Theresa Sommers, PhD, MPH

Theresa Sommers is the Senior Manager of Research for the Vaccine Acceptance & Demand (VAD) Initiative at the Sabin Vaccine Institute where she manages the Social and Behavioral Research Grants program and supports research-related activities and investments on the VAD team. Her background spans infectious disease programming and policy, including pandemic preparedness and response, with various organizations (WHO, CDC, USAID) and academia, as well as community-based qualitative health research focused on migration, social determinants of health, health equity, and gender in Sub Saharan Africa and the southern US. She has been adjunct faculty of multiple universities for over six years, teaching both undergraduate and graduate-level courses in global health, research methods, and research ethics. Theresa earned a PhD in Global Governance and Human Security, with a Global Health focus, from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where her dissertation looked at social determinants of health among youth migrants in Johannesburg, South Africa. She also holds an MPH in International Health from Boston University and a BA in International Relations from Wellesley College.