Sameena V. Azhar

Sameena Azhar, PhD, LCSW, MPH is an Associate Professor at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. She has nearly two decades of clinical and research experience in the fields of mental health, addiction, and HIV care. Sameena is a licensed clinical social worker in the states of California, Illinois and Pennsylvania. She previously worked for Ward 86 at San Francisco General Hospital; the California HIV/STD Prevention Training Center at the California Department of Public Health; Congreso de Latinos Unidos in Philadelphia; and Mamta Health Institute in New Delhi, India. Guided by the lenses of critical race theory and postcolonial feminism, her research focuses on three main areas: (1) gender, HIV, and sex work; (2) race, health, and criminal legal involvement; and (3) social work practice with communities impacted by intersectional marginalization. She received the 2025 Feminist Manuscript Award from the Council on Social Work Education; the 2023 Best Paper Award from the Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work; the 2021 Affilia Award for Distinguished Feminist Scholarship and Praxis in Social Work; and the 2018 Society for Social Work Doctoral Fellows Award. When she is not irate with the collapse of the American social welfare state, Sameena plays jazz piano and grows lavender.

*indicates student author

Azhar, S. (2025). Applying transnational feminism to international social work: Advocacy via decolonial practices in social work education, research, and practice. In P. Pentaris & J. Walker (Eds). The Routledge International Handbook of Global Social Work. Routledge.

Azhar, S., Ross, A.M., *Acharya, A., *Lerner, R., Tripathi, S., Keller, E., Weed, J. & Acevedo, G. (2024). “The little I receive is not enough’’: A Qualitative Study of Food Insecurity in the South Bronx. Food, Culture and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2024.2406081

Azhar, S., Ahmad, I., Herrera, M. M. G., Tariq, N., & *Lerner, R. (2024). “I would prefer to be dead than to live this way”: Lived experiences of stigma and discrimination against khwaja sira in Swat, Pakistan. Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health 11, e60, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2024.53

Azhar, S., *Ahmad, I. & *Tariq, N. (2024). “One by one, they raped me”: Sexual violence against khwaja sira in Swat, Pakistan. Psychology of Violence, 14(3), 184-194.  https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000506
Azhar, S., Ross, A., Keller, E., Weed, J. & Acevedo, G. (2023). Predictors of Food Insecurity and Childhood Hunger in the Bronx During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 40(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-023-00927-y    

Azhar, S. & Gunn, A. J. (2021). Navigating Intersectional Stigma: Strategies for Coping Among Cisgender Women of Color. Qualitative Health Research, 31(12), 2194-2210. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323211025249  

Azhar, S., Alvarez, A., Flores, A.F. & Klumpner, S. (2021). “You're So Exotic Looking”: An Intersectional Analysis of Asian American and Pacific Islander stereotypes. Affilia, 36(3), 282-301. https://doi.org/10.1177/08861099211001460  

2024 - 2026 Bronx Research Institute for Community Solutions (BRICS) | Fordham University
Food insecurity in the South Bronx. Role: Principal Investigator; Total: $50,000. Funded evaluation of impact of fresh produce incentives on food insecurity.  
 
2023 - 2024 American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS) Post-Doctoral Fellowship 
Role: Principal Investigator; Total: $15,000. Covers research costs for study examining gender based violence (GBV) amongst khwaja sira in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. 

2021-2023 Faculty-led Research Initiative, Fordham Center for Community Engaged Learning
Role: Co-Principal Investigator; Total: $18,000. This grant supported community-engaged research on predictors of food insecurity in the South Bronx.  

2019 - 2021 HIV and Drug Abuse Prevention Research Ethics (RETI) Training Institute 
Center for Ethics Education, Fordham University. Role: Principal investigator; Total: $25,000.
Received training grant through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (#1R25DA031608), providing early career investigators in the social, behavioral, medical and public health fields with an opportunity to gain research ethics training.

2017 – 2018 Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, University of Chicago Dissertation Writing Fellowship
Role: Principal investigator; Total: $68,960. Supports PhD candidates in the areas of gender and sexuality studies.

2015 – 2018 Minority Fellowship Program (MFP), Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) & Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
Role: Principal investigator; Total: $75,000. Supports SAMHSA’s mission to increase racial/ethnic minority individuals working with underserved populations. 

2014 – 2017 Committee on Southern Asian Studies (COSAS), University of Chicago Pre-Dissertation Research & Travel Grant. 
Role: Principal investigator; Total: $32,000. Funded the completion of dissertation research in Hyderabad, India.
 
2014 – 2015   Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) (Urdu) Fellowship
University of Chicago, U.S. Department of Education  
Role: Principal investigator; Total: $67,750. Fellowship for full coverage of tuition, fees, and stipend for language (Urdu) instruction and area studies for dissertation research.
 
2014 – 2015 Boren Fellowship, Institute of International Education (IIE)
Role: Principal investigator; Total: $22,000. Declined due to funding redundancy. Funded by the National Security Education Program for language study in critical regions. 

2006 – 2007 Foreign Language and Area Studies (Urdu) Fellowship  
University of Pennsylvania/U.S. Department of Education  
Role: Fellow. Total: ~$77,980. Fellowship provided tuition, fees, stipend for foreign language (Urdu) instruction for research regarding IPV among South Asian Americans.

2004 – 2006 Otto & Gertrude Pollack Scholarship, University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice  
Role: Scholarship Recipient. Total: ~$130,000. 
Full merit scholarship for tuition, fees, and stipend for graduate study with a concentration in global mental health services.

Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) Feminist Manuscript Award (2025): “Applying transnational feminism to international social work: Advocacy via decolonial practices in social work education, research, and practice."

Top 10 articles from Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health (2024): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-mental-health/global-mental-health-10th-anniversary

Best Paper Award, Journal of Cultural and Ethnic Diversity in Social Work (2024): “Experiences of racist encounters among Asian Americans: analysis of #thisis2016” 

Best Poster Presentation: International Conference for Gender Research, University of Aveiro, Portugal. (2022); “Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Khwaja Sira Communities in Swat, Pakistan”  

Affilia Award for Distinguished Feminist Scholarship and Praxis in Social Work (2021)  

Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) Doctoral Fellows Award (2018) 

Combatting American Racism Award, Black Men at Penn School of Social Work (2007) 

Dr. Sameena Azhar CV