Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Gaurab Basu
Gaurab Basu, MD, MPH is a physician and assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and assistant professor of global health & social medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). At Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, he is an assistant professor of environmental health and faculty at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE) and Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. His work focuses on the intersection of climate change, global health equity, human rights, medical education, and public policy.
Dr. Basu has developed and evaluated numerous innovative health equity curricular programs. He received the inaugural HMS Equity, Social Justice, and Advocacy Faculty Award and the HMS Charles McCabe Faculty Prize in Excellence. He has been an HMS Curtis Prout Academy Fellow and a Harvard Macy Scholar.
Dr. Basu currently serves as senior advisor of the climate and health program at the Child in Need Institute (CINI), an India based NGO. He is currently working with CINI to research the health impact of cyclones and flooding on the communities of Kutali and Gosaba in the Indian Sundarbans. The Sundarbans is home to the largest continuous mangrove forest in the world, and mangroves are unique nature-based solutions to climate change. However, the impoverished area is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of poverty and extreme weather events.
Dr. Basu previously worked for the Gates Institute, Partners in Health, and Last Mile Health. His NIH funded projects incorporate community engagement and research translation into climate and health research. He is on the board of directors of the Environmental League of Massachusetts and the advisory council for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health. He also serves on the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Decarbonizing the U.S. Health Sector and the Boston Green Ribbon Commission’s Healthcare Working Group.
In 2021, Dr. Basu was named to the Grist 50 list of national climate leaders. In 2018, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation selected him to their Culture of Health Leadership fellowship. Dr. Basu served as an advisor to the Massachusetts Governor’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) as a member of the Implementation Advisory Committee and the Climate Science Advisory Panel. He was on the city of Cambridge Mayor’s Climate Crisis Working Group and its Net-Zero Climate Task Force. His work has been featured by the New York Times, NPR’s All Things Considered, Boston Globe, CNN, Scientific American, BMJ, and Grist, among others.