Dr. Abigail Greenleaf

Biography

Abigail Greenleaf is an Assistant Professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Her research primarily focuses on public health demography, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, utilizing innovative methodologies like cell phone surveys to collect population data. With an emphasis on the validation of phone-based health estimates, Dr. Greenleaf explores the reliability of this increasingly popular approach to data collection. She plays a vital role in ICAP’s Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment (PHIA) project, working closely with national health ministries to benchmark progress in controlling the HIV epidemic. Her recent efforts included a rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic, where she helped establish a phone-based surveillance system in Lesotho to monitor coronavirus-like symptoms. Dr. Greenleaf has a rich background in public health, having initially joined the Peace Corps to gain a better understanding of global health contexts, and has spent years in Cameroon. She earned her MPH from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and holds a PhD in Population, Family, and Reproductive Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In addition to her research activities, she co-teaches courses in research design and data collection at the graduate level, as well as an undergraduate course focused on data science and health equity in New York City.

Research Interests

Experience