Exploring the Future of Business and Communities through Research, Technology, and the Arts

Ayesha McAdams-Mahmoud, ScD, MPH is a research leader, behavioral scientist, and public health practitioner who helps businesses and communities leverage data to co-create brighter futures.

With a doctorate from Harvard (2019) in social and behavioral sciences, Ayesha leverages her interdisciplinary background in the arts, journalism, public health, and behavioral science to perform, document, and measure the impact of technology and the expressive arts on human experiences. She has more than 15 years of experience leading research initiatives in partnership with businesses, nonprofits, and communities including the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Vital Village Network, PolicyLink, and Salesforce.

Ayesha specializes in the following skills:

• Participatory mixed methods research

• Strategic and Theoretical Framework development

• Team supervision

• Program management

• Cross-sector partnerships

• Data analysis.

Ayesha has a passion for building coalitions, facilitating workshops, and conducting community-engaged research and subject-specific expertise in digital storytelling, criminal justice, positive psychology, and equity. She explores the ways narratives, the expressive arts, and mixed methods research can be used as scientific tools to empower and improve the outcomes of under-resourced communities. 

Her dissertation research examined the association between empathy, narrative storytelling, and perspective taking among police officer and urban adolescents of color in Alameda County, CA. Her previous research has explored health topics related to positive social psychology, minority stress, intimate partner violence, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, and racial disparities in international and domestic settings.