Dr. Rukhsana Ahmed

Dr. Rukhsana Ahmed is Professor of Communication at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Her research focuses on health communication, immigrant and refugee health, intercultural communication, health disparities, and public engagement. Much of her scholarship examines how communication shapes healthcare access, health literacy, patient-provider relationships, acculturation, and well-being among immigrant, minority, and other underserved populations.
Ahmed is a Faculty Affiliate in the Information Science PhD Program, Faculty Fellow at the Center for Technology in Government, Board Member of the Center for Women in Government & Civil Society, and Faculty Associate at the Center for the Elimination of Health Disparities at the University at Albany. She is also Adjunct Professor in the Department of Communication, and Affiliate Faculty with the Institute for Science, Society and Policy, the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies, and the Digital Transformation and Innovation Program at the University of Ottawa, Canada.
An award-winning and internationally recognized scholar, Ahmed serves as Chief Editor of Health Communication in Frontiers in Communication and is a Distinguished Research Fellow of the Eastern Communication Association in the United States. Among her notable contributions to scholarship on immigrant health, migration, and acculturation are the co-edited books Culture, Migration, and Health Communication in a Global Context (Routledge, 2018); Communication Research on Health Disparities and Coping Strategies in COVID-19 Related Crises (Routledge, 2024), and Theory and Application of Health Acculturation: A Communication Perspective (Lexington Books, 2024). She has also authored, co-authored, and co-edited numerous other journal articles, journal special issues, books, and chapters and on health communication, culture, health equity, and emerging technologies.
More recently, Ahmed has extended her research to examine how artificial intelligence is reshaping communication about health across clinical, public health, and community settings. Bringing together her longstanding scholarship on health communication, culture, migration, and health disparities with emerging research on AI, she explores the opportunities and challenges that arise as intelligent technologies become increasingly integrated into healthcare and public life. She is an AI & Society Public Engagement Fellow (2026-2027) at UAlbany. Through her research, teaching, mentorship, and community engagement, Ahmed seeks to advance evidence-based policies and practices that support immigrant integration, health equity, and community well-being while helping society navigate the opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies.
Beyond her scholarship, Ahmed remains deeply committed to public and community engagement as well as mentorship. She has collaborated with immigrant-serving
organizations, healthcare institutions, and community partners on research and outreach initiatives addressing immigrant health, health communication, and health equity. She has mentored and supervised numerous master’s theses and doctoral dissertations on issues of immigrant health, migration, intercultural communication, and health disparities, working with students and emerging scholars in the United States, Canada, and abroad. Through these partnerships and mentoring activities, she strives to foster collaborative, community-informed research that contributes to immigrant well-being and informs policy and practice.