Team

Dr Rifat Atun is Professor of Global Health Systems at Harvard University and the Director of The Health System Innovation Lab. In 2015-2023 he was the Faculty Chair for the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. He is a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Faculty and Member of the Harvard University Asia Center Steering Committee and Council.

Professor Atun is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Fukushima University in Japan. In 2006-13, Dr. Atun was Professor of International Health Management and Head of the Health Management Group at Imperial College London. In 2008-12 he served as a member of the Executive Management Team of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as the Director of Strategy, Performance and Evaluation Cluster, where he chaired the panel that oversaw investments of around $4billion each year in more than 120 countries.

Professor Atun’s research has two major strands. The first examines health systems performance and how health systems reforms impact on outcomes. The second strand of research explores adoption and diffusion of innovations in health systems (e.g., health technologies, disease control programmes, and primary healthcare reforms), and innovative financing in global health. Prof. Atun is a co-Investigator and the joint lead for the innovation work stream at the National Centre for Infection Preventi…

Dr Reddy is a physician, Associate Director at the Health Systems Innovation Lab, and Research Associate within the Global Health Systems Cluster at Harvard University. Previously, he was a Fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital in the Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery and a postdoctoral Paul Farmer researcher in the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard Medical School.

Within the Lab, Dr Reddy is responsible for the innovation and translation portfolio, including the annual HSIL Venture Incubation Program and Hackathon, and several high-impact research projects and multinational collaborations in comparative health systems that analyze health system performance, transition to the Harvard High Value Health System model, and the adoption and diffusion of healthcare ventures and innovations in health systems. His research has been published in The Lancet, British Medical Journal, and Lancet Digital Health, among others.  He uses his research to inform strategy for the design, introduction, and scale-up of innovations and healthcare ventures into health systems — for large scale population level impact in relation to surgery, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer, with a focus on BRICS and G20+ Nations.

He has served as the Lead Teaching Fellow for Harvard Graduate and Executive Education level courses, including Innovation and Global Health Systems (2019-2022), Fundamentals of Global Health (2020-2022), Leadership Development in Glo…

Dr Ward is the Associate Director of Research and is a decision scientist with research interests in computational science and global health. His research has been published in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet Oncology, and Health Affairs. He is also the author of Amua, an open source modeling framework and probabilistic programming language.

Zach is a Research Scientist at the Center for Health Decision Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and graduated from the Ph.D. Program in Health Policy at Harvard University in 2021, with a concentration in Decision Sciences and a secondary field in Computational Science and Engineering. He received his undergraduate degree in Global Health Management from Seattle Pacific University and his Masters of Public Health from l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique (EHESP) in Paris, with a concentration in Epidemiology…

Dr. Caroline Bulstra’s research at the Health Systems Innovation Lab focuses on optimizing healthcare delivery for chronic diseases. She earned her PhD at Erasmus University Rotterdam, applying geospatial modeling to optimize prevention and control strategies for HIV, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases. Next to her work the Health Systems Innovation Lab, Caroline leads the “Global Health Systems and Planetary Health” group at the Heidelberg Institute for Global Health and has consulted for UN organizations including the World Bank, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization.

Her research has been published in journals such as the Lancet HIV, Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, Nature Communications, and PLOS Medicine. She holds graduate degrees in Veterinary Medicine and Epidemiology from Utrecht University and Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Dr. Jake Figi undertook his pre-clinical and clinic medical training at University College London (UCL). During this time he also gained his BSc in Medical Sciences with Surgical Science. Through the COVID-19 pandemic he worked across medical wards at Barnet Hospital and on the ICU at The Royal Free Hospital in London providing frontline care. After finishing his foundation medical training in the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, he moved to Boston to complete a Master of Public Health (MPH) at the Harvard School of Public Health in the Clinical Effectiveness field of study, with dual concentrations in Public Health Leadership and Health Communication.

Jake first joined HSIL during medical school as a research scholar and now continues his work at The Lab as a postdoctoral research fellow, leading the Global Collaborative for Changing Diabetes in Children and working on The Lancet Oncology Commission on Cancer in the Commonwealth, the Global Collaborative on Health Systems Performance, and various other projects. His key academic interests include high-value health systems, NCD delivery optimization, global surgery, and trauma surgery. Outside of his academic work, Jake is a former rower for ULBC and skier.

Caleb Kumar is an AI researcher with a background in biostatistics and machine learning. He earned his B.S. from Stanford University and an M.S. from the Stanford School of Medicine. As an undergraduate, Caleb founded VesaliusMed, a company focused on real-time cell recognition AI technology, which was acquired in 2021. His work spans across AI-driven healthcare tools, generative models, and multi-source data pipelines. Caleb’s current focus is building public health analysis tools at the lab, where he develops innovative systems that empower policymakers to generate evidence-based insights for health systems improvement.

Dr. Alessandro Bigoni is a Research Scholar at the Health Systems Innovation Lab, an Evidence Manager at Novartis, and an Associate Researcher at Fundação Getulio Vargas’s São Paulo School of Business Administration. Previously, he was a Senior Consultant at IQVIA Brazil, and a Fulbright Scholar at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the Global Health and Population Department. At the Lab, Dr. Bigoni oversees and leads key research projects aimed at improving health system performance in Brazil. His research leverages large, publicly available datasets to generate national-level studies to inform public policies around the Brazilian health system.

Dr Gabriela Borin is a Physical Therapist from Brazil. She received her undergraduate and Master of Science degrees from Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Brazil. She graduated from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2021 with a Masters in Public Health. She then did her PhD at University of Massachusetts, School of Public Health & Health Science, Amherst, USA, with a concentration in Kinesiology.

Gabriela has over 10 years of experience in clinical healthcare and academic research. She worked in public and private healthcare institutions in Brazil and Chile. She has been involved in research projects in Latin America that analyze social determinants of health, non-communicable diseases, health systems performance and innovations in health systems.

Dorit Talia Stein is a global health policy and systems researcher studying health systems performance in low- and middle-income countries. In her work, she applies methods from decision science, economics, and epidemiology to inform global health policy and priority setting. Dorit holds a PhD in Health Systems from Harvard University, an SM in Global Health and Population from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a BS in Human Biology and Society and Public Policy from UCLA.

Dr. Karima Ladhani is a health systems innovator committed to advancing systemic change from strategic policy to community-centered interventions for maternal and newborn care in low-resource settings. As the Founder of Barakat Bundle, she develops life-saving, sustainable solutions for mothers and infants in South Asia. Dr. Ladhani leads a global consulting practice partnering with universities and social enterprises in health innovation and international development. She is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Georgetown University and formerly led Program Management and Research at the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. Dr. Ladhani holds a PhD and MPH from Harvard and degrees in math and business administration from Canada, with honors from LinkedIn, WeWork, Aspen Ideas Festival, and Johnson & Johnson for healthcare impact.

Dr. Salim Afshar is a surgeon, educator, and healthcare innovator whose work bridges clinical care, systems thinking, and emerging technologies. As AI Translation Lead at the Health Systems Innovation Lab, he helps executives and health system leaders ask the right questions to translate emerging capabilities—such as artificial intelligence—into strategies that reflect their unique constraints and goals. 
 
As a faculty member, Dr. Afshar has contributed to global surgical systems strengthening, including support for Zambia’s first National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anesthesia Strategic Plan. He has led innovation initiatives in diverse settings and founded Surgathons—collaborative hackathons that have engaged over 1,500 multidisciplinary students across India and Rwanda to design locally driven healthcare solutions.
 
Dr. Afshar previously served as a surgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he cared for patients with rare conditions and vascular anomalies. Over the course of his career, he has treated more than 6,000 patients. He draws on this clinical foundation—together with his experience as a founder, entrepreneur, and industry leader—to guide the thoughtful and practical translation of emerging technologies into healthcare systems and ecosystems globally.

Dr. Hugh Pearson is a Kennedy Scholar and recent graduate of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he earned a Master of Public Health in Health Management. At the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab, he leads methodological research validating large language models (LLMs) for use in political narrative analysis. His current project applies this framework to a 69,000-article, 42-year corpus of NHS discourse, building reproducible pipelines to detect shifts in tone, framing, and political alignment across media and parliamentary texts.

He also supports the Lab’s partnership with the Global Health Policy Lab, developing comparative analysis frameworks and overseeing the creation of an LLM-powered tool to benchmark national oncology and cardiovascular disease strategies across 86 countries, streamlining policy analysis for ministries and NGOs.

Previously a medical doctor in the UK, Hugh served as Deputy Chair of the British Medical Association’s Scottish Council and led Scotland’s first physician strike ballot. He was a lead negotiator in securing a landmark $166M pay agreement with the Scottish Government, reversing years of real-terms pay erosion and embedding inflation-linked increases. He remains committed to revitalising health systems through rigorous evidence, responsible technology, and politically literate reform.

Aminu Osman Alem is a physician from Ghana, and global health researcher currently based at the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab, where he leads initiatives on health systems performance, innovation, and policy translation. He holds an MPH in Global Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an MBBS from Hebei North University, China. His work with HSIL spans the Hackathon, Venture Incubation Program, Health Systems Performance Visualizer tool, implementation research, the Lancet Commission on Cancer in the Commonwealth, and the Global Collaborative on Health Systems Performance.
Prior to his current role, Dr. Alem has led national and international efforts focused on malnutrition reduction, telemedicine adoption, and clinician capacity building. He is deeply committed to addressing health disparities and leveraging innovation to drive sustainable healthcare solutions, with a focus on advancing equitable and sustainable health reforms.

Dr. Catharine Young is a globally recognized leader in innovation and health policy, with a track record of scaling transformative initiatives. As Assistant Director for Policy and International Engagement for the Biden Cancer Moonshot at the White House OSTP, she shaped national and international cancer strategies, launched federal policies, and secured multi-billion-dollar commitments.

Born in South Africa, Dr. Young’s immigrant journey fuels her commitment to health equity. She led the SHEPHERD Foundation, driving rare cancer research and policy reform, and has advanced AI, data sharing, and clinical trial reform to accelerate cancer breakthroughs.

Her leadership extends into national security, where she strengthened global biosurveillance and biosecurity at the U.S. Department of Defense, helping lead the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak. She has also fostered international research collaborations as Senior Director of Science Policy at the Biden Cancer Initiative and Senior Science Advisor at the British Embassy.

A Presidential Leadership Scholar, National Academies New Voices Fellow, and TED Fellow, Dr. Young holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences and completed postdoctoral work in Biomedical Engineering at Cornell. She is renowned for bridging science, policy, and advocacy to build impactful health ecosystems.

Elizabeth is a second-year Master of Science of Public Health (MSPH) student studying Health Systems at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. At HSIL, she is excited to positively contribute to the work on value-based care and combine her interests in quality of care and global surgery to develop high value models of surgical care. Before joining Johns Hopkins, she completed her BSc in Neuroscience and Economics at the University of Toronto. Elizabeth is interested at the intersection of global health, policy, healthcare access, and global surgery, investigating quality and access to surgical care in low resource settings. In the future she aims to become a practicing global surgeon, engaging in clinical care and supporting health systems and policy interventions.

Yuhao Kong is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, China. Her research focuses on the social determinants of maternal and child health, tobacco control, and health inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. She has published in high-impact journals, including The Lancet Public Health, The Lancet Global Health, and eClinicalMedicine. Additionally, she is involved in several tobacco control projects in collaboration with the Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Senthujan Senkaiahliyan is a dedicated healthcare administrator with a proven track record in AI integration within healthcare systems. Currently leading the AI team at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, Senthujan has also excelled in healthcare board governance and collaborated closely with community health center boards. His diverse background spans computer science, health services utilization/management, program evaluation, and medical anthropology.

Senthujan’s accomplishments include pioneering the CIHR AI4PH internship program, driving AI and public health capacity building across Canada. With a keen interest in health services research, AI implementation, and high-value health systems, he seeks to contribute to learning how to build resilient and high value healthcare systems and learn about value-based healthcare principles through his role as a Research Scholar at Harvard.

Shaoru Chen is a Ph.D. student at the Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, specializing in global health. Her research focuses on health challenges faced by vulnerable populations, particularly women and children in low- and middle-income countries. She has published her findings in prominent journals, including Lancet Public Health, Lancet Global Health, and JAMA Network Open. Shaoru has also played a  role in the Tsinghua-Lancet Commission Report on Health and Poverty Alleviation in China, where she evaluated how poverty reduction policies influence the management of chronic diseases.

Shang Lou is a MPH student at the Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, China. Shang’s research centers on global health, with a particular focus on gender equality, women’s empowerment, and adolescent health. Proficient in data science, he applies advanced causal inference techniques to assess the impact of global policies on health outcomes. Shang is eager to contribute to the HSIL pioneering work and drive meaningful change in the health sector.

Yixuan Zhang is a Master of Public Health student at Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, China, with a strong interdisciplinary background that includes engineering and economics. She has a deep interest in Global Health, particularly focusing on health and poverty, maternal and child health, and the intersection of economic policies with health outcomes. Yixuan has collaborated with Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab as a student intern on research related to fiscal space study in Lancet Commission Cancer in the Commonwealth, aiming to explore sustainable health financing solutions. Her previous work includes contributing to the Tsinghua-Lancet Commission Report on Health and Poverty Alleviation in China, where she used data science tools to analyze policy impact and explore the correlation between poverty alleviation programs and national economic systems.

Jonathan F. Gong is the Clinical Research Coordinator of the Division of Spine Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His professional interests lie at the intersection of health disparities, precision medicine, health systems development, biomedical research, and medical humanities. Prior to Boston, Jonathan earned a BS in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he completed his honors research thesis in developmental neurobiology and ophthalmology. Jonathan is excited to be a part of the Health Systems Innovation Lab and aims to learn how data science, policy, economics, and public-private sector collaboration are bridged to improve healthcare delivery. In the future, Jonathan plans to attend medical school.

Ryan Gidda is a resident doctor in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS), based in Edinburgh, and a recent medical graduate from the University of Oxford. He also holds a BA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Ryan’s research focuses on leveraging digital strategies to optimize healthcare system operations. He is currently working on improving patient flow through digital solutions in Edinburgh hospitals. At HSIL, Ryan has contributed to projects on high-value health systems, with a focus on digital data systems and healthcare analytics. His clinical interests also include the surgical management of traumatic brain injuries and craniofacial disorders in pediatric populations. In his spare time, Ryan enjoys playing guitar, producing music, and hiking in the Scottish Highlands.

Shulan is a Data Analyst at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. At HSIL, she contributes to research on health system performance, focusing on care and health outcomes assessment and policy innovations. She holds an MSPH in International Health Systems from Johns Hopkins and a BS in Public Health Science from the University of Maryland. With field experience in China, Ethiopia, and South Africa, she has worked on projects related to infectious disease screening, clinical trials, and primary healthcare. Having traveled to over 50 countries, she integrates global insights with data-driven analysis to strengthen health systems in LMICs.

Smitha is pursuing a Master of Public Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with a focus on health policy. She also holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore and is trained in Economics. As a Senior Consultant for Deloitte Consulting, she advised key payors on expanding value-based care capabilities to improve care delivery. It was this experience that cultivated in her, a curiosity of policy-led positive market behavior in health systems. At Chan, Smitha intends to learn how financing and payment design can strengthen systems. She is passionate about leveraging her prior experiences to boost market access that can improve care outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

Dr Britt Suann is a Western Australian doctor from Boorloo/Perth with interests in health system equity, child protection and climate change. She is a 2024/25 Fulbright scholar and Frank Knox fellow and is pursuing a career in public health. 

Lauren is studying History of Science and Economics at Harvard College as a member of the class of 2025. She is interested in healthcare system development and health policy. Prior to her position at the Health Systems Innovation Lab, Lauren has worked as a Health Policy and Advocacy intern at Fenway Health, a Boston community health center, and as a research assistant with the Maternal Health Task Force at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. At the lab, Lauren is working on projects related to integrated healthcare delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa to address the rise of noncommunicable disease.

Emefa Dake is a Research Intern at the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab (HSIL), specializing in health systems performance research. She plays a key role in supporting the Latin America branch of the Data Collaborative on Health Systems Performance, driving insights that enhance healthcare efficiency and impact.

She is a sophomore at Harvard University, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy and Spanish. She has a strong background in health economics and policy research, with prior experience at the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda, where she did research on maternal and child health policies. She is also an Undergraduate Prize Fellow at the Joint Center for History and Economics, where she explores the intersection of Ghanaian economic history and the healthcare system.

Beyond her research, Emefa serves as the President of the Harvard Undergraduate Economics Association and the President of the Harvard Undergraduate Foreign Policy Initiative, overseeing major administrative, research, and consulting initiatives. She is passionate about quantitative health systems research, and development economics, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Her technical skills include proficiency in R, SPSS/PSPP, Stata, Excel, RedCap, and Covidence, and she has intermediate proficiency in Spanish.

Dr Michael Head co-created and leads on the Research Investments in Global Health study, running since 2008. This project has produced numerous high-impact written outputs in Lancet and Nature journals, along with repeated requests to present the findings at the WHO, European Commission and Wellcome Trust. His work is cited in multiple policy documents by the WHO and the World Bank. Michael also has a portfolio of studies covering population health in rural Ghana, working on topics including neglected tropical diseases and food insecurity, and is an experienced media communicator.

Anbang Du is a postgraduate researcher in Computer Science at the University of Southampton, specializing in the intersection of the science of science, health informatics, and statistical physics. He holds a BSc and MSc in Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics, and Economics (MORSE) from the University of Warwick, as well as an MSc in Data Science from the University of Southampton. 

Omar is the CEO of Bourne Health, a leading UK primary care organisation, and Founder & Executive Chairman of 31G, a global health-tech venture. He has extensive experience in health-tech, M&A, and strategic transformation, having played a key role in the largest exit in UK primary care history. As former CEO of the UK’s largest primary care provider, he co-led its acquisition by Centene Corp and led the scale-up and operational delivery of NHS services nationwide.

With 20 years in digital transformation, Omar co-founded multiple platforms, including a leading UK telehealth platform and a national population health analytics platform. He holds an MBA and an MSc in Digital Health Leadership from Imperial and Harvard Medical School. Omar is an Honorary Researcher at Oxford, a Health Exec in Residence at UCL, and serves as a board advisor and strategic consultant to global healthcare and life sciences organisations, advancing research, technology, and healthcare delivery.

Zhihui Li is an Associate Professor at the Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University. She earned both her master’s and doctoral degrees from the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her primary research areas include global health governance, social determinants of health, and risk stratification in populations from low- and middle-income countries. Dr. Li has published over 50 academic articles, with her first- or corresponding-author works in the past five years featured in leading international journals such as The Lancet Public Health, The Lancet Global Health, and PLOS Medicine, with over 3,000 citations. She has been invited to establish overseas research bases in Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, where she guided local communities, hospitals, and academic institutions in identifying and intervening with high-risk populations. Additionally, as a co-chair, Dr. Li co-led the “Tsinghua-Lancet Commission on Health and Poverty Alleviation Program in China” Commission Report. She also serves as the co-chair for the World Health Forum-Youth Forum and the chair of the Liver Health Innovation Forum.

Zia is an avid global health advocate, reformer, and strategic thinker with extensive experience in strategy and management consulting, change, and technology. Over the course of his career, he has worked with global organizations and managed several transformational initiatives. His focus in global health is on health systems reforms, evidence-based decision-making, universal health coverage (UHC), health economics, and health finance within LMICs, G20 nations, and humanitarian settings. Zia holds an MS in Management from UT Dallas, an MBA from Duke University – Fuqua School of Business, and an MPH from Yale University – Yale School of Public Health.