Patrick Vinck, PhD

Assistant Professor
Harvard Medical School

Patrick Vinck is the Research Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He is assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and lead investigator at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. 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 MacArthur 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. 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.