Professor Carolyn Stephens
MAcantab MSc PhD FFPHM IFRSM
Distance Learning Lecturer
Honorary Professor of Global Health, UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit
My first degree, from Cambridge University, was in English Literature, after a year spent working in a leprosy colony in Southern India. I returned to India after graduation to work in a Tibetan Monastery and Settlement in Himachal Pradesh for Save the Children. I then worked in Liberia for WWF international on a study of bushmeat alternatives in Sapo National Park. I returned to the UK and a more conventional career with an MSc (LSHTM/LSE). I joined the LSHTM in 1991 to work on slum improvement programmes in India in a joint post with the UK Overseas Development (now UK FCDO). My PhD (LSHTM 1995) focused on urban health and environmental inqualities in Accra and Sao Paulo.
I was fulltime Reader in Ecology and Global Health at LSHTM until 2012, continuing in a part time role on the Distance Learning programme and in-house teaching programme. From 2012 to 2018 I was Visiting Full Professor in the National University of Tucuman in Argentina, and Honorary Full Professor in the UCL Institute of Health Equity. I am now Honorary Full Professor of Global Health in the UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit, and continue to lead modules on both in-house and distance learning teaching for LSHTM.
I am Fellow (by distinction) of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine, and International Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. I am winner of the Royal Society Kohn Award (2007) for excellence in science engagement, and of the Mayor of London's London Education Partnership Award (2007) for individual academic excellence in science communication.
Affiliations
Teaching
I have taught both MSc and PhD students at LSHTM since 1991. I am Module Organiser for both in-house and DL teaching (Health Policy, process and power; Globalization and Health) and have led and taught on multiple modules and supervised students (Ethics, Human Rights and Public Health; One Health).
in UCL I teach MSc and supervise PhD students in the MSc Health in Urban Development programme, supporting architects, planners and other professionals in understanding of the relevance of health in their careers.
Research
My long term interest is in interdiscilinary studies of equity, ethics, human rights and sustainable development, and my disciplinary research focuses on social and ecological determinants of health - principally with a focus on environmental justice and participatory approaches. I work on both epidemiological, qualitative, and conceptual studies, always in interdisciplinary teams.
I have lived and worked overseas for over 30 years, first in India, then Africa (principally Liberia, Ghana, Tanzania and Nigeria), and most recently Latin America (principally Argentina and Brazil).
My current research is conceptual (on environmental justice and urban health). I am also working on a major interdisciplinary and participatory study in Salvador, Brazil, with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Federal University of Bahia.
Alongside my research, I have advised multiple international agencies (including WHO, UNEP, UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO), and have supported international and regional civil society organisations (including Friends of the Earth; Wateraid; Minority Rights International. For example, in Argentina I led an evaluation of UNICEF's 5 year programme of indigenous health in Northern Argentina. I was on the founding executive board of the International Association of Ecology and Health, and on the founding executive board of the pan European NGO Network, the Health and Environment Alliance.
