Shaili Gandhi

Shaili Gandhi is passionate about improving the health and well-being of underserved populations, with a particular commitment to people who use drugs, people living with mental illness, and immigrant communities.  Shaili received her undergraduate degree from New York University in 2020 and completed her master’s in public health with a concentration in community health from the City University of New York in 2022.  While completing her MPH, she worked for the Viral Hepatitis Program at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Health where she supported Hepatitis B and C care navigation programs.  During this time, she helped facilitate a space for peer and patient navigators to stay abreast of relevant policy changes, created meaningful referral relationships, and troubleshot cases.  Moreover, upon noticing a dearth of resources tailored to the South Asian community in New York, she and her colleagues worked together to develop the South Asian Hepatitis Initiative (SAHI).  After her master’s, Shali joined the New York University Health x Housing Lab as a research coordinator.  There, she developed her qualitative research skills by conducting an evaluation of a telephone-based nurse triage service in NYC homeless shelters.  She is presently using community-engaging research methods to better understand the pathways to housing for older homeless adults.  Throughout her academic and professional career, Shaili has been interested in how activism and community organizing can be used to build communities of care from the ground up.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Shaili is exploring the intersecting objectives of feminism, labor activism, and health activism through a case study of India’s Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).  SEWA implements a health service delivery model that simultaneously serves the community and promotes economic independence for their health workers by training grassroots organizers to provide health services within their own villages.  Shaili is using qualitative methods to understand how SEWA has traversed the boundary between trade union and public health without sacrificing the core components of either.  Her research aims to shed light on how to build sustainable, community-led solutions to promote health security for all.