Dr. Krishna Bhagat is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health. Her Bachelors degree is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where her majors were Sociology and Gender and Women’s Studies, with a minor in South Asian Studies. From there, she went on to earn a Masters in Public Health from Boston University in International Health and Social and Behavioral Sciences. Her doctoral training is in Behavioral and Community Health from the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Bhagat has experience managing large-scale research studies at an independent research company called NORC at the University of Chicago. She is also very passionate about addressing public health issues that affect societies across the globe and spent four years helping to develop, lead, and teach for an immersive Global Public Health program for undergraduate students. She is specifically interested in raising awareness about how public health intersects with gender and creating programming that empowers women around the world.

Dr. Bhagat’s research interests include examining taken-for-granted public health ‘stories’ from a more critical lens so that we can work together to promote health in more holistic, effective, inclusive, and safer ways. Often, when it comes to factors related to our health, we mistake association for causation when in actuality, the relationship between different variables is much more complex than that. One example of this is the relationship between health and weight. It is readily assumed that over-weight and obesity lead to ill-health when in fact the connection between these two variables is hardly linear or isolated. Acknowledging this evidence, Dr. Bhagat’s current research project includes working with students and community partners to design and deliver a novel non-weight centered health promotion program aimed at encouraging community members to have healthier relationships with themselves, their bodies, food, and physical activity.

Dr. Bhagat is also the on-campus student adviser and works closely with the Public Health Student Organization. She is happy to set aside time to speak with students about their progress in the department, career aspirations, or opportunities to be involved in research or service projects in public health.

Other than her work, Dr. Bhagat enjoys spending time with her family -including her two crazy kiddos-, running, and working on projects around the house.

Deconstructing the dominant obesity discourse, social determinants of health, designing weight-inclusive health promotion models to facilitate intuitive eating, mindfulness, enjoyable movement.