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Tina Bhargava is a Kent native, and after eight years in California and six in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she is glad to be back in Ohio as a faculty member in the Kent State College of Public Health. Dr. Bhargava completed her bachelor's in human biology and a master's in education (curriculum studies and teacher education) at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. She completed a doctorate in public health in the department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, where she completed her dissertation on "Cognitive Interference in Response to Weight Loss Stimuli in Individuals Participating in a Structured Weight Loss Program." This work examined the cognitive resource availability (i.e., “mental bandwidth”) issues that influenced success with a lifestyle change (weight loss) program.

Bhargava has been on the faculty in the Kent State College of Public Health since 2012, and has been extensively involved in course development, undergraduate teaching and campuswide equity efforts. She has particularly been involved in the development and teaching of the Health Disparities (PH44000) and Advocacy and Activism (PH35005) courses in the Public Health undergraduate program.   

Bhargava’s research interests focus on educational equity and social equity as a foundation for health equity. How do we ensure that all students are able to succeed in college? What are our institutions doing to ensure equity in access to education, opportunities and success? Bhargava’s work examines the impact of differences in “mental bandwidth” on academic success. Her research focuses on how mental bandwidth affects success, and how to streamline mental bandwidth demands on students in higher-education settings. She is currently designing and evaluating a “Bandwidth Toolkit” for faculty, to help them to reduce extraneous bandwidth demands in their courses and thereby increase equity in student success.