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Human Health Spotlight

  • by Emily Jajeh

This post is spotlighting two influential individuals in human health: Dr. Atul Gawande and Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika. Both of these individuals have held long, multidisciplinary careers in human health, and both have held positions in federal departments/agencies. Dr. Gawande served as Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development and was a member of President Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board1. Dr. Kumanyika served as Vice Chair for he United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Advisory Committee for Healthy Promotion and Disease Prevention from 2008 to 20112. 

Dr. Atul Gawande

picture of dr atul gawande
Academic History

B.A.S. (1987) from Stanford University, an M.A. (1989) from the University of Oxford, an M.D. (1995) from Harvard Medical School, and an M.P.H. (1999) from Harvard School of Public Health3.

Bio

“Dr. Atul Gawande is the Assistant Administrator for Global Health at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he oversees a bureau...committed to advancing equitable delivery of public health approaches around the world...Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, he was a practicing surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a professor at the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is the founder and was the chair of Ariadne Labs...and of Lifebox...he was also the CEO of Haven...a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and has written four New York Times best-selling books”5.

Recent Publications

Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika

picture of dr shiriki kumanyika
Academic History

Psychology (BA, Syracuse University), Social Work (MS, Columbia University), Human Nutrition (PhD, Cornell University) and Public Health/Epidemiology (MPH, Johns Hopkins University)4.

Bio

"Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika is emeritus professor of epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She...holds advanced degrees in social work, nutrition, and public health. During her tenure on the Penn Medicine faculty...[she] served as the Associate Dean for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, held a secondary appointment as Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Pediatrics (Division of Gastroenterology, Nutrition Section), and was affiliated with numerous Penn institutes and centers. She was the Founding Director of Penn's interdisciplinary, multi-school Master of Public Health program... [her] research focuses on identifying effective strategies to reduce nutrition-related chronic disease risks, with a particular focus on achieving health equity for black Americans. Dr. Kumanyika founded (in 2002) and led the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network (AACORN)...until 2018 when AACORN...rebranded as the Council on Black Health (www.councilbh.org). She was Vice-Chair of the HHS Secretary's Advisory Committee on Healthy People 2020 objectives, is a past president of the American Public Health Association and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and current chair of the NAM Food and Nutrition Board. Dr. Kumanyika is also a nutrition advisor to the World Health Organization and the World Cancer Research Fund, and Chair of the Expert Group for the Access to Nutrition Initiative"6.

Recent Publications

References

1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande

2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiriki_Kumanyika

3https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2006/atul-gawande

4https://www.worldobesity.org/training-and-events/scope/fellowship/professor-shiriki-kumanyika#:~:text=Professor%20Shiriki%20Kumanyika%20was%20born,MPH%2C%20Johns%20Hopkins%20University).

5https://milkeninstitute.org/events/future-health-summit-2024/speakers/atul-gawande#:~:text=Dr.,Checklist%20Manifesto%2C%20and%20Being%20Mortal.

6https://www.med.upenn.edu/apps/faculty/index.php/g275/p10186

Tags

One Health and GDB