Asher Rosinger, associate professor of biobehavioral health and anthropology as well as the environmental health sciences program area leader in the College of Health and Human Development, is the recipient of the 2026 W. LaMarr Kopp International Achievement Award.
Established in 1995, the award recognizes faculty members who have contributed significantly to the advancement of the international mission of the University. It is named in honor of the late deputy vice president for international programs.
Rosinger, who is also an SSRI affiliate faculty member, has an interdisciplinary social science background and specializes in human biology, a biocultural subfield of anthropology. Nominators said he uses this unique and well-rounded perspective to offer a holistic understanding of how humans around the world meet their water needs and how those implications impact their health and well-being. The work touches on several areas of the United Nation’s sustainable development goals.
“He aims to understand variation in water needs and hydration status in diverse environments, particularly in areas without clean access to water,” a nominator said. “In his work he examines both the causes and health consequences of water insecurity, or the experiences people face regarding their water environment and how they intersect to affect food insecurity, nutrition, and the often-unseen toll it takes on people’s biology.”
Rosinger works on two field sites — one in the Beni, Bolivia, and the other in northern Kenya, near Lake Turkana — in which he researches water insecurity, hydration, nutrition and environmental stressors.
He has secured more than $4.5 million in funding from agencies such as the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In one NSF-funded grant, Rosinger established a longitudinal study to examine the impact of food and water insecurity on a semi-nomadic population in northern Kenya. For this project, he works with the Daasanach population to understand the consequences of environmental changes, including water insecurity and heat stress on water and food insecurity and nutrition, as well as how these people respond through mobility. His work has spotlighted the significant challenges these people face.
More recently, he secured a five-year National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences grant to expand the longitudinal study and focus on freshwater salinization, an emerging issue for global environmental health. This grant examines how variation in drinking water salinity across different sources and seasons affects the public health of Daasanach through factors such as hydration, kidney function and hypertension. With this work he is also evaluating how a water desalination intervention can be used to reduce these health impacts.
Rosinger has been awarded the Michael A. Little Early Career Award from the Human Biology Association and the Ann Atherton Hertzler Early Career Professorship in Global Health from the College of Health and Human Development.
“Rosinger’s leadership in broadening our understanding of the toll of water insecurity globally will continue to raise the international profile and mission of Penn State,” a nominator said. “The truly global impact of this work helps advance the science necessary for forming sound social sciences and environmental policy to combat water insecurity in disparate environments.”