Information Sick: The Decline of Journalism, the Rise in Misinformation, and the Nation’s Health
Award-winning journalist Joanne Kenen is the lead author of a new book on the information environment in the United States. She’ll be joined by one of her co-authors, Johns Hopkins Professor Joshua Sharfstein.
A former city, state, and federal public health official, Dr. Sharfstein has experienced and studied the consequences of these challenges for health. They’ll lead a discussion about how we got here —and what comes next.
Join us in person at Ariadne Labs or virtually!
Speaker Information
Joanne Kenen
Joshua Sharfstein
Organizers
2025 – 2026 Takemi Fellows Meet and Greet
We invite you to meet the 2025-2026 Takemi Fellows in the Department of Global Health and Population! Learn about their research, hear their experiences, and enjoy food and refreshments.
Organizers
Harvard Pop Center Social Demography Seminar: “Revisiting theories of marital instability in the era of gray divorce: The case of retirement”
Shiro Furuya, PhD, David E. Bell Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, presents “Revisiting theories of marital instability in the era of gray divorce: The case of retirement.”
The Social Demography Seminar (SDS) series at the Center for Population and Development Studies provides a lively forum for scholars from across the university to discuss in-progress social scientific and population research. Social demography includes work that uses demographic methods to describe and explain the distribution of social goods across populations. The hybrid series offers presentations on a wide variety of topics such as family, gender, race/ethnicity, population health—including mortality, morbidity, and functional health—inequality, immigration, fertility, and the institutional arrangements that shape and respond to population processes.
Please note, you will need an HUID or visitor’s pass for access to this event.
Speaker Information
Shiro Furuya, PhD
Organizers
Warren Alpert prize symposium- Cracking the Capsid: Lenacapavir and the Next Chapter in HIV Treatment and Prevention
The Warren Alpert Foundation and Harvard Medical School invite you to the 2025 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize Symposium honoring Tomáš Cihlář PhD, John O. Link, PhD, and Wesley Sundquist, PhD for their critical contributions to the discovery and development of lenacapavir, the first approved drug to disrupt a viral capsid. The high potency of lenacapavir and its twice-yearly dosing regimen have the potential to significantly accelerate the end of the HIV epidemic.
Speaker Information
Invited Speakers
George Q. Daley, MD, PhD
Bruce Walker, MD
Tomáš Cihlář, PhD
John Link, PhD
Wesley Sundquist, PhD
Conversation with Bill Gates (by video recording)
Linda-Gail Bekker, MD, PhD
Organizers
Harvard Pop Center Social Demography Seminar: “State data and the production of quantitative knowledge: The case of police stops in the United States and France”
Michael Zanger-Tishler, PhD candidate in Sociology & Social Policy, Harvard University, and graduate student affiliate, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, presents “State data and the production of quantitative knowledge: The case of police stops in the United States and France.”
The Social Demography Seminar (SDS) series at the Center for Population and Development Studies provides a lively forum for scholars from across the university to discuss in-progress social scientific and population research. Social demography includes work that uses demographic methods to describe and explain the distribution of social goods across populations. The hybrid series offers presentations on a wide variety of topics such as family, gender, race/ethnicity, population health—including mortality, morbidity, and functional health—inequality, immigration, fertility, and the institutional arrangements that shape and respond to population processes.
Speaker Information
Michael Zanger-Tishler, PhD
Organizers
Brown Bag Seminar: Advancing global mental health delivery: The role of digital innovation, task sharing, and reciprocal learning
Mental disorders are a leading cause of disability worldwide, yet in most countries, individuals living with mental disorders are more likely to have access to a mobile phone than basic mental health care. As digital technologies have fundamentally changed the way we interact with each other and with the world around us, there are new opportunities to leverage these devices for addressing the significant barriers to implementing and extending the reach of mental health services, and ultimately towards improving outcomes for those facing the challenges of mental illness. In this presentation, John Naslund will draw from his field research in both India and in the United States to illustrate how emerging digital technologies can advance task sharing and early intervention in both lower and higher income settings. Importantly, this involves shifting from ‘digital promise’ to ‘digital practice’, and realizing the impact of digital innovations in advancing mental health care delivery in real-world settings. Naslund will discuss the potential challenges and hurdles ahead and consider emerging innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) to advance implementation science and strengthen capacity of health systems, empower community providers, and combat stigma towards bridging the global mental health care gap.
John Naslund is co-director of the Mental Health For All Lab at Harvard Medical School, and faculty in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. He holds expertise in psychiatric epidemiology, implementation science, and digital mental health. Naslund’s scholarship seeks to advance efforts aimed at improving the lives of individuals facing the challenges of mental illness worldwide. His work focuses on low-resource settings in India and the U.S., using digital innovations to train frontline providers, support recovery in people with severe mental illness, and promote peer-to-peer support and mental health advocacy. Naslund’s work is supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the Harvard Global Health Institute Burke Fellowship, Grand Challenges Canada, the H.E. Butt Foundation, the Tepper Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust. Naslund has over 200 peer-reviewed publications and is an Honorary Research Fellow with Sangath, a world-leading NGO and research organization based in India. He has a longstanding track record advocating for the rights, dignity, and quality of healthcare for those living with mental illness.
Speaker Information
John Naslund
Organizers
Brown Bag Seminar: Measuring out-of-pocket health spending using household-reported survey data
Chunling Lu studied international relations (BA) and political science (MA) at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and sociology (MA) and applied statistics (MS) at Syracuse University, where she also received her PhD in economics. She received postdoctoral training on health care policy analysis at the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy, and joined the School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine in 2008 after three-years work at the Harvard Institute for Global Health as a senior research associate.
Speaker Information
Chunling Lu
Organizers
Brown Bag Seminar: Combating the health effects of extreme heat and air pollution in urban India
Amruta Nori-Sarma is an assistant professor of environmental health and population sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. As an environmental epidemiologist, Nori-Sarma studies the relationship between environmental exposures associated with climate change and health outcomes in vulnerable communities. Nori-Sarma aims to understand the impacts of interrelated extreme weather events on mental health across the US utilizing large claims datasets and also has an interest in evaluating the success of policies put in place to reduce the health impacts of climate change.
Additionally, Nori-Sarma serves as one of the leads of the CAFE RCC, the research coordinating center of the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative. CAFE, a joint effort with the BU School of Public Health, aims to bring together and amplify the work of a more diverse community of practice in climate and health.
Speaker Information
Organizers
Nourishing Humanity in the Age of Climate Change
20th Annual Stare-Hegsted Lecture
Dr. Jessica Fanzo, Professor of Climate and Food and Director of the Food for Humanity Initiative at Columbia University’s Climate School, serves as the distinguished speaker for the 20th Annual Stare-Hegsted Lecture.
Hosted by the Department of Nutrition, Dr. Fanzo’s talk on “Nourishing Humanity in the Age of Climate Change” will take place in Kresge G2 and via Zoom on October 20, 2025 at 4:00pm. This event is free and open to the public.
This annual lecture honors Drs. Fredrick Stare and Mark Hegsted, who were the founders of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 1942, which was the first department of nutrition in any medical center or school of public health in the U.S.
If you are not an HUID holder or need the Zoom link, please fill out this form in advance and our team will be in touch with further information.
Speaker Information
Dr. Jessica Fanzo
Organizers
Brown Bag Seminar: Mental health and psychosocial support for male former Yazidi child soldiers in northern Iraq: Gaps in humanitarian response and legal obligations
Serhat Yildirim, MD, MMSc, obtained his medical degree from Ghent University in Belgium and completed his master of medical sciences in global health delivery at Harvard Medical School as a Fulbright and Fayat Scholar. His research, under Theresa Betancourt, focused on mental health services for former Yazidi child soldiers in northern Iraq.
Yildirim is currently a research associate at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, working on reparations as a public health intervention, healthcare delivery in conflict zones, and immigration health. He has also participated in humanitarian missions in the Middle East and North Africa and is dedicated to advancing equity and the rights of vulnerable communities worldwide.
If you require a visitor’s pass and are not an HUID holder, please reach out to kploeg@hsph.harvard.edu.