Ananda Sankar Bandyopadhyay, MPH ’10

In a professional career spanning two decades, Ananda Sankar Bandyopadhyay has led disease control initiatives across the globe. He worked as a surveillance medical officer with the World Health Organization’s National Polio Surveillance Project and contributed to India’s polio elimination and measles surveillance initiatives.

Currently, Bandyopadhyay is deputy director for the polio program at the Gates Foundation, leading global research initiatives on polio eradication. In recent years, he played a pivotal role in the accelerated clinical development and rollout of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2, the first vaccine with WHO Emergency Use Listing authorization, paving the way for other vaccines to use the same regulatory pathway during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Bandyopadhyay previously coordinated public health responses for vaccine-preventable and zoonotic diseases as a medical epidemiologist at Rhode Island’s Department of Health.

Prior to coming to Harvard Chan School, Bandyopadhyay received his medical degree from Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital.

His work on clinical development of novel vaccines and polio endgame vaccination schedules, along with his research to enhance polio environmental surveillance, have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals.

Karim Manji, MPH ’03

Throughout his career, pediatrician and neonatologist Karim Manji has made a mark on the health of children, young people, and families around the world through his research.

Manji pioneered the neonatal unit at Muhimbili National Hospital in Tanzania and was one of the first specialists to use cranial ultrasound for detecting intraventricular hemorrhage and central nervous system malformations in the 1990s. More recently, he helped build the Master of Science Fellowship training course in Neonatology at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, where he is now professor emeritus. He had his contributions highlighted in the Lancet in 2022, which referred to him as the “architect of progress in Tanzanian newborn health.”

Manji’s research includes multiple clinical trials and observational studies, with more than 260 publications in peer-reviewed journals focused on nutrition, neonatal sepsis, and low birth weight. He has mentored some 200 pediatric residents and students and is known as an inspirational speaker on topics including immunization, autism, and malnutrition.

In 2019, Manji received the International Award for Excellence in Patient Care from the Royal College of Physicians, London, for his Zinc Therapeutic Dose Trial in treating childhood diarrhea.

Yutaka Niihara, MPH ’06

At age 13, Yutaka Niihara learned about the career of Nobel Prize laureate Albert Schweizer and was inspired to become a medical missionary. This led him to earn a bachelor’s degree in religion, followed by a medical degree from Loma Linda University, in California.

Then, as a fellow in hematology and oncology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Niihara encountered many patients affected by sickle cell disease. Realizing the terrible devastation this disease can cause—medically, socially, and economically—he made it his research focus.

Upon completing his fellowship in 1992, Niihara joined the faculty at UCLA Medical Center, where he currently is a clinical professor of medicine. Working with colleagues who are also experts in hemoglobinopathies, he has helped lead groundbreaking research on sickle cell disease.

Niihara went on to found Emmaus Life Sciences, Inc., a company focused on rare diseases like sickle cell disease. Its mission is to improve the lives of people in need through the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative treatments and therapies. Niihara established Niihara International, Inc. in 2023 to bring these therapies and treatments to developing countries.

Megan Murray, MPH ’97, SD ’01

Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health; Ronda Stryker and William Johnston Professor of Global Health, and Director of Research in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. Boston, MA. 

After completing her medical training at Harvard Medical School, Megan Murray earned an MPH and an SD from Harvard Chan School, where she began her career in academia soon after graduation. In 2012, Murray was invited by the late Paul Farmer—a renowned humanitarian, physician, and advocate for the world’s most under-resourced communities—to join Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. 

Murray’s work, like Farmer’s, is focused on assuring the delivery of essential medicines and care to individuals who typically have little or no access to medications and health services. 

Over her four-decade career, she has led field studies worldwide to better understand infectious diseases and promote the health of vulnerable populations. Much of her time has been devoted to fighting Tuberculosis (TB). Murray has appeared in 250 publications; acted as the principal investigator for more than ten TB-related grants; challenged and debunked the long-held assumption that drug-resistant TB was less transmissible; and served as a trusted TB resource for the World Health Organization and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her accomplishments include conducting one of the largest household contact studies to date, following more than 18,000 individuals in Peru, leading to robust findings on TB risk factors.  Murray is known for always putting people at the center of her work; building relationships with her mentees, researching marginalized populations, and serving communities around the world.

Stephen Tollman, MPH ’88

Research Professor and Head of the Division of Health and Population, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits); Director of the Medical Research Council/Wits Rural Public Health & Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt), Johannesburg, South Africa. 

As a medical student in South Africa in the seventies and eighties, Stephen Tollman saw first-hand the impact that state-sanctioned discrimination could have on health and committed to a career serving some of the most vulnerable communities in his country.  

In 1988, Tollman earned an MPH at Harvard Chan School, and even delivered that year’s graduation address, showcasing his ability to lead and inspire change. In the years that followed, he co-led an evaluation of the Harvard MPH academic program that contributed to its reform.  

Returning to South Africa in the nineties, as the country’s political leadership gained freedom, Tollman began his journey with the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) as a director of its health systems development unit, and later, earning a degree in public health medicine, with a thesis titled Life and death without trace: Population dynamics and trends in mortality in rural South Africa.  

Tollman’s Wits tenure also includes the founding of Agincourt, a surveillance system that monitored 120,000 people in more than 30 villages in rural northeast South Africa and analyzes the effectiveness of health care systems and policies. It has become a world-renowned model for population-based research and helps bring medical expertise to communities in need. Today, Agincourt leads multicenter efforts in mortality and cause-of-death, adult health and aging, and migration and health. 

Led by Tollman, the culmination of this work has helped rebuild South Africa post-apartheid to a leader in global health research that extends throughout sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.

Anita Zaidi, SM ’99

President, Gender Equality Division, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Seattle, WA. 

Anita Zaidi’s trailblazing career in medicine, academia, and nonprofits is marked by many firsts. Zaidi was part of the first graduating class of doctors at Aga Khan University (AKU) in her native Pakistan, receiving the school’s inaugural “Best Medical Graduate Award.” She went on to become AKU’s first female chair of pediatrics, establish South Asia’s first training program in pediatric infectious diseases as a clinical specialty, and won the first $1 million Caplow Children’s Prize to support her efforts to bring health services and wraparound care to mothers and children in poverty-stricken communities—and, in turn, reduce child mortality in an impoverished suburb of Karachi.  

In 2020, Zaidi became the first-ever president of Gender Equality at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where she leads the foundation’s work to create a gender equal world by investing in women’s economic empowerment, leadership, and more. Throughout her professional journey Zaidi has been driven by intense passion and willpower to transform the lives of those who are most disadvantaged. She believes the causes of many diseases are rooted in poverty and gender-bias. Changing this reality is her north star. 

In recognition of her accomplishments, Zaidi was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine in 2021, considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine in the U.S., celebrating outstanding professional achievements and commitment to service.

Julie E. Buring, SD ’83

Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Boston, MA.  

Julie E. Buring’s research focuses on the epidemiology of chronic diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease and cancer, and especially among women. She has been involved in a number of large-scale randomized clinical trials including the Women’s Health Study, Physician’s Health Study, and VITAL, evaluating the preventive role of aspirin, fish oil, and vitamins D and E. Her work has appeared in more than 900 highly-cited and influential publications. A highly regarded teacher of epidemiology, she has earned two Roger L. Nichols Excellence in Teaching Awards from Harvard Chan School.   

Buring is known as a warm and dedicated mentor who has supported and shaped the careers of dozens of postdoctoral trainees, junior faculty members, and other mentees who are now serving as public health leaders around the world. These accomplishments have earned Buring the 2017 Kenneth L. Baughman Faculty Mentoring Award from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the 2021 William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award from Harvard Medical School.

Wafaie Fawzi, MPH ’89, SM ’91, DPH ’92

Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences, and Professor of Nutrition, Epidemiology, and Global Health. Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Cambridge, MA

Wafaie Fawzi is a physician and epidemiologist admired for his work on interventions that enhance maternal and child health and development. After completing his medical training in his native Sudan, Fawzi earned three degrees at Harvard Chan School and went on to join the faculty. At the School, he is the Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences, Professor of Nutrition, Epidemiology, and Global Health, and a former chair of the Department of Global Health and Population.   

Over the past 25 years, Fawzi has led the design and implementation of more than 30 randomized controlled trials, with an emphasis on nutritional factors. He has also undertaken observational studies to understand the broader epidemiology of global health challenges, with a focus on developing countries in Africa and Asia. His findings have been disseminated through more than 550 papers. To advance this agenda, he brought together collaborators in multiple disciplines across HSPH and other schools at Harvard with global partners at other academic and research institutions.  

Fawzi has mentored over 80 doctoral and postdoctoral researchers and created opportunities for students at Harvard and other institutions by founding the Africa Academy for Public Health, which includes transformative programs like the Africa Research, Implementation Science, and Education Network (ARISE), and the China-Harvard-Africa Network (CHAN), which aim to foster global collaboration in research and education. He led the development of 10 training programs to build the capacity of the next generation of leaders with global partners, providing long-term training for several hundred public health professionals in Africa and enhancing the diversity of future global health leaders in the US.  

With a clear knack for innovation, education, and serving international communities, Fawzi served as interim director of Harvard’s Center for African Studies during the pandemic, where he convened high-profile meetings on COVID-19 and global cooperation and expanded the Center’s focus to include more STEM topics, broadening the traditional scope of African studies.

Stephen Hwang, AB ’84, MPH ’96

Physician & Research Scientist, St Michael’s Hospital, MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions. Toronto, ON

Stephen Hwang is a physician, teacher, and researcher known for pioneering work in the field of homelessness, housing, and health. Throughout his career, he’s been a champion of action on social determinants to improve the wellbeing of disadvantaged people.

While working as a physician for the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, Hwang saw firsthand the dire health needs of the people he served and hoped to create change through rigorous research. He went on to become among the first to quantify the impact of homelessness on mortality, showing that homeless men are eight times more likely to die than those in the general population, and to identify risk factors for death in this population. Hwang’s research influenced the 100,000 Homes Campaign in the United States, and subsequently the 20,000 Homes Campaign in Canada, which have mobilized people in hundreds of cities to house thousands of medically vulnerable chronically homeless individuals who are at increased risk of death. A professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, he was appointed chair in homelessness, housing, and health—the first endowed chair in the world to address the impact of homelessness on health.

Hwang continues to practice general internal medicine in the hospital and shelter settings, and to lead a research team dedicated to issues of homelessness, housing, and health.

Paula A. Johnson, AB ’80, MD ’84, MPH ’85

President, Wellesley College

Throughout her three-decade career, Paula A. Johnson has worked to advance the health, education, and well-being of women around the world. Her research has focused on uncovering and dismantling gender biases in women’s health and the sciences, and her work has powered a paradigm shift in the way medicine is practiced.

Johnson spent much of her career at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she was the first Black physician to serve as chief medical resident and the first Black physician to be promoted to professor. She also founded and directed the hospital’s Center for Cardiovascular Disease in Women and the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health & Gender Biology and chaired the Division of Women’s Health. She chaired the Boston Public Health Commission for almost a decade.

Johnson is currently the 14th president of Wellesley College, where she has overseen the development of new opportunities for women and minorities in STEM fields.

Lois B. Travis, MD, SM ’82, SD ’94

Lawrence H. Einhorn Professor of Cancer Research; director, Cancer Survivorship Research Program, Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center

Lois B. Travis is an advocate for decreasing the cost of the cure for cancer survivors. To this end, she helped establish the field of cancer survivorship and currently serves as the director of the Cancer Survivorship Research Program at Indiana University. With a broad academic background in medicine, pathology, epidemiology, and translational genomics, Travis has contributed to the development of safety protocols for cancer treatments, helped patients avoid second cancers, and improved the lives of countless patients who have survived cancer.

At Indiana University, Travis and her colleagues evaluate therapy-related toxicities with the goal of developing translational research that directly benefits human health. Her research can be credited with establishing the importance of second malignant neoplasms in cancer survivors and defining much of the field’s understanding about dose-response relationships with radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Travis is a recipient of the Public Health Service Outstanding Service Medal from the National Cancer Institute.

Stefan N. Willich, MD, MPH ’90, MBA

Director, Institute of Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany

Stefan Willich is an internist, epidemiologist, musician, and champion of public health. Since 1995, he has served as professor and director of the Institute of Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics, one of Germany’s most research-intensive medical institutions, which has grown during his tenure to become one of the preeminent epidemiological research centers in the world. The Institute, based at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, translates many of its preventive medicine research results to clinical practice, and the preventive outpatient clinic established by Willich at Charité has become a model throughout Europe.

Willich’s research has documented the efficacy of traditional and complementary health practices and promoted their use alongside conventional medical treatments. An advocate for integrative medicine and a recognized leader in this field, he founded the European Society of Integrative Medicine, served as the first editor of the European Journal of Integrative Medicine, and convened the first World Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health.

Kathleen Kahn, MBBCh, MPH ’88, PhD

Professor of Public Health and Head, Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Public and Population Health, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; Chief Scientist, MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt)

Kathleen Kahn has devoted 30 years of public health practice to advancing the health and well-being of often-marginalized rural populations in South Africa and beyond. She partners with communities, public-sector departments, and collaborating investigators to undertake excellent, ethical, and community-sensitive research and elevates rural priorities to policy and decision makers. She has been a senior adviser on issues of rural health and equity and has investigated and shed light on such divergent problems as HIV prevention, mental health, and metabolic disease, focusing on vulnerable adolescents and how to mitigate risk and foster resilience. She has highlighted issues that others have overlooked, such as the problem of young children dying before their parents—a global concern magnified in the epidemic period of HIV/AIDS. Kahn has contributed substantially to building the next generation of African researchers and is acknowledged as among the most accomplished epidemiologists and health scientists in Africa.

John Quelch, DBA ’77, SM ’78, MBA

Leonard M. Miller University Professor and Vice Provost, University of Miami; Dean and Professor, Miami Herbert Business School; Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Miami School of Medicine

John Quelch is a bridge builder between the worlds of business and public health, leveraging his positions in business school leadership to promote his public health insights into corporate boardrooms where consideration of public health and medical issues is usually minimal. He has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to public health and applying business and marketing principles to improving public health outcomes, notably through a distinguished 30-year career as a marketing professor at Harvard Business School and later as a health management professor at the Harvard Chan School. His joint primary appointment at the two schools was a first and enabled him to design curricula that gave students from both schools, mingled together in the same classroom, an opportunity to integrate two differing mindsets in approaching important problems at the intersection of business and public health.

Judith Salerno, SM ’76, MD ’85

President, New York Academy of Medicine

Throughout her career, Judith Salerno has created and implemented strategies to improve public health and address health disparities in research, access, and treatment. In her role as president of the New York Academy of Medicine, she oversees the fellows program of several thousand health professionals elected by their peers and a research, evaluation, and policy team on topics across the lifespan, from maternal and child health to aging. True to her personal service ethic, she recently volunteered as a palliative care physician at New York’s Bellevue Hospital during the coronavirus epidemic. Among her many roles, she has served as executive director and chief operating officer of the Institute of Medicine, deputy director at the National Institute on Aging/NIH, and chief consultant for geriatrics and extended care at the national Veterans Administration, and was a decorated commissioned officer of the U.S. Public Health Service.

Kent Woods, MA, MD, SM ’83

Emeritus Professor of Therapeutics , Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester, U.K.

A renowned institutional leader, professor, researcher, and clinician, Kent Woods has made substantial contributions to public health, medicine, and society throughout his career. He worked in academic medicine at the University of Leicester for 20 years, investigating the efficacy, safety, and uptake of new treatments in cardiovascular medicine through both randomized and observational research designs, including important randomized trials of intravenous magnesium in acute myocardial infarction. Woods combined clinical research activity with leadership roles in the National Health Service (NHS) Research and Development Program at both the regional and the national levels. He left clinical practice in 2004 to become the first chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, a position he held until 2013. In 2011, he was knighted for his service to health care.

2019

Lilian Cheung, SM ’75, SD ’78
Michael Egboh, MPH ’94
A. Eugene Washington, MPH, MD, SM ’78

2018

Richard W. Clapp, MPH ’74, DSc
Roger Glass, AB ’67, MD ’72, MPH ’72, PhD
Alice H. Lichtenstein, MS ’75, SD ’79

2017

Ghada El-Hajj Fuleihan, MD, MPH ’97
Neil Richard Powe, MPH ’81, MD ’81, MBA
Joan Y. Reede, MD, MPH ’90, SM ’92, MBA

2016

Dileep G. Bal, MD, MS, MPH ’71
Howard Dubowitz, MBChB, SM ’83
Richard Arthur Heinzl, MD, MSc, MPH ’90

2015

Hilarie Hartel Cranmer, MD, MPH ’04
Jonathan C. Javitt, MD, MPH ’84
Royce Moser, Jr., AB ’57, MD ’61, MPH ’65

2014

Robert Emmet Morris, DDS, MPH ’86
Judith. S. Stern, SM ’66, SD ’70
Ravi Thadhani, MD, MPH ’97
Anthony F. Vuturo, MD, MPH ’71

2013

Marc B. Schenker, MD, MPH ’80
Debra T. Silverman, SM, SD ’81
Eiji Yano, MBBS, DMS, MPH ’84

2012

Patricia Hartge, SM ’76, SD ’83
Donald Hopkins, MPH ’70
Swati Piramal, MPH ’92
Ching-Chuan Yeh, SM ’81

2011

E. Francis Cook, SM ’77, SD ’83
Hugh S. Fulmer, MD, MPH ’61
William Rom, MD, MPH ’73
J. M. Yolène Vaval Suréna, MD, SM ’81

2010

James Dalen, MD, SM ’72
Fernando Guerra, MD, MPH ’83
David Schottenfeld, MD, SM ’63
Lynn Rosenberg, SM ’72, SD ’78
About the 2010 recipients

2009

Graham Colditz, MD, MPH ’82, DPH ’86
John M. Peters, MD, MPH ’64, SD ’66
Dimitrios Trichopoulos, MD, PhD, SM ’68
Isabelle Valadian, MD, MPH ’53
About the 2009 recipients

2008

John Dunning Boice, Jr., SM ’74, SD ’77
Anders R. Seim, MPH ’88
David J. Sencer, MPH ’58
Shelia Hoar Zahm, SM ’77, SD ’80
About the 2008 recipients

2007

Myron Allukian, Jr., MPH ’67
Tomio Hirohata, SM ’65, SD ’68
Timothy Johnson, MPH ’76
Charlotte Neumann, MD ’54, MPH ’60
About the 2007 recipients

2006

Catherine DeAngelis, MPH ’75
Jonathan Fielding, MD ’68, AM ’79, MPH ’71
Walter Willett, MPH ’73, DPH ’80

2005

Mauricio Hernandez-Avila, MPH ’84, SD ’88
Paul Ridker, MD ’86, MPH ’92
Saul Wilson, Jr., DVM, MPH ’55

2004

Johanna T. Dwyer, RD, SM ’65, SD ’69
M. Christina Leske, MD, MPH ’66
Hugh Hanna Tilson, MD, MPH ’69, DPH ’72

2003

Debhanom Muangman, MD, MPH ’65, DPH ’68
Jose M. Martin Moreno, MD, MPH ’87, DPH ’92
Thomas Dawber, MD, MPH ’58

2002

D.W. Chen, MD, MPH ’91
Robert N. Hoover, MD, SM ’70, SD ’76
JoAnn E. Manson, MD, MPH ’84, DPH ’87

2001

Anthony I. Adams, MPH ’61
Antoine Augustin, MPH ’77
Jonathan M. Samet, SM ’77

2000

Roslyn U. Fishman, MPH ’45
Maurice Keenan, MPH ’77
Jeffrey P. Koplan, MPH ’78

1999

Letitia Davis, SM ’78, SD ’83
Leonard Kurland, MPH ’48
Adetokundo O. Lucas, SM ’64
Jonathan Mann, MPH ’80

1998

Gretchen Berggren, SM ’66
Warren L. Berggren MPH ’63, DPH ’67
Frederick T. Sai, MPH ’60
James H. Steele, MPH ’42

1997

Joan M. Altekruse, MPH ’65
Jamie Sepulveda, MPH ’80, SM ’81, SD ’85
Paul R. Torrens, MPH ’62

1996

Abdul Rahman Al-Awadi, MPH ’65
William Curran, SM ’58
Samuel Ofosu-Amaah, MD, MPH ’70

1995

Dorelenna A. Sammons-Posey, SM ’79
Nevin S. Scrimshaw, MPH ’59
John B. Wyon, MPH ’53

1994

Gro H. Brundtland, MPH ’65
William H. Foege, MPH ’65
Alonzo S. Yerby, MPH ’48

1993

James W. Curran, MPH ’74
Jack Dillenberg, MPH ’78
Joseph F. Fraumeni, Jr., SM ’65

1992

H. Jack Geiger, SM ’60
Carl E. Taylor, MD ’41, MPH ’51, DPH ’53

In July, Beverly Lorraine Ho became chief health officer of AC Health, a company that aims to provide every Filipino accessible, affordable, and quality health care. Prior to this, she spent more than seven years with the Philippine Department of Health, leading award-winning behavior change communication campaigns.

Ho has been a consultant for WHO, UNICEF, Asian Development Bank, and UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency; a university educator; and co-founder of two organizations: Alliance for Improving Health Outcomes and the Philippine Society for Public Health Physicians. She contributed to the health chapter of Ambisyon 2040, the Philippines’ first long-term vision document.

In 2022, Ho was recognized as one of The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service of the Philippines.

Ho came to Harvard Chan School as a Fulbright scholar and holds a bachelor’s degree and a medical degree from the University of the Philippines. She was part of the World Fellows Program at Yale University and was an Atlantic Fellow at Oxford University.

Director for Basic and Translational Science at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) in Durban, South Africa; Program Director for the Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE); Professor of Infectious Diseases at University College London; Director of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s HIV Pathogenesis Programme; Associate Member of the Ragon Institute; and Adjunct Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Co-chair of the International AIDS Society (IAS) Towards an HIV Cure Advisory Board. Durban, South Africa.

At the heart of Thumbi Ndung’u’s outstanding scientific leadership is a lifelong enthusiasm for innovation.

Ndung’u holds a veterinary medicine degree from the University of Nairobi and a doctorate degree from Harvard Chan School, where he received the Edgar Haber Award for “outstanding, original, and creative thesis work that makes a fundamental contribution to the understanding of a biological problem important to public health.” He is also a recipient of the South African Medical Research Council Gold Scientific Achievement Award, which recognizes “senior scientists who have made seminal scientific contributions that have impacted on the health of people” and is the 2023 recipient of the KT Jeang Retrovirology Prize which is awarded annually for “outstanding contributions to the field of Retrovirology.”

His vast medical knowledge, teaching skills, and ability to think creatively have been passed on to the dozens of students and postdoctoral researchers he has mentored and inspired, and through more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the fields of immunology and virology.

Now director for basic and translational science at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, South Africa, Ndung’u’s career contributions in HIV and TB research have advanced and deepened the pursuit of vaccine and immune-based cure strategies. His multidisciplinary studies link immunology to virology and offer a platform for clinical interventions toward cure and eradication strategies that have the power to positively change the trajectory of countless public health issues.

President, Rural Doctor Foundation. Nonthaburi, Thailand

For the past four decades, Choochai Supawongse has worked to promote healthy lives and sustainable development in Thailand as a physician, advocate, and public health leader. For this, he has become known as one of the country’s most effective and influential public health figures.

Upon graduating from Chulalongkorn University in the 1970s, Supawongse exhibited an unparalleled passion and devotion for bettering the lives of all Thai citizens, first practicing as a physician in the country’s most impoverished areas. His activism for this population continued amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when he ensured the country’s underserved individuals received up-to-date treatment and preventative services.

Supawongse is also known for leading the charge to curb smoking in Thailand. In 2008, these efforts were recognized by the WHO and in 2017, the community-based anti-smoking initiative he helped spearhead became federal law. That same year, the country established the Primary Health Care Board of Thailand, making primary healthcare a fundamental right for all—a cause he championed as a member of the National Reform Steering Assembly.

President, Shanti Ashram; Founder, International Center for Child and Public Health (ICPH)

Over the course of her three-decade career, Kezevino Aram has worked to protect, uplift, and advance some of the world’s most at-risk populations, with a particular focus on children in her native India. Her work is primarily focused on advancing pediatric health, tackling health care disparities, alleviating poverty, and fostering social cohesion through active peace-building and interfaith dialogue.

Aram joined Shanti Ashram, an international center for development, learning, and collaboration, two decades ago and became its president in 2014. There, Aram has pioneered a roadmap for integrating health into community development programs and increased the service footprint of the Ashram from 5,000 vulnerable children to nearly 70,000 children and their families across more than 100 villages today.

In 2017, Aram founded the International Center for Child and Public Health. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she has served on the experts committee of the government of Tamil Nadu, with the policy mandate of child health and protection.

Secretary of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, State of North Carolina

Mandy Cohen is known for her technical and scientific knowledge, vision, communication skills, ability to influence key decision makers, compassion and empathy, commitment to inclusion and diversity, and mentoring. She tackles issues with thoughtful, collaborative, and data-driven decisions to support the health and well-being of the people of North Carolina, always leading with transparency and a commitment to operating through her values. Among Cohen’s achievements is the improvement of North Carolina’s Medicaid program, including a first-of-its-kind program to analyze social determinants of health to improve outcomes. Her strong leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic response, including her use of data and ability to communicate calmly and with empathy, compassion, and transparency, led many North Carolina citizens and elected officials to band together, such that the state has avoided any large surge in cases seen in other parts of the country.

2019: Louise Ivers, MB, BCh, BAO, MPH ’05, MD

2018: Shevin T. Jacob, MPH ’03, MD

2017: Huey-Jen Jenny Su, MS, SM ’87, SD ’90

2016: Carolyn S. Langer, MD, JD ’92, MPH ’92

2015: Mosoka P. Fallah, PhD, MA, MPH ’12

2014: Margo G. Wootan SD ’93

2013: Adam M. Finkel, AB ’79, MPP ’84, SD ’87

2012: Maura Bluestone, SM ’74 and Francisco Sy, SM ’81

2011: Françoise Bouchard, MD, MPH ’86

Renee Salas is an academic emergency medicine physician in the Center for Social Justice and Health Equity at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and holds a variety of appointments across Harvard. Salas’ work examines the climate crisis and its inequitable harms to health and the delivery of health care.

Salas serves on the National Academy of Medicine’s Grand Challenge on Climate Change, Human Health, and Equity; the National Academies Climate Crossroads initiative; and the New England Journal of Medicine Group’s Climate Crisis and Clinical Practice initiative. In 2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for her work on climate change and health.

Since 2022, Salas has served as lead author of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change U.S. Policy Brief and founded its working group of experts from more than 80 U.S. organizations. She also guest edits the New England Journal of Medicine Group’s Fossil-Fuel Pollution and Climate Change series.

Salas has spoken at the White House Health Equity Forum and has testified before Congress on the ways in which climate change is harming health.

CEO, Innovative Healthcare Solutions. Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire

A native of the Ivory Coast studying in the U.S., Diagaunet Dodie returned home in 2019 when his father’s health condition worsened. Arriving home, Dodie witnessed the consequences of illegal blood trafficking in his country which prices out vulnerable populations, when he needed to find blood bags for his father and was only able to because of his status as a doctor.

Seeing how unfair it was that others were unable to gain access, he set off on a mission to tackle the nation’s blood shortage problem through his company, Innovative Healthcare Solutions (IHS). IHS has made great strides in bringing visibility to the nation’s blood shortage problem.

In 2021, Dodie persuaded the national blood bank to partner with IHS to improve its performance. He secured financing from the World Bank to learn more about the nation’s blood collection and distribution systems. Dodie and his team traveled to 35 cities, gaining a better understanding of underlying issues and the resulting tragedies, while simultaneously raising public awareness. The work was featured internationally, in outlets like Le Monde, a French newsletter, and Voice of America, an international multimedia broadcaster.

And, in 2022, in the face of mounting local and global pressure, the Ivorian government dropped the price of a blood bag, which previously ran as high as $150, to $6. Dodie’s hope is that one day, no more Ivorians lose their lives from lack of access to blood. He says, “I do all this for my people, but also in memory of my late father.”

Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Professor of Emergency Medicine & Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital; Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Boston, MA

With a remarkable academic career spanning Stanford, Berkeley, UCSF, and Harvard, Carlos Camargo became a recognized researcher while he was still a student. As an undergraduate, he started the first of several studies on the health effects of moderate alcohol consumption and his first papers, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA, made important contributions to understanding the impact of alcohol on heart disease.

In the mid-1990s, Camargo was the first to document a link between obesity and the development of asthma. In 1996, he also founded the Emergency Medicine Network (EMNet), an international research collaboration with 247 hospitals and a mission to advance public health objectives through diverse projects in emergency care. EMNet is believed to be the largest, sustained emergency medicine research network ever assembled. Among its many activities, EMNet staff survey all US emergency departments annually and they include key information in a free smartphone app called “findERnow”.

Camargo is known for being an encouraging, supportive, and inspiring mentor.

Founder and director, Men’s Story Project; public health and gender justice consultant

Jocelyn Lehrer is a public health researcher and practitioner, storyteller, and social entrepreneur. For more than 20 years, her work around the world has focused on gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS prevention and response, and the promotion of healthy masculinity and gender equality. Her research has been published in Pediatrics and other leading journals. In 2008, Lehrer founded the Men’s Story Project, which helps campuses and organizations create and film live productions where diverse men publicly share personal stories examining ideas about masculinity.

Lehrer’s work also includes leading the first quantitative studies of campus sexual assault and dating violence in Chile, consulting on social impact storytelling with MTV and UN Women, working with the USAID Office of HIV/AIDS, and facilitating social support groups for LGBTQ+ youth living with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco. She currently serves as senior gender integration consultant with the Global Center for Gender Equality at Stanford University.

Chief Medical Officer, Finch Therapeutics

Zain Kassam has meaningfully impacted public health delivery by both innovative practice and science. As the founding chief medical officer of both the nonprofit OpenBiome and spin-out Finch Therapeutics, Kassam has built the next generation of public health startups, intertwining an innovative public health approach to address a gap in care with an open-source research platform to catalyze novel science. OpenBiome is a nonprofit that provides screened, processed, standardized and ready-to-use frozen human stool for fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). Finch Therapeutics is a public health–centric company that aspires to bring FDA-approved microbiome therapeutics and microbiome-based vaccines to patients. Kassam is a gifted educator, able to distill complex topics into simple, teachable pearls, and a compassionate human being who inspires others with his seemingly endless supply of passion and infectious enthusiasm.

2019: J. Nwando Olayiwola, MD, MPH ’05

2018: Jason Arora, MPH ’14, MD, MA

2017: Farouk Meralli, SM ’09

2016: Carol J. Peden, MD, MPH ’09

2015: Kyra Bobinet, MD, MPH ’08

2014: Murray Allen Mittleman, MD, MPH ’90 DPH ’94

2013: Akudo Anyanwu Ikemba, MD, MPH ’03; Royce Ellen Clifford, MD, MPH ’06

2012: Anita Patil Deshmukh, MPH ’05

2011: Trishan Panch, MBBS, MPH ’10