Pressure Points is a webinar series co-hosted by The Studio and Executive and Continuing Education at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health bringing you inside the business of health care.
With its transformative power, AI already has changed the business of health care — but not without challenges and concerns. Join leaders in technology, health care, and academia for a transparent conversation about where AI is delivering real impact, where it’s falling short, and what the future may hold.
Register for free to submit your questions.
An on-demand video will be posted after the event.
Designed for professionals navigating today’s evolving health care landscape, Pressure Points explores the industry’s most urgent challenges—from workforce shifts and financial pressures to leadership, technology, and innovation. Join leading experts for timely conversations on what’s shaping the business of health care now—and what lies ahead.
Speakers
Moderator
Trishan Panch
About the Organizers
The Harvard Chan Studio is the hub for the School’s premier in-person and live-streamed events. We convene global leaders in health policy, advocacy, industry, and research for insightful conversations about public health’s most pressing challenges and most promising solutions.
Executive and Continuing Education
Strengthen your expertise and build new capabilities to address pressing healthcare and public health challenges. Learn from industry experts and esteemed Harvard faculty and join a global community of peers driven to creating a healthier world.
Brown Bag Seminar: Thyroid cancer prevention in radiological emergencies
Yoshitaka Nishikawa, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist, Takemi Fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and associate professor at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine. His work focuses on developing and disseminating health information to protect people from disasters and diseases, particularly cancer and gastrointestinal diseases. He leads two reporting guidelines: CAST-D (case studies in public health and medicine related to disasters) and WATER (wastewater analysis and tracking in epidemiological reporting). His Takemi project examines stable iodine implementation after radiological emergencies at individual, community, and national policy levels.
Speaker Information
Yoshitaka Nishikawa
Organizers
Brown Bag Seminar: The air we share: Lessons from a career in pulmonary and global health research
William Checkley is a physician-scientist and global health expert whose research focuses on chronic respiratory diseases, particularly chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). He is a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University with joint appointments in International Health and Biostatistics, and he directs the Center for Global Non-Communicable Disease Research and Training. He has authored >400 publications in peer-reviewed journals, with more than 24,000 citations and an h-index of 77.
Checkley’s work addresses the global burden of COPD, which disproportionately affects LMICs. His work spans a wide spectrum—from observational cohort studies identifying risk factors such as household air pollution and low lung growth and development, to randomized controlled trials testing interventions to improve disease outcomes in real-world settings. In collaboration with international partners, Checkley has led studies like the Global Excellence in COPD Outcomes (GECo) trial, which evaluates the effectiveness of community health worker-delivered self-management interventions for COPD in Nepal, Peru, and Uganda. These studies aim to improve COPD care in underserved populations. He has also developed and validated simple, cost-effective screening tools for COPD to facilitate early diagnosis and management in resource-limited settings.
Checkley is also committed to building research capacity in LMICs. He co-leads Fogarty International Center-funded training programs in Peru and elsewhere, focusing on environmental exposures and chronic pulmonary diseases, to mentor the next generation of researchers in these regions. Through his work, Checkley aims to reduce the global burden of chronic respiratory diseases by developing scalable, evidence-based interventions and fostering international collaborations.
Speaker Information
William Checkley
Organizers
Harvard Pop Center Social Demography Seminar: A demographic perspective on energy transitions: Linkages between population, land use, and economic dynamics in Malawi
Kate Beach, PhD, David E. Bell Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, presents “A demographic perspective on energy transitions: Linkages between population, land use, and economic dynamics in Malawi.”
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.
With the aim of disseminating scholarly research, The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies hosts a diverse array of speakers. They do not represent or speak for the Center, the School or the University, and hosting them does not imply endorsement of their views, organizations, or employers.
Speaker Information
Kate Beach, PhD
Organizers
Brown Bag Seminar: Threading policy and practice: Lessons from a primary healthcare project to address hepatitis in Vietnam and the Philippines
The STITCH project (Strengthening the Integrated Treatment and Care for Hepatitis) is a multi-country initiative to co-design, test, and scale a people-centered model of care for hepatitis B and C at the primary care level. In its fourth year, STITCH is beginning to influence national policies and programs, reflecting how pathways for translation and the perspectives of people with lived experience were built in from the start. This session will share emerging lessons on designing participatory and implementation research for sustained policy impact.
Bethany Holt is a global health practitioner currently serving as the Director of Health Systems Transformation and Partnerships at Harvard Medical School’s Program in Global Primary Health Care. In this role, she coordinates global research, education, advocacy and innovation initiatives to advance people-centered primary health care. Her portfolio includes co-leading the Lancet Global Health Commission on People-Centered Care and partnering with governments and communities to co-design and scale innovative care models, such as hepatitis services in Vietnam and the Philippines and community-based prevention of chronic illness in Thailand. She also leads the Program’s Scholar engagement and is passionate about engaging and mentoring students and trainees from diverse disciplines in community engagement and global health delivery.
Bethany brings a multi-disciplinary perspective gained over 10 years of work in the health and social impact sectors in the US, Australia and the Asia-Pacific. She applies knowledge and tools gained through experience as a physician, public health researcher, strategy consultant, and philanthropic development partner. Prior to her medical degree, for which she earned First Class Honours and the University Medal, Bethany studied international relations and economics. She graduated with an MPH in global health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which she attended on Fulbright Scholarship, and subsequently completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her academic focus is on health systems strengthening through implementation science, community partnership, and participatory methods.
Speaker Information
Bethany Holt
Organizers
Climate change: Seeking bipartisan solutions in turbulent times
Climate change poses an enormous threat to people worldwide. How can we most effectively address it? This program brings together Gina McCarthy, who led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama, and former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis for a dynamic conversation. They will discuss the merits of regulatory and free market solutions and explore opportunities to work across political divides. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to discover hopeful, pragmatic approaches to today’s most pressing environmental issues.
Register for free to submit your questions.
An on-demand video will be posted after the event.
Speakers
Bob Inglis
Gina McCarthy
Moderator
About The Studio
Breast Cancer Genome-Wide Association Studies: The End of the Beginning?
Join us on Wednesday, November 5 for the Epidemiology Seminar Series, featuring Dr. Peter Kraft discussing Breast Cancer Genome-Wide Association Studies: The End of the Beginning?
Abstract: Breast cancer clusters in families, but rare, high risk pathogenic variants in known genes like BRCA1 and BRCA2 explain only a small proportion of this familial aggregation. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified over 150 independent common variants associated with breast cancer incidence, but more risk variants remain to be found, in part because of the limited diversity of published GWAS. I describe the Confluence Project (https://confluence.cancer.gov/), a collaboration among multiple international consortia to conduct a breast cancer GWAS in over 450,000 cases and 1,300,000 controls, approximately tripling the overall sample size of the largest breast cancer GWAS to date and quadrupling the sample size in previously undersampled genetic ancestry groups. I discuss governance, computing, and analytic issues raised by such large and diverse data, including approaches to conducting multi-ancestry GWAS and fine-mapping analyses. I also discuss the opportunities provided by integrating well-powered GWAS with emerging experimental genomic annotations and multimodal pathological characterization of tumors. Separately, I provide an update on the Connect for Cancer Prevention Cohort (https://www.cancer.gov/connect-prevention-study/) and its plans for broad data sharing.
Bio: Dr. Kraft is the Director of the Trans-Divisional Research Program in the NCI’s intramural Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. He provides strategic leadership to transdisciplinary research teams across the Division, helping identify and shape new research opportunities and oversees data platforms and tools that enable collaboration. Dr. Kraft’s research focuses on devising and applying statistical techniques to large-scale observational studies of genetic and circulating biomarkers, with particular emphasis on studies understanding the joint contribution of germline DNA variation, environmental exposures and biomarkers to risk of complex disease. He has contributed to multiple international consortia studying genetics and other exposures in relation to cancer risk over the last twenty years. Prior to joining DCEG, Dr. Kraft was Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health from 2003-2023. He remains an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School.
Speaker Information
Peter Kraft, PhD
Organizers
Related Events
Blood Drive – Harvard Chan Community Day of Service
Sign up by searching sponsor code HARVARDCHAN
As part of the Harvard Chan Community Day of Service, sign up to donate blood with the American Red Cross on Tuesday, September 30th from 10:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m. Event is located on the second floor of Kresge in the student lounge.
Organizers
Zoom Town Hall with Dean Baccarelli
Dean Andrea Baccarelli will be hosting a Zoom Town Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 1 from 1-2 p.m. Please share your questions in advance using this form.
Log in on Wednesday at 1 p.m. at this link: https://hsph.me/town-hall
Speaker Information
Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD
Organizers
Harvard Chan Community Day of Service
Please register now to join the Harvard Chan Community Day of Service on Monday, Sept. 29.
This is an annual event that brings together our full community—students, staff, faculty, trainees, and other academic appointees—to work side by side supporting nonprofits and neighborhood groups that are tackling social determinants of health across Boston.
We have lined up more than 20 service projects on campus and across Boston to address social determinants of health.
Most projects will take place on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, but we also have some activities the previous weekend—and, new this year, we will be hosting a Red Cross Blood Drive on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025.
Whether you can spare a few minutes or a few hours, you can contribute in meaningful ways. Many of the projects and the Blood Drive have a limited number of slots, so sign up soon!
Please carefully review the dates, times, and locations before signing up — and mark the information on your calendar!
You will be responsible for your own transportation to the project sites; most are easily accessible on public transit.
You can sign up for more than one project, but please be mindful that slots are limited, so please sign up only for activities you have every intention of joining.