Anastasia Marshak
Dr. Anastasia Marshak is an Assistant Research Professor at the Friedman School and a Senior Researcher at the Feinstein International Center. Her work focuses on strengthening humanitarian nutrition by generating actionable evidence for policy and programs operating in complex, crisis-affected settings. She specializes in identifying the drivers of malnutrition across the treatment–prevention continuum. Her work advances quantitative and mixed-methods approaches designed to better inform humanitarian decision-making. She examines how environmental, livelihood, and institutional factors shape malnutrition risk, with a particular emphasis on seasonal dynamics.
In addition to nutrition, her research spans early marriage, conflict-related livelihood disruptions, and access to services, and she has contributed expertise to high-profile investigations—including analyzing human rights abuses in northern Uganda for an International Criminal Court (ICC) trial.
Marshak holds a B.S. in quantitative economics and international relations from Tufts University and an M.A. in economics from Boston University. She holds a Ph.D. from the Friedman School of Nutrition in the Food Policy and Nutrition Program, with a focus on humanitarian assistance.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
COURSES TAUGHT
SELECTED JOURNAL AND BOOK PUBLICATIONS
MOST RECENT EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS
NEWS STORIES
FEINSTEIN PUBLICATIONS
This learning brief presents findings from two scoping studies on acute malnutrition in the Daua Basin in the Mandera Triangle.
This report presents the final findings from the USAID Nawiri longitudinal study, which investigated the drivers of the persistently high rates of acute malnutrition from September 2021 to September 2023.
This learning brief examines the drivers of malnutrition in Isiolo and Marsabit Counties and their implications for policy and programs.
This learning brief explores the continuity and changes to livelihoods in select sites in Isiolo and Marsabit Counties, Kenya, and reviews the implications of the continuity and the changes on the drivers of child acute malnutrition.
This learning brief presents preliminary findings about the cause (drivers) of persistently high rates of child acute malnutrition in select sites in Isiolo and Marsabit Counties.
This report reviews progress, outlines barriers to further progress, and makes recommendations to advance gender equality in the humanitarian system.
This paper examines the role of marital status and motherhood on schooling experience and educational interruption, attainment, and aspirations in South Sudan and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
This brief investigates the perceptions and experiences of young women related to wealth, livelihoods, and aspirations in Uganda’s Karamoja sub-region.
This brief investigates how wealth, wealth equality, and food security have changed in specific villages in four districts in the Karamoja sub-region of Uganda from 2018 to 2021/22.
This study aimed to better understand changes in and perceptions of wealth and equality in four counties in the Karamoja sub-region of Uganda.
Very little is known about the experiences of female youth who marry under 18 and later become separated, divorced, or widowed. This briefing paper underscores the unique vulnerabilities and challenges that these youth face in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and South Sudan.
This briefing paper examines the experiences of life after marriage for female youth who married under the age of 18 in South Sudan and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It describes how early marriage affects education, mental health, protection issue, and family dynamics.
This briefing paper focuses on the decision-making processes that led displaced female youth to marry early, based on their experiences in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and South Sudan.
This paper describes how market access is associated with household food security and dietary diversity in the Karamoja region of Uganda in 2018 and 2019.
This desk study provides an overview of the patterns and variability in climate, conflict, disasters, and nutrition outcomes using secondary data for Marsabit and Isiolo counties in northern Kenya.
The review confirms that acute malnutrition is a problem in the Kenya ASALs, and that most of the drivers are under-studied, and yet several specific assumptions permeate the literature and recommendations.
This report explores the seasonal patterns of acute malnutrition and its key drivers in the Goz Beida Region of Chad.
This report describes findings from a preliminary stakeholder survey on perceptions of malnutrition in northern Kenya.
This briefing paper is based on a midline quantitative survey for the Apolou project in the Karamoja sub-region of Uganda.
Ce document présente les motifs de la saisonnalité de la malnutrition aiguë et les différences des motifs et les facteurs pour les filles et les garçons dans le zone Goz Beida dans l’est du Chad.
Ce document présente les motifs de la saisonnalité de la malnutrition aiguë et les différences des motifs et les facteurs pour les filles et les garçons dans le zone Goz…
This brief summarizes the seasonal patterns of acute malnutrition and differences in seasonal patterns and possible drivers for boys and girls in the Goz Beida Region of eastern Chad.
This brief summarizes the seasonal patterns of acute malnutrition and its key drivers in the Goz Beida Region of Chad.
This study looked at how social connections during times of crisis enable populations to manage shocks and stresses in South Sudan.
This report is a comprehensive and user-friendly concept note for a database on child marriage in humanitarian settings, a first step in eradicating the problem.
This report describes household recovery in northern Uganda from the 20 years of conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda (GoU) by following the same…
This report highlights major new findings on the seasonal patterns of child malnutrition and their links to climate variability, conflict, and livelihood systems in Chad, Sudan, and South Sudan.
This brief highlights major new findings on the seasonal patterns of child malnutrition and their links to climate variability, conflict, and livelihood systems in Chad, Sudan, and South Sudan.
This paper synthesizes findings from four studies on youth migration and resilience in different urban contexts. This work emerges from a collaboration between Save the Children US (Save US) and…
This working paper presents findings from research examining the sharp decrease in girls and boys school attendance that was witnessed between 2013–2018 in northern Uganda.
This report reflects findings from the baseline quantitative study of a four-year research project in the Karamoja sub-region of Uganda. We describe different aspects of wealth, such as animal-related wealth…
This publication presents a literature review activities in covering topics related to the natural environment and natural resource management in the Darfur region. This desk review serves as a foundation and reference for the NRM field studies and series of briefs, as part of the Taadoud II program, as well as supporting the development of training materials.
This large-scale study from northern Uganda investigates how experiences of alleged war crimes or crimes against humanity relate to victims’ disability and how these experiences affect food security, wealth and access to basic services, including their access to basic and therapeutic healthcare over time.
This is an independent, in-depth assessment of the victims’ experiences before, during, and after the attacks at three internally displaced camps in northern Uganda. These attacks are at the heart of the International Criminal Court case against Dominic Ongwen, a former commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army. In May 2018, the report was submitted as evidence, presented, and defended before the ICC.
The widespread scale and long-lasting nature of “persistent GAM” means that it must be a policy and programming priority. This brief sheds light on the issue and provides strategies for policy and practice.
The widespread scale and long-lasting nature of “persistent GAM” means that it must be a policy and programming priority. This paper sheds light on the issue and provides strategies for policy and practice.
This report presents a series of challenges to conventional thinking around livelihood recovery for war-affected populations.
This is an evidence brief, accompanying the full systematic review on shelter in humanitarian settings.
What effects do humanitarian interventions that support affected populations’ own shelter self-recovery processes have on household-level outcomes following a crisis? And what factors have helped or hindered the implementation of such interventions? This evidence synthesis represents the first ever attempt to systematically review the existing evidence for an answer.
This report describes the results of an impact assessment on Concern Worldwide’s program in eastern Chad aimed at reducing malnutrition.
This protocol details the methodology for an evidence synthesis on shelter in humanitarian crises. The evidence synthesis asks: “What is the evidence on the effectiveness and efficiency of interventions that…
FEINSTEIN RESEARCH PROJECTS
This project investigates what drives child wasting in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia and identifies effective prevention strategies.
The Feinstein International Center and FAO have co-produced a Food and Nutrition Bulletin Supplement, based on an adapted conceptual framework for analyzing and addressing acute malnutrition in Africa’s drylands. More than 30 authors have produced 9 research articles and 2 short research communications.
This project aims to improve the lives and livelihoods of populations in pastoral areas of the Sudano-Sahel and Greater Horn of Africa by ensuring that early warning systems and humanitarian action are better attuned and more responsive to the needs and realities of these communities.
USAID Nawiri is an evidence-based development project to address acute malnutrition in northern Kenya. Catholic Relief Services leads a consortium in Isiolo and Marsabit counties, and Feinstein provides research and capacity-building support.
This project reconsiders our understanding of famines, the dynamics that give rise to famines, the resilience of populations subjected to these dynamics, and the means of prevention at the disposal of governments, humanitarian agencies, donors, and the affected populations.
This project interrogates widely-held assumptions about when acute malnutrition is at its highest in dryland countries.
This page brings together multiple projects related to gender, sex, and age in humanitarian response.
Feinstein’s work as part of the Apolou project seeks to understand the impacts over time of a shift to an increasingly cash-based economy on different wealth, livelihood, and demographic groups.
Our latest research shows that we do not know enough about early marriage to design programs and policies that effectively support female youth in the ways that they need. This study is generating the evidence humanitarians need.
This project is harnessing the power of interdisciplinary teams and community participation to co-create solutions that will guide better tailored responses to food crises.
The Taadoud operational research aims to strengthen the impact of resilience-related actions and interventions.
In this partnership with Mercy Corps, the Feinstein International Center team investigates the nature of social networks and social connectedness, and explores how humanitarian assistance can strengthen these as a key aspect of resilience, recovery and relief interventions in complex humanitarian emergencies.
The Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium aims to generate a stronger evidence base on how people in conflict-affected situations make a living, access basic services like health care, education and water, and perceive and engage with governance at local and national levels.
From 2005 to 2017, we developed a wide-ranging research portfolio on livelihoods systems under stress throughout the Greater Horn of Africa and beyond. This project synthesizes key themes of that research.
This project aimed to improve disaster risk reduction interventions by studying the relationship between disaster risk and livelihood strategies.