Amber Mers is a PhD candidate and junior lecturer at the Athena Institute, where her research centers on community-engaged education within higher education, with a particular focus on Global Health education. Her work emphasizes the critical importance of justice and equity in community-engaged scholarship – including teaching and learning practices - to ensure that marginalized voices are meaningfully included and that education contributes to real social change.
Through a justice-oriented approach in both research and teaching, Amber seeks to empower future generations not only to understand complex global (health) challenges, but also to actively advocate for equity and social justice.
She plays a key role in an innovative Global Health minor program, where students collaborate with local and global communities to address real-world health issues. Since 2022, she has been involved in the program’s design, implementation, evaluation and teaching.
Amber holds an MA in Medical Anthropology and Sociology and an MA in International Public Health. Her expertise lies in analyzing global health issues through anthropological and sociological lenses, specifically focusing on different social determinants of health, including cultural contexts and structural inequities. Her academic interests include social justice, critical pedagogies, and engaged scholarship as tools for change.
