About Ashish Joshi

Dr. Joshi is Dean and a Distinguished University Professor of the School of Public Health of the University of Memphis. Dr. Joshi is an innovator, entrepreneur, educator, researcher, administrator, and mentor and brings with him diverse experience of working across 12 countries, engaging community-based organizations, academic and other institutions, government agencies, policy-makers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds. He combines data-driven innovative entrepreneurial creative approaches to advance excellence in public health education, and research, and practice that can have the greatest community impact.  Dr. Joshi is a population health informatics researcher who combines his academic training in clinical medicine, public health, and informatics to design and develop human-centered, technology-enabled interventions to enhance population health outcomes across diverse community settings. He has extensive experience in utilizing community and hospital-based data to implement and evaluate informatics-enabled solutions to address social, economic, and health inequities of the 21st century. He has designed and developed, standalone and internet-enabled, multi-lingual, digital health interventions such as population health dashboards, consumer health informatics, m-health interventions, and population-based surveillance tools across multiple settings to improve population health outcomes. Dr. Joshi is a prolific researcher obtaining grants and contracts nearing $25million in his academic career and continues to be an active researcher despite being in an administrative role. Dr. Joshi successfully completed more than two dozen research projects in the areas of population health informatics across multiple countries including the US, India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Haiti, Egypt, and Brazil.  Dr. Joshi emphasizes the role of higher education as a social economic agent of change towards building sustainable communities

As a Dean of the University of Memphis School of Public Health, adapted SMAART model to create “SPH CARES” framework with a vision of making the school as one of the most impactful schools of public health that is Community Engaged, Anchor Institute, create Research based solutions, support Entrepreneurship and Innovation and is Student Centric translating excellence in public health education towards greater community impact. Through his inspirational, creative, and innovative, data driven, evidence informed academic and administrative approach, he has transformed UofM SPH in a short span of 2 years by bringing systems change, organizational transformation, through collaborative, coordinated and operationally effective processes resulting in significant growth in student enrollment (19% increase), more than 400% increase in obtaining research grants (in 2 years from $2 million to $27 million), establishment of two federally funded research centers, developed a National model of public health education in high schools through public health dual enrollment, RE-AIM public health IDEAS clubs, and global level public health hackathons. Dr. Joshi developed two new divisions including interdisciplinary research and undergraduate studies and global engagement and successfully got all SPH graduate public health programs STEM-designated. He led the overhaul change to the BSPH curriculum and creation of other academic pathway programs such as accelerated bachelor to master’s programs, and a new minor in population health informatics. Other new academic programs developed include MS in Biostatistics with a concentration of Data Science in Public health, graduate certificate in population health informatics and an online master’s in health administration. He was successful in recruiting highly accomplished teaching and research faculty and increased its number from 18 to 32 in two years through his operational effectiveness and ability to creatively generate resources resulting in significant growth and advancement of the school of public health. Dr. Joshi created the first school wide Research Initiative Supporting Excellence in early careeR development (RISER) program to support junior faculty research mentorship.

Dr. Joshi established new student support and student success initiatives including undergraduate and graduate level student scholarships (to nearly $500,000 a year) by obtaining federal funding and building new collaborations including with the local Shelby County Health Department. He supported APHA memberships to all the SPH students and expanded support for travel to national and international conferences, and created new student awards in teaching, research, community service and doctoral dissertation. To further strengthen student engagement, developed new offices of Recruitment, Enrollment, Advisement, and practicum to support Experiential learning and career services (REAP). New offices of Institutional research, and communications and events are also established to disseminate information on all activities of the SPH to various internal and external stakeholders. Under his leadership, SPH initiated its first Dean Grand Rounds and launched its inaugural "RE-AIM Public Health IDEAS" magazine.

He created the first SPH office of experiential learning and career services and organized the inaugural public health job fair to support student internships, capstone, and job placement assistance. He worked closely with the Public Health Student Association (PHSA) to revise the bylaws and create a unified SPH PHSA. He established the inaugural UofM SPH Alumni network and developed the program SPH MATCH, Meet Alumni To Enhance Career Horizons. The SPH MATCH program is designed to connect alumni to students and alumni to other alumni for mentoring opportunities.

Dr. Joshi’s innovative community engagement approach “Uplift” aims to create sustainable, multisector, accessible, affordable, reimbursable, and tailored initiatives for a collective, coordinated meaningful sustained impact across multiple sectors such as Health Department both at the County and the State levels, Memphis Shelby County School systems, Juvenile and Criminal Court, Neighborhood Community Centers, and Veteran Affairs to ensure that the Public health education can be translated into greater community impact. These partnerships have made significant community impact and the UofM SPH in April 2024 was recognized nationally after being a recipient of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) 2024 Harrison C Spencer Award for its outstanding community service.  He also chairs the ASPPH Technology and Public Health Advisory Group.

Dr. Joshi led the development of a new UofM SPH Strategic plan SPH CARES 2023-2028 and was the only dean representing all the 14 colleges to help develop University of Memphis 2023-2028 new strategic plan ASCEND. Dr. Joshi developed and expanded University of Memphis global collaborations in Portugal, India, Malta, China and Jordan to develop joint academic programs, conduct collaborative research and scholarly activities, submit research grants, and develop and implement community initiatives.  Dr. Joshi also received funding to establish the Nation’s first Public Health Diplomacy Lab and is organizing a public health diplomacy round table bringing together representatives from 14 different countries in Memphis to develop white paper on the importance of teaching public health diplomacy as a new competency and discipline in public health.

He led the efforts to get University of Memphis become United Nations Academic Institute partner and was successful in getting the experiential learning curriculum “Public Health in Action” approved by IEARN network that will make the curriculum available to 55,000 teachers, 140 countries and 2 million youth. Dr. Joshi was also recipient of the University of Memphis Tigers Ascending to Excellence Award and recipient of the 2024 University of Memphis PI Millionaire Award.

Prior to Dr. Joshi coming to Memphis, he was a founding member of the CUNY SPH and utilized SMAART model to make significant contribution to advancing the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy SPH by providing leadership for the planning and implementation of all components of the academic programs including Offices of Academic, faculty and Student Affairs, creation of new academic programs and innovative curriculum implementation, 4+1 academic pipeline initiatives, online instruction, accreditation, career and experiential learning, and Human Research Protection Office. Dr. Joshi was presented with the inaugural CUNY SPH Legacy Award for his crucial role in the establishment of CUNY SPH as an independent graduate school within the CUNY system. Dr. Joshi led CUNY SPH efforts to implement the NYC Resource Navigator Test and Trace Program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and secured an award of a $10 million contract with the Housing Recovery Operations of the Mayor’s Office to implement the aftercare resource navigator program to address COVID-19 recovery efforts. Dr. Joshi was presented with the Distinguished Service Award by the NYC Test and Trace Corps program for his extraordinary dedication and contributions to reversing the COVID-19 outbreak and protecting and promoting the safety and well-being of New York residents. Dr. Joshi also launched the first of its Certificate, master’s and doctoral training program in Population Health Informatics. He is also an author of the first textbook published on Population Health Informatics: Driving Evidence-based solutions into practice published by Jones Bartlett. He was also the Chair of the Global Health Informatics Working Group of the American Medical Informatics Association. He was awarded by the Open Society Institute to establish the Regional Population Health Informatics Education Hub to prepare the public health workforce with skills in population health informatics and how community data can be utilized to design human-centered interventions for the improvement of population health outcomes. The hub is established at BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health with an aim to create a regional network of experts in the population health informatics field ready to respond as a team to the next public health challenge.

Dr. Joshi conceptualized the SMAART model (Sustainable, Multisector, Accessible, Affordable, Reimbursable, and Tailored) using combined principles of the human-centered approach, humanistic, behavioral, learning, and information processing theory to advance the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.  The aim is to translate Public health education into action for a greater community impact and that academic centers can be anchor institutes of social and economic change through data driven, evidence informed, academic and administrative decision-making, and foster meaningful and impactful long-lasting community engagement across multiple sectors, and multiple institutes across local and global settings for overall good health and well-being of individuals, families and the communities they live in for  creating sustainable cities. He is founder of the SMAART labs that have established multisector, cross-institutional partnerships, designed, developed and implemented more than dozen, multi-lingual, across diverse global settings, human centered, digital enabled, data-driven evidence informed population health interventions in countries such as US, India, Nigeria, Morocco, Bangladesh, Haiti, Brazil, and Egypt.  He has developed multiple internet and standalone digital platforms to enhance good health and well-being across diverse global settings.

He has developed innovative, first of its kind global training programs in Research methods, operational research, leadership and population health informatics to train more than 1000 undergraduate medical and nursing students, residents and fellows towards building research capacity among these professionals. He is also instrumental in developing successfully the first PhD program in Population Health Informatics in South Asia.

His innovative community approach has led to translating research into community impact by addressing several sustainable development goals such as Good Health and Well-Being impacting more than 15,000 individuals, Gender Equality and Decent Work and Economic Growth impacting nearly 40 urban slums, quality education impacting more than 800 students by providing them experiential learning opportunities and have them employment ready and partnership for SDG goals facilitating cross institutional multi sectoral collaborations to support good health and well-being.  He has presented the SMAART model at the WHO, United Nations, and several other institutions, community-based organizations, NGOs and other government agencies both nationally and globally.

Dr. Joshi has secured in his academic career more than $25 million in grant funding and contracts by several Federal, State, and international government agencies and other private foundations and has published more than 125 research papers in peer reviewed International journals, and presented his research at various national and international forums.

Research Interests

• Population Health Informatics
• Mobile Health
• Public Health Dashboards
• Public Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Public Health Workforce
• Global Health
• Human-Centered Design

Selected Publications

1. Joshi A, Gertner R, Roberts L and Mohandes El Ayman. An Evidence-based approach of Academic Management in a School of Public Health using SMAART Model. Sustainability 2021, 13(21), 12256
2. Tan YR, Agrawal A, Matsoso MP, Katz R, Davis SLM, Winkler AS, Huber A, Joshi A, El-Mohandes A, Mellado B, Mubaira CA, Canlas FC, Asiki G, Khosa H, Lazarus JV, Choisy M, Recamonde-Mendoza M, Keiser O, Okwen P, English R, Stinckwich S, Kiwuwa-Muyingo S, Kutadza T, Sethi T, Mathaha T, Nguyen VK, Gill A, Yap P. A call for citizen science in pandemic preparedness and response: beyond data collection. BMJ Glob Health. 2022 Jun;7(6): e009389. PMID: 35760438; PMCID: PMC9237878.
3. Joshi A, Kaur M, Kaur R, Grover A, Nash D, El-Mohandes A. Predictors of COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance, Intention, and Hesitancy: A Scoping Review. Front Public Health. 2021 Aug 13; 9:698111.
4. Joshi, A .Bruce, Amadi, C, Amatya, J. (2021) & I. Developing Evidence-based population health informatics curriculum: Integrating competency based model and job analysis. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 13 (1)
5. Joshi A*, Gaba A, Thakur S, Grover A. Need and Importance of Nutrition Informatics in India: A Perspective. Nutrients. 2021;
6. Joshi, A*. Kaur, H., Krishna, L. N., Sharma, S., Sharda, G., Lohra, G., Bhatt, A., & Grover, A. (2021). Tracking COVID-19 burden in India using SMAART RAPID tracker. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 13(1).
7. Joshi, A., Kajal, F., Bhuyan, S. S., Sharma, P., Bhatt, A., Kumar, K., Kaur, M., & Arora, A. (2020). Quality of Novel Coronavirus Related Health Information over the Internet: An Evaluation Study. The Scientific World Journal, 2020, 1562028. PMCID: PMC7411495
8. Goyal, A., Grover, A., Gauba, K., Gupta, A., Mehta, N., Dutta, S., Pandey, R. M., Joshi A*, Malhotra B, Amadi-Mgbenka C, et al. Gender and the Digital Divide Across Urban Slums of New Delhi, India: A Cross-Sectional Study. J Med Internet Res. 2020 Jun; 22(6): e14714. PMCID: PMC7338923
9. Babu BV, John KR, Manickam P, Kishore J, Singh R, Mangal DK, Joshi A, Bairwa M, Sharma Y. Development and Implementation of Integrated Road Traffic Injuries Surveillance - India (IRIS-India): A Protocol. Adv J Emerg Med. 2019 Dec 15; 4(2):e35.
10. Joshi A, Chioma Amadi, Amina Alam, Margaret A Krudysz, Gabriela Hernandez Using data to inform decision making in recruitment of prospective Public Health students. Research in Higher Education, Vol 32 (1-18) 2017
11. Joshi A, Amadi C, Meza J, Aguire T, Wilhelm S. Evaluation of a computer-based bilingual breastfeeding educational program on breastfeeding knowledge, self-efficacy and intent to breastfeed among rural Hispanic women. Int J Med Inform. 2016 Jul;91:10-9
12. Joshi A and Chioma Amadi. Assessment of CEPH-Accredited Institutions Offering Public Health Programs in the United States: A Short Report Front Public Health. 2016 Jan 27; 3:290. PMID: 26858945
13. Joshi A, Chioma Amadi, Attiqa Mirza and Kim McFarlane. Assessment of Public Health Jobs over the Internet: Perspect Public Health. 2016 Feb 9. DOI: 10.1177/1757913915626946