Heather Olden

Heather OldenHeather Olden, ’24
From: Durham, NC
Degrees Held: MPH, University of Michigan
BS, Hampton University
Email: holden@hsph.harvard.edu


Heather A. Olden, originally from Durham, N.C., is a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) student at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She earned a Bachelor of Science with honors in molecular biology from Hampton University, in Hampton, Va., and a Master of Public Health in international health epidemiology from the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor. In her former role as an Epidemiologist in Detroit, MI, Heather specialized in patient and community engagement, strategic planning, program development and management, and qualitative data collection and analysis. She has presented at numerous national academic and patient advocacy conferences and consulted with health systems across the country on how to effectively entrench patient and community engagement into complex organizational structures.

Her research interests are centered largely on the impact of social justice on maternal health, as well as on using patient engagement methodology to authentically translate research into clinical practice and policy. Heather works with the Justice-Involved Women Collaborative, a network of academic institutions working on research, policy, training issues, and topics at the intersection of incarceration and maternal child health, and is a member of the Maternal Outcomes for Translational Health Equity Research (M.O.T.H.E.R.) Lab, where she leads the lab’s strategic planning and participates on the Community Engagement, Advocacy, and Policy committee. She is a Research Assistant on the Be A Mom study, an NIH-funded R01 grant, and a Research Assistant for the Black Birth Equity Project, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded research study. Following the completion of her doctoral degree, she plans to create a pipeline from maternal health research to clinical practice to policy development that is grounded in the voices of those with lived experiences.

Heather is the Student Body President 2022-23 for the Harvard Chan Student Association (HCSA) and a Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Fellow 2022-23 for Harvard Chan’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion. She is an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and an entrepreneur, owning her own consulting business and an event and home décor e-boutique. In her spare time, she enjoys crafting, cooking, traveling, and spoiling her Chihuahua, Ziggy.