Jennifer Beam Dowd is an American social scientist who is a Professor of Demography and Population Health and deputy director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford.

She is a member of Those Nerdy Girls, an all-woman team of public health researchers who are relaying COVID-19 information as part of Dear Pandemic.

[1] After graduation she spent a year as a Henry Luce Scholar in East Java, Indonesia where she worked on agricultural and reproductive health at the Rural Development Foundation.

[3] Her research considers the social factors that impact health, including how socioeconomic status influences the human microbiome[5] and immune function.

[12] By employing the same platforms and approaches as those who spread misinformation, the nerdy girls look to debunk myths and arm people with the knowledge to make informed decisions.