Leslie Ford MSc, MPH
Leslie Ford joined the department of Biobehavioral Health in Fall 2019 as a PhD student in the Water, Health, and Nutrition Lab under the direction of Dr. Asher Rosinger. Leslie’s research interests are broadly related to exploring the relationship between water and health. She focuses primarily on how environmental and social factors influence water distributions and water procuring behaviors in marginalized and underrepresented communities.
Leslie previously studied and obtained her Master of Public Health and a certificate in Environmental Health from Western Kentucky University. During her MPH Leslie conducted fieldwork in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania where she mapped their water system and identified areas of high risk for water contamination. Leslie also served as an intern for the Ohio County (Kentucky) Water District, a class 4 membrane filtration plant. As an intern she conducted an analysis of state reported data on disinfection byproducts produced from comparable membrane filtration plants which utilized either chlorine gas or sodium hypochlorite as their water disinfection method. As a culminating experience she completed a capstone project titled “A Social-Ecological Framework for Risk Governance: A Pilot Study Proposal for Mosquito Borne Disease in Kentucky’s Green River District.”
Leslie has also earned an MSc in Water Management from UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft, The Netherlands. Leslie studied at IHE as a Rotary Scholar with a focus in Water and Sanitation. Coursework was integrated with field experience in the Dutch water sector and group research was conducted in Spain and Portugal. Her personal research focused on understanding water distributions and water governance employing theories and concepts from political and human geography and anthropology. For her thesis project titled “Zika in Paradise: A Crisis of Water Governance. An Environmental History of San Andres Island Colombia” Leslie conducted independent research investigating the link between water governance, water storage behavior, and risk of mosquito borne disease using the case study of the Zika epidemic of 2015-2016.
I addition to her coursework Leslie formed a team of other water scholars and competed in the Climate Change, Migration, and Me competition hosted by the Dutch Governments IHP-HWRP committee. After presenting their research titled “Zika in Paradise: Climate Change, Migration, and Disease” at Amsterdam Water Week the team was awarded both the audience choice and the top prize for the competition. As the winners the team accompanied the Dutch delegation to the COP 23 in Bonn, Germany where they met with high level officials and attended the “Water Day.”
Leslie’s earlier studies included a Bachelors of Science in Health Science:Health Services form Western Kentucky University, thesis research on maternal and child healthcare in Uttarakhand, India and multiple study abroad experiences in Greece, England, and India.
After completing her studies Leslie worked as a Regional Epidemiologist for the Green River District Health Department in Kentucky before beginning her PhD.
More information on Leslie’s achievements and experience can be found on her LinkedIn profile.
Summary of Education:
MPH, Western Kentucky University
Graduate Certificate, Environmental Health, Western Kentucky University
MSc, Water Management, UNESCO-IHE Institute of Water Education
BS, Health Science: Health Services, Western Kentucky University