Audrey Claire Benson is a predoctoral fellow at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and PhD candidate in Biomedicine at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Her doctoral research, conducted within the Health Impact Assessment and Evaluation and the Climate, Air Pollution, Nature, and Urban Health groups, applies microsimulation and forecasting models to examine how climate change and social protection measures influence population health in low- and middle-income countries.
She holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Research (International Health track) from the University of Barcelona and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She worked in the field on a mixed-methods project on refugee women’s sexual and reproductive health in Lesbos, Greece, which included a co-creation workshop with the UNHCR. She has also worked with the Center for Epidemiological Studies on STIs and AIDS of Catalonia (CEEISCAT), contributing to analyses on HIV outcomes among women, particularly migrant women. She was also a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Institute for Modeling and Simulation of Biomechanical Systems in Stuttgart, Germany.
Audrey has field experience supporting humanitarian projects in refugee and migrant settings in Barcelona and Ceuta, Spain. She has contributed to science communication and advocacy pieces on global health, migration, and human rights. Her work combines quantitative analysis with a commitment to health equity and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Lines of research
- Climate change and health
- Social protection and health equity
- Health impact modeling and forecasting
- Migration and refugee health
- Sexual and reproductive health
Main publications
- Shagan Shomron, A., Chase-Markopoulou, C., Walter, J. R., Sellhorn-Timm, J., Shao, Y., Nadler, T., Benson, A. C., Wochner, I., Rumley, E. H., Wurster, I., Klocke, P., Weiß, D., Schmitt, S., Keplinger, C., & Häufle, D. (2025). A robotic and virtual testing platform highlighting the promise of soft wearable actuators for wrist tremor suppression. Device, 100719. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.device.2025.100719
- Shomron, A. S., Chase-Markopoulou, C., Walter, J., Sellhorn-Timm, J., Shao, Y., Nadler, T., Benson, A. C., Wochner, I., Rumley, E., Wurster, I., Klocke, P., Weiß, D., Schmitt, S., Keplinger, C., & Häufle, D. (2025). Testing wearable soft robotic actuators for suppression of human wrist tremor in a mechanical patient. In Converging Clinical and Engineering Research on Neurorehabilitation V (ICNR 2024) (pp. 186–189). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-77588-8_36
- Benson, A. C., & Mohamed, K. (2025). Sexual and reproductive health needs of refugee women on Lesbos, Greece – A participatory cross-sectional study. 14th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health (ECTMIH 2025), Conference presentation.
- Sherally, J., Benson, A. C., & Mohamed, K. (2024). How to practise what you preach: Practical considerations for participatory global health research. Bulletin of the Netherlands Society for Tropical Medicine and International Health (MTb), 62(2).
- Benson, A. C. (2024). “This is only part of your daily activity. This is all our life.”: How participatory grassroots initiatives involving refugees can and should inform policy in the European immigration context. The International Health Policies Newsletter.
