Dr. Cordeiro is a community-engaged scholar who studies the associations between food security, high risk health behaviors, and hunger among adolescents and women in multiple social and cultural contexts. She validates food security assessment tools within vulnerable populations, with emphasis on refugee and immigrant communities. Dr. Cordeiro has worked extensively on behalf of women and children in underserved populations – from Lowell, Massachusetts to Tanzania, Bangladesh and Cambodia. Her emerging research will leverage adolescence as an integral component of the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Life Course Model. The MCH discourse currently focuses on pre- and post-natal care, fetal development, infancy and early childhood, with limited attention on adolescence as a critical life stage. Dr. Cordeiro is the recipient of several distinguished awards and fellowships including the Tufts University Presidential Award for Citizenship and Public Service, the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, UMass Amherst Distinguished Teaching Award, Center for Research on Families Faculty Scholar, and the UMass Civic Engagement and Service Learning Faculty Fellow.
