Patrick Vinck

Biography

Dr. Vinck, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health and in the Department of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School. He is also the Research Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He leads a team conducting research on resilience, peacebuilding, and social cohesion in contexts of mass violence, conflicts and natural disasters, with support from the Mac Arthur Foundation, UNDP and UNICEF among others. This research has lead him to examine the role of technology and ethics of data in the field. He is the co-founder and director of KoBoToolbox a digital data collection platform, and the Data-Pop Alliance, a Big Data partnership with MIT and ODI. Dr. Vinck served on the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) form 2010 to 2017. He serves as a regular advisor and evaluation consultant to the United Nations and other agencies. He graduated as an engineer in applied biological sciences from Gembloux Agricultural University (Belgium), and holds a Ph.D. in International Development from Tulane University.

Publications

• Innovative Strategies for Remotely Sampling Hard-to-Reach Populations: Assessing Phone Versus Internet Respondent-Driven Sampling Approaches Among Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants in Colombia.

  Pham PN, Johnston LG, Keegan K, Wei C, Vinck P. Am J Epidemiol 2023 10 10

• Challenges in humanitarian response implementation: a large-scale review of aid worker perspectives.

  Bollettino V, Isely R, Nyarko G, Rudnicki C, Rehmani K, Stoddard H, Vinck P. Disasters 2024

• Understanding the barriers and facilitators of COVID-19 risk mitigation strategy adoption and COVID-19 vaccination in refugee settlements in Uganda: a qualitative study.

  Klabbers RE, Muwonge TR, Ajidiru S, Borthakur S, Mujugira A, Sharma M, Vinck P, Pham P, Celum C, Parkes-Ratanshi R, O'Laughlin KN. BMC Public Health 2023 07 20

• COVID-19-related mental health challenges and opportunities perceived by mental health providers in the Philippines.

  Bollettino V, Foo CYS, Stoddard H, Daza M, Sison AC, Teng-Calleja M, Vinck P. Asian J Psychiatr 2023

• Leveraging interactive voice response technology to mitigate COVID-19 risk in refugee settlements in Uganda: Lessons learned implementing "Dial-COVID" a toll-free mobile phone symptom surveillance and information dissemination tool.

  Klabbers RE, Muwonge TR, Pham P, Mujugira A, Vinck P, Borthakur S, Sharma M, Mohammed N, Parkes-Ratanshi R, Celum C, O'Laughlin KN. PLoS One 2025