Dr. Juwel Rana is the Founder and Director of Research and Innovation at the SAIST Foundation. His inspiring journey began during his undergraduate studies at the University of Dhaka, where he laid the groundwork for the SAIST Foundation. Initially taking shape as YRIDB and SAYRID on 15 July 2010, this endeavor was fueled by the passion and collaboration of a dedicated group of young researchers. Together, they set out to make a significant impact, showcasing the power of youthful ambition and collective effort in driving positive change. He earned his PhD in Epidemiology from McGill University, Canada, with doctoral fellowship support from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) and the McGill Alma Mater Fellowship. He holds a European Master of Public Health (EMPH) from the University of Sheffield, the UK, and an EMPH in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences from the EHESP School of Public Health, France, under the prestigious Erasmus Mundus Excellence Scholarship. He also completed an MSS and BSS in Sociology from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Before joining the Department of Public Health at North South University, Mr. Juwel worked as a J1 Research Scholar at the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.

Juwel’s research investigates how complex environmental, nutritional, and social exposures jointly shape population health and health inequities across the life course within an exposome framework. Juwel leads multidisciplinary research initiatives, including the Bangladesh Longitudinal Child-Adolescent Development, Education, and Environment Study (BLADES; 2,500 households), a community-based exposome study involving children, adolescents, and their family members. He extended standard Quantile G-computation to Time-varying Quantile G-computation and implemented it in the R package tvcQGComp. He also adapted Weighted Quantile Sum (WQS) regression for mediation analysis to investigate pathways linking environmental mixtures to health outcomes. His empirical research draws on large-scale population cohorts across North America and Asia, including CanCHEC and MIREC in Canada, GUSTO in Singapore, and BEST and BLADES in Bangladesh.

Juwel has published more than 65 research papers in peer-reviewed journals such as The Lancet, The Lancet Public Health, Neuroepidemiology, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Alzheimer & Dementia, Scientific Reports, International Journal of Environmental Research, Exposure and Health, Reproductive Health, BMC Medicine, Frontiers in Medicine, and Journal of the American College of Cardiology. He served as the managing editor of the South Asian Journal of Social Sciences (SAJSS), regional editor of Global Dialogue, and member of the reviewer board in respective journals in the field, including the International Journal of Environmental Research, Scientific Reports, BMJ Environmental & Occupational Medicine, Public Health Nutrition, Brain and Behavior, and PLOS One. He is an active member of professional networks such as the Society for Epidemiologic Research and the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology.

Research Profile: PubMed ORCID Google Scholar ResearchGate 

Publications (Selected)