Sandhya Kumar

Sandhya Kumar received an MPH in health policy with a concentration in global health from the Yale School of Public Health in May 2024.  She was part of the accelerated five-year BA/MPH program and received her bachelor’s degree in global affairs and global health from Yale College.  She grew up in Rochester, Minnesota.

At Yale, Sandhya volunteered with the Neighborhood Health Project in New Haven to provide free blood pressure and blood sugar screening at a food pantry and also led a summer international relations and leadership institute for high schoolers; she was also co-president of the South Asian Society.

Sandhya has interned with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau on Population, Refugees, and Migration in Washington, D.C., working on initiatives related to sexual and reproductive health.  She has also interned with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance in Geneva,  where she worked on routine immunization projects.

Sandhya’s Fulbright-Nehru project is studying the sexual and reproductive health of women migrants in Mumbai.  The existing studies on COVID-19’s impact on India have overlooked the gendered effects of pandemic-fueled migration, notably in the area of sexual and reproductive health (SRH).  Sandhya’s project is assessing women migrants’ access to SRH services, including to sexually transmitted infection screenings, family planning, and maternal care.  In this context, she is engaging with local organizations that assist Mumbai’s migrant workers, interviewing women migrants, and understanding state and local government responses.