YEREVAN, Armenia – The American University of Armenia (AUA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Vahe Khachadourian as Assistant Professor at the Gerald & Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health (SPH). Vahe Khachadourian, MD, MPH is completing his PhD studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Fielding School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology. His PhD focuses on the mediating effect of post-disaster experiences on long-term health outcomes among the 1988 Spitak earthquake survivors. Dr. Khachadourian was a visiting lecturer at the AUA SPH teaching Epidemiology, graduate research seminars, and advising MPH students with their capstone projects.
Dr. Khachadourian characterizes his education at AUA as a life-changing experience that was influential in his personal and professional trajectory. He is excited about his new role at AUA and is looking forward to working with students and helping them reach their full potential.
Dr. Khachadourian has been involved in various research studies as a Graduate Student Researcher and has served as teaching assistant and teaching fellow in several graduate and undergraduate level courses at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He currently leads the Journal Club in the Epidemiology Department at UCLA and is a member of the UCLA Epidemiology Seminar Series organizing committee. His research interests include effectiveness research and causal inference using data from observational studies. He is also a fellow with the WORLD Policy Analysis Center studying policy analysis and advanced multilevel modeling. In 2016, he received a grant from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study risk factors of back pain among US farm workers.
Dr. Vahe Khachadourian was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. He earned his MD from Yerevan State Medical University and MPH from AUA’s SPH in 2011. After graduating from the AUA MPH program, he worked at the Avedisian Onanian Center for Health Services Research and Development (CHSR) on a number of research projects including psychopathology of earthquake survivors, health sector needs assessment in Artsakh, and environmental and health impact assessment in mining communities in Armenia. He also served as a monitoring and evaluation consultant for the National Tuberculosis Control Center of the Ministry of Health in the Republic of Armenia, overseeing practice in and performance of more than 70 tuberculosis outpatient clinics in Armenia. His collaboration with AUA’s CHSR continued during his time at UCLA, as he worked on a randomized clinical trial evaluating effectiveness of an innovative tuberculosis management strategy in Armenia. He has published his work in peer-reviewed journals and presented his research at various international scientific meetings and conferences.
The AUA Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health works actively to improve population health and health services in Armenia and the region through interdisciplinary education and development of public health professionals to be leaders in public health, health services research and evaluation, and health care delivery and management.