Zoua Vang, PhD

Dr Zoua Vang is the founding director of the Maternal Child Health Equity & Safety (MatCHES) Lab. She is a Meta Schroeder Beckner Outreach Professor and holds a joint appointment as a Professor of Civil Society and Community Studies in the School of Human Ecology and as an Integrated Specialist at the UW Division of Extension’s Institute of Health & Well-Being. Reflecting her interdisciplinary scholarship, Dr. Vang is also an Affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW-Madison, an Associate Member of the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Family Medicine at McGill University, and an Investigator of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC).

Dr Vang received her BA in Sociology and Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and her MA and PhD in Sociology from Harvard University. Her areas of research expertise include: maternal child health, Indigenous health, racism and discrimination as social determinants of wellness, international migration and immigrant/refugee health, and community-based participatory research. Trained as a mixed-method researcher, Dr. Vang uses both qualitative and quantitative methodologies in her studies.