Samantha Serrano

Dr. Samantha Serrano is a Science Communications Manager based in São Paulo, Brazil.

At the One Health Trust, Dr. Serrano manages various communications projects to reach diverse stakeholders. She runs the institutional social media; manages publications and writes content for OHT’s website and blog; creates infographics; writes the Weekly Digest; produces and edits OHT’s weekly podcast, One World, One Health; and will soon produce classroom materials to make One Health concepts accessible for school children of all ages. She helps coordinate OHT projects based in Brazil as well.

Dr. Serrano also writes country of origin expert witness testimony reports for asylum cases in North America and Europe related to healthcare access and gender-based and disability-based violence in Guatemala and Brazil. Prior to working at OHT, she taught classes at the Federal University of São Paulo Medical School and other universities on qualitative research methods and social determinants of health. She has worked as a consultant on policy related to migration and COVID-19 response in Latin America and as a multilingual health educator.

Dr. Serrano received her Sc.D. from the Federal University of São Paulo Medical School (UNIFESP-EPM) in Collective Health, where she conducted ethnographic research on the healthcare and care work experiences of Bolivian immigrant women in São Paulo. She earned her Master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin where she conducted research on the institutional perceptions and treatments of people with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses in Guatemala. She received dual undergraduate degrees in Latin American Studies and Spanish with a minor in Journalism from California State University of Fullerton.