescent health behaviors, benefiting not only adolescents’ present well-being but also their future as adults and the health of future generations. Her work focuses on the social determinants of adolescent health and strategies to mitigate health disparities. Globally, she co-leads the Global Early Adolescent Study, which is one of the largest longitudinal studies on urban poor young adolescents across five continents. The study focuses on gender as a key social determinant of health and specifically examines how gender socialization shapes the health among adolescents around the world. Domestically, Dr. Mmari is leading a four-year longitudinal study to explore whether restoring or ‘greening’ vacant lots can improve adolescent health and well-being in Baltimore. Additionally, she is leading studies that examine adolescents’ access to food within the neighborhood as well as the extent to which food assistance programs can improve adolescents’ access to healthy food. As part of her work with the Bloomberg American Health Initiative and the Center for Adolescent Health, Dr. Mmari collaborates with multiple agencies to help prevent and re-engage youth who have been disconnected from school and employment. In each area of her work, Dr. Mmari works with young people as key partners which allows them to play a critical role in their own development and health.