UC Santa Barbara has named global health scholar Dr. Shaunak Sastry as the inaugural Director of The Pahl Center for the Study of Critical Social Issues. Sastry, a renowned expert in health communication and community-engaged research, arrives from the University of Cincinnati to lead a center fueled by a $10.5 million gift from alumni Stephen and Louise Pahl.
The appointment marks a pivotal moment for the Social Sciences at UCSB as it builds on its mission to provide data-driven solutions to the most pressing challenges facing our society today. "The founding premise of the Pahl Center is that every critical social issue has socio-economic and cultural drivers that require data-rich, rigorous analysis to find durable solutions," said Dr. Charles Hale, the SAGE Sara Miller McCune Dean of Social Sciences. "Dr. Sastry’s expertise is a perfect match for this vision, bringing a rare combination of intellectual depth and a proven track record of translating research into public benefit.”
For Sastry, the role represents a chance to bridge the gap between academic theory and real-world application. "I am incredibly honored at the opportunity to lead the Pahl Center," Sastry said. "My vision is for the Pahl Center to grow into a national center for excellence in community-engaged social science research that directly addresses urgent social issues. As a scholar of global health communication, I am also hopeful to center a more cosmopolitan, globally oriented center dedicated to the urgent planetary problems of our time.”
A crucial aspect of Sastry's mission will be to seek ways in which social science research can positively impact policy-making in ways that provide tangible benefits to our community. "Connecting research to policy change is one hallmark of success of a thriving social science environment," he said. "Done right, public-facing, community-involved social science research can help connect the dots between societal problems and academic research. It is my hope that the Pahl Center lives in that space.”
After earning a degree in psychology in Mumbai, India, Sastry spent two years in the advertising industry before pivoting into the social sciences. Sastry’s doctoral field work focused on marginalized migrant truck drivers in India and their vulnerabilities to sexually transmitted diseases like the AIDS virus. Following his dissertation, Sastry obtained his PhD in communication from Purdue University in 2012. He most recently served as the Provost’s Fellow for Community Engagement at the University of Cincinnati, where he pioneered research on pandemic governance and climate-related health disparities.
Under Sastry’s leadership, the Pahl Center aims to become an engine for collaborative research in the Central Coast and beyond. He plans to forge deep partnerships with local organizations while leveraging the high-impact research already happening within UCSB’s Division of Social Sciences. By combining rigorous empirical data with community insights, Sastry believes the center can provide a blueprint for addressing everything from environmental justice to public health crises. "We are not just looking at these problems in the abstract," Sastry said. "We are looking for solutions that work for people in their everyday lives."
Click to visit The Pahl Center's new website.
Story by Nicholas Schou