Team

Gaurab Basu, MD, MPH is a primary care physician and Director of Education and Policy at Harvard Chan C-CHANGE. He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Global Health & Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His work focuses on the intersection of climate change, global health equity, human rights, medical education, and public policy. He practices internal medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA).

Basu has developed and evaluated numerous innovative health equity curricular programs. He is the faculty director of the HMS Climate Change, Environment and Health curricular theme, the faculty co-lead of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health Climate Change and Planetary Health interdisciplinary concentration, and co-founded the CHA Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy. He serves on the Harvard University Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability Standing Committee on Climate Education. Basu received the inaugural HMS Equity, Social Justice, and Advocacy Faculty Award and the HMS Charles McCabe Faculty Prize in Excellence. He has been a HMS Curtis Prout Academy Fellow and a Harvard Macy Scholar.

In 2021, 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 …

Caleb Dresser is Assistant Director of the Fellowship in Climate and Human Health, Climate MD Program Lead at Harvard C-CHANGE, an Emergency Medicine Attending at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and an Instructor at Harvard Medical School.

Dresser is affiliated with the Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and CrisisReady. His research focuses on understanding the public health and healthcare implications of climate-related extreme weather events, and he is actively involved in efforts to educate healthcare workers, policymakers, and the general public about the value of action to protect human health in the context of the ongoing climate crisis.

Dresser was the inaugural Fellow in Climate and Human Health in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (2019 to 2021) and is a graduate of the Master of Public Health program at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed his medical education at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and his residency in Emergency Medicine through the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Amruta Nori-Sarma, PhD 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 U.S., utilizing large claims datasets. She 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 Boston University School of Public Health, aims to bring together and amplify the work of a more diverse community of practice in climate and health.

Catharina Giudice is a Climate and Human Health Fellow at Harvard Chan C-CHANGE and an emergency physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She is interested in how climate events such as storms, floods, heat waves, and wildfires affect delivery of health care and how to enhance preparedness and resilience.

Giudice obtained her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, before earning her medical degree from the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Subsequently, she completed her training in Emergency Medicine in Los Angeles. There she witnessed the worst heat waves and wildfires in Southern California’s history, which put an already overburdened healthcare system under immense strain during the COVID-19 pandemic. This experience motivated her to purse a climate fellowship and seek innovative solutions to improve healthcare facilities’ ability to cope with climate event.

Prior to fellowship, Giudice was involved in numerous local healthcare sustainability initiatives and helped establish the sustainability committee at one of the largest public hospitals in the United States. She is a member of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and has served as vice chair of the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association (EMRA). Giudice has also contributed to medical education curriculua on the health effects of climate change which are now accessible on open platforms like Aliem.

Throughout her fellowship, Giu…

Wenli Ni is a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Chan C-CHANGE. Her research interests lie in understanding how climate change affects health in both children and adults, as well as the overlapping impacts of climate change and air pollution.

Previously, Ni was a postdoctoral research fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. She obtained her PhD in environmental epidemiology from Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich and Helmholtz Munich in Germany. During her doctoral journey, Ni investigated the effects of air temperature on cardiovascular disease, focusing on underlying mechanisms such as DNA methylation, proteomics, and epigenetic aging. As a visiting PhD researcher at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, she examined the associations between air temperature, air pollution, and myocardial infarction hospitalizations using comprehensive Swedish nationwide registry data.

Throughout her career, Ni has remained passionately committed to advancing research in climate-related health, continuously contributing to knowledge in this critical field.

Skye Flanigan oversees community engagement, educational programs, and strategic partnerships at Harvard Chan C-CHANGE. With Harvard since 2014, she previously managed the Healthy Buildings Program and researched how indoor environments’ impact health and productivity. She holds a Master’s degree from Harvard and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Denver. Flanigan’s diverse background spans teaching, environmental consulting, and event planning. She loves the outdoors and advocating for health and sustainability.

Marcy Franck has launched communications campaigns to raise awareness and inspire action for over 20 years. At Harvard Chan C-CHANGE she helps scientists translate their research into stories that make climate change personal, actionable, and urgent, and works with the small but mighty comms team to ensure they reach the people at the right time.

Anna Miller leads the media and external communication strategy at Harvard Chan C-CHANGE, translating the Center’s research into messages that are actionable, accessible, and personal. She works with the media, policymakers, health care providers, and researchers to turn science into climate action that improves health. Miller received her Master’s in Public Health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2019.

Kim Nguyen joined Harvard Chan C-CHANGE in 2017 and serves as senior financial associate. Nguyen provides Financial/Pre & Post-award management for the Center and supports financial services for the Department of Environmental Health. Prior to joining Harvard, Nguyen worked as a finance specialist at the American Cancer Society for 21 years. She graduated from Bunker Hill Community College with an Associate of Science in Accounting degree in 2001.

Tracy Sachs joined Harvard Chan C-CHANGE in 1999 and has served as its Administrative Director since 2010. Sachs is a strategic thought-partner with the Center’s leadership and maximizes and strengthens its programming and capacity. She leads and develops an internal team that supports the Center’s finance, human resources, and general operations. In 2010, she received the Dean’s Award for Leadership in the Advancement of Women Staff.

Sweta Waghela is the Climate Resilient Clinics Project coordinator at Harvard Chan C-CHANGE. She collaborates with frontline health clinics, researchers, and organizations to center patients in climate resilience efforts, aiming to prevent foreseeable harms from the climate crisis. She holds a Master of Public Health from George Washington University and has worked as the health equity fellow at ecoAmerica and interned in Uganda to work on sustainable health practices and community education.

Howard Frumkin, a physician and epidemiologist, is Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington. Previously he was head of the Our Plant, Our Health initiative at the Wellcome Trust in London (2018-19), Dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health (2010-16), Director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2005-10), and Professor and Chair of Environmental and Occupational Health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health (1990-2005).

Frumkin’s research interests include health aspects of the built environment, climate change, energy policy, nature contact, and sustainability. He has served on numerous boards and advisory committees. He is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific journal articles and chapters, and his nine books include Making Healthy Places: Designing and Building for Health, Well-Being, and Sustainability (Island Press, 2011), Environmental Health: From Global to Local (Jossey-Bass, 3rd Edition 2016), and Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves (Island Press, 2020). He received his AB from Brown University, his MD from the University of Pennsylvania, his MPH and DrPH from Harvard University.

J. Nadine Gracia is the President and CEO of Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), a nonprofit, nonpartisan public health policy, research and advocacy organization in Washington, DC that promotes optimal health for every person and community. Gracia is a national health equity leader with extensive leadership and management experience in federal government, the nonprofit sector, academia, and professional associations. Before being appointed president and CEO, she served as TFAH’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Prior to joining TFAH, Gracia served in the Obama Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health and Director of the Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In that capacity, she directed departmental policies and programs to end health disparities and advance health equity, and provided executive leadership on administration priorities including the Affordable Care Act and My Brother’s Keeper. Previously, she served as Chief Medical Officer in the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, where her portfolio included adolescent health, emergency preparedness, environmental health and climate change, global health, and the White House Council on Women and Girls. Prior to that role, she was appointed as a White House fellow at HHS and worked in the Office of the First Lady on the development of the Let’s Move! initiative to solve childhood obesity.

Graci…

Howard K. Koh is the Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health as well as a member of the faculty executive committee of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative. In these roles, he advances interdisciplinary leadership education and training at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as well as across Harvard University. He also serves as the inaugural chair of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Initiative on Health and Homelessness and co-director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality and Religion at Harvard University. Previously at Harvard Chan School (2003-2009), he was associate dean for public health practice and director of the School’s Center for Public Health Preparedness.

From 2009-2014, Koh was the 14th assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), after being nominated by President Barack Obama and being confirmed by the U.S. Senate. During that time, he oversaw 12 core public health offices, including the Office of the Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, 10 regional health offices across the nation, and 10 presidential and secretarial advisory committees. He served as senior public health advisor to the HHS Secretary and in that capacity oversaw Healthy People 2020 (the nation’s public health agenda), promoted the disease prevention and public health …

Jeff Nesbit is the executive director of Climate Nexus, a non-profit communications organization that works on climate and clean energy issues and solutions. He was the director of legislative and public affairs at the National Science Foundation during the Bush and Obama administrations, where he helped craft the legislative and public affairs strategy that led to the passage of the bipartisan America COMPETES Act.

Nesbit was also former Vice President Dan Quayle’s communications director at the White House, and former FDA Commissioner David Kessler’s public affairs chief at the Food and Drug Administration, where he was instrumental in the agency’s successful efforts to regulate the tobacco industry and ban the marketing of cigarettes to children. He was a national journalist with Knight-Ridder newspapers and others prior to that, and currently writes regular opinion pieces for The New York Times, Time and U.S. News & World Report. He’s written multiple books and novels, including THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS and POISON TEA with Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.