Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Receives $1.4 Million to Accelerate Global Fight Against COVID-19 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 17, 2020 

Contact
Alison Cashin
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
acashin@hsph.harvard.edu 

Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics and Ariadne Labs receive capacity-building support for work against pandemic 

Cambridge, MATwo centers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with key roles in confronting COVID-19 have received major gifts, allowing them to accelerate their work against the global pandemic. The Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics (CCDD), led by Professor of Epidemiology Marc Lipsitch, and Ariadne Labs, a joint venture of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital led by Asaf Bitton, have received a combined total of $1.4 million thanks to a generous gift from the Morris-Singer Foundation.  

“COVID-19 represents an extraordinary challenge to our society, and our systems of care,” says Andrew MorrisSinger, who heads the Foundation with his husband, Corey MorrisSinger. “We believe that both the CCDD and Ariadne Labs are going to make critical contributions to addressing this crisis.” 

A gift of $900,000 will enable CCDD to continue its emergency work modeling and predicting the spread and impact of COVID-19. The Center, which has advised the White House and governors across the country, is also working on improving testing procedures and finding new ways to uncover hidden data about the pandemicincluding estimating disease prevalence using infection rates among travelers and predicting the effects of social distancing. 

“This gift transforms our ability to do the most important science and make the most important contributions we can to evidence-based policy and decision-making, giving us the flexibility to deploy our resources in the areas of greatest need,” says Lipsitch of CCDD. 

Ariadne Labs will expand its current work designing hospital and health care system response with help from the Morris-Singers’ gift of $500,000. Ariadne is developing community mitigation strategies, including practices for poorer countries and guidelines on protective equipment for hospital systems; they are also recommending practices to allow normal medical and health systems to continue their work—like obstetrics, surgery, virtual ambulatory care, and elder care.  

“We are incredibly grateful to Andrew and Corey for investing in this critical work during a time of unprecedented challenges,” says Ariadne Labs Director Asaf Bitton. “Because of their generosity, Ariadne will be able to have an immediate impact on patients, health care workers, governments, social service organizations, and the general public by developing system-level best practices, effective tools, and pragmatic guidelines to address COVID-19.” 

Both centers are experienced in confronting largescale epidemics. Since its establishment in 2009, CCDD has helped shape the worlds response to outbreaks like SARS, H1N1, and Ebola. Ariadne Labs previously collaborated with the CDC to help hospitals prepare to face the West African Ebola outbreak. 

“Andrew and Corey are leaders in philanthropic strategy, responding to the COVID-19 crisis with urgency and with a grounding in science,” said Michelle Williams, Dean of the Faculty at the Harvard Chan School. “Their unrestricted gifts to CCDD and to Ariadne Labs give our research the much-needed latitude to respond to this crisis on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour level.”  

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About the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health brings together dedicated experts from many disciplines to educate new generations of global health leaders and produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere. As a community of leading scientists, educators, and students, we work together to take innovative ideas from the laboratory to people’s lives—not only making scientific breakthroughs, but also working to change individual behaviors, public policies, and health care practices. Each year, more than 400 faculty members at Harvard Chan School teach 1,000-plus full-time students from around the world and train thousands more through online and executive education courses. Founded in 1913 as the Harvard-MIT School of Health Officers, the School is recognized as America’s oldest professional training program in public health. Learn more at www.hsph.harvard.edu 

Scaling Up Leadership in a Time of Crisis

An empty playground with trees behind it

Andrew and Corey Morris-Singer are deploying resources where they can have an immediate impact in the fight against COVID-19.

When faced with an enemy like COVID-19—novel, invisible, deadly, and little-understood—informed leadership is crucial. And yet, Dr. Andrew Morris-Singer, HMS ’07, saw the United States facing the onset of this global crisis with “a vacuum of leadership” and “gutted” pandemic response and public health systems. Andrew and his husband, Corey Morris-Singer, PhD ‘12, leaped to provide that leadership in the philanthropic sector, magnifying the work of experts across public health and bioscience. One of their first priorities? Helping two centers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with key roles in confronting COVID-19 scale up their operations.

Marc Lipsitch wears a blue jacket and purple tie
Marc Lipsitch

The Harvard Chan School’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics (CCDD), led by Professor of Epidemiology Marc Lipsitch, and Ariadne Labs, a joint venture of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital led by Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH, received a combined total of $1.4 million thanks to a generous gift from Andrew and Corey through their Foundation.

“COVID-19 represents an extraordinary challenge to our society, and our systems of care,” says Andrew. “We believe that both the CCDD and Ariadne Labs are going to make critical contributions to addressing this crisis.”

The $900,000 gift to CCDD will enable the Center to continue its emergency work modeling and predicting the spread and impact of COVID-19, as well as the impact of shelter-in-place orders and social distancing. CCDD has been advising the White House and governors across the country, improving testing procedures and availability in Massachusetts and elsewhere, and finding innovative ways to uncover hidden information about the pandemic—from predicting disease prevalence using infection rates among travelers to reporting on the effectiveness of social distancing using data from social media. “Marc has already had an enormous impact,” Andrew notes. “If you look at the information and narratives being used in the media and among leaders and influencers, much of what they’re relying on is based upon the data that people like Marc and his team have produced.”

“…we realized that this was going to be an unprecedented situation, and everybody was going to have to step up and put a lot more on the line than they previously had.”

An additional gift of $500,000 will allow Ariadne Labs to expand its current work around community mitigation strategies, like social distancing; partnering with other countries facing this global pandemic; guidelines on practice and protective equipment for hospital systems, as well as guidelines for obstetrics, surgery, virtual ambulatory care, and caring for the elderly during the crisis.  

The Morris-Singers are both deeply involved in health systems science and practice. Andrew is a general internist and focuses on leadership development in health care. Corey is a cell biologist by training, founder and past-president of the Harvard Science Policy Group, and has been an advocate for support of science education and biomedical research funding.

Asaf Bitton wears a black jacket and plaid shirt
Asaf Bitton

The two co-founded the nonprofit Primary Care Progress, which Andrew continues to chair, to help support and develop leadership and change-management skills among U.S. primary care practitioners. As steeped as they both are in the health care and health policy worlds, they worried early on that the emergence of the COVID-19 coronavirus was going to cause a health crisis in the U.S. “I think we realized that this was going to be an unprecedented situation, and everybody was going to have to step up and put a lot more on the line than they previously had.”

Through the Morris-Singer Foundation, they seek to help those on the front lines solve problems quickly based on their own knowledge and experience. That includes providing general operating support with few restrictions, to minimize the red tape needed for experts to deploy resources quickly to areas of greatest need. “We’re trying to get more resources to where they can have an immediate impact in the face of this crisis, but also to where they will be building the capacity for healthier and more resilient communities,” says Corey.

“We’re trying to get more resources to where they can have an immediate impact in the face of this crisis, but also to where they will be building the capacity for healthier and more resilient communities.”

Both CCDD and Ariadne Labs have a deep bench in confronting large-scale epidemics; they helped shape the world’s response to previous outbreaks like SARS, H1N1, and Ebola. Now, they face a pandemic that’s hitting home, for which little data is available, and for which governments and health systems have proven under-prepared. Operating support from donors like the Morris-Singers is allowing them to quickly scale up their work for maximum impact. 

“This gift transforms our ability to do the most important science and make the most important contributions we can to evidence-based policy and decision-making, giving us the flexibility to deploy our resources in the areas of greatest need,” says Lipsitch of Harvard Chan’s CCDD. “We are very appreciative that the Morris-Singers have the confidence in us, and in our approach of building on basic science and methodological work to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice to a pandemic.” 

“We are incredibly grateful to Andrew and Corey for investing in this critical work during a time of unprecedented challenges,” says Ariadne’s Asaf Bitton. “Because of their generosity, Ariadne will continue to have an immediate impact on patients, health care workers, governments, social service organizations, and the general public by developing evidence-based tools, best practices, and pragmatic guidelines to address COVID-19.”

Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine

Jeannie & Jonathan Lavine | Harvard Biography
Jonathan Lavine, MBA ’92 and his wife Jeannie Lavine, AB ’88, MBA ’92

Jonathan Lavine is Co-Managing Partner of Bain Capital and Chief Investment Officer of Bain Capital Credit, formerly known as Sankaty Advisors. With over 950 employees across offices in four continents, Bain Capital has approximately $85 billion in assets under management.

Lavine graduated from Harvard Business School with distinction in 1992 where he and his wife met. Jeannie Lavine, AB ’88, MBA ’92, followed in her father’s footsteps, graduating from both Harvard College and Harvard Business School. After Harvard, Jeannie worked with The Boston Consulting Group, a global consulting firm. She has served on the Board of Dean’s Advisors for the Harvard School of Public Health since 2012, and also chairs the Class of 1988 Gift Committee. She is an active member of the Class of 1988 Reunion Committee, the FAS Major Gift Committee, and the Committee on University Resources (COUR).

The couple has since been actively involved in supporting Harvard through various endeavors. In 2007, Jonathan and Jeannie formed the Crimson Lion Foundation, named in part for their involvement with Harvard. Through Crimson Lion, they focus their philanthropic endeavors, which have included contributions to Harvard.

In 2011, the Lavines established the Lavine Family Cornerstone Scholarship Fund, which supports four undergraduates through Harvard’s financial aid program.

In 2012, Jonathan and Jeannie, contributed a $5 million grant to the Harvard School of Public Health, establishing the Lavine Family Humanitarian Studies Initiative (HSI), which expands the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) and supports training and education of humanitarian relief workers. Michael VanRooyen, the director off HHI said the Lavine’s gift would “help HSI extend the reach of humanitarian education to an international scale and boost the impact of humanitarian relief by focusing on professional skill building and evidence-based research on best practices.”

Under HSI, an additional 150 or more students a year will be able to study at the School to learn how to provide aid effectively, efficiently and safely. HSI will also provide entry-level students and current field workers with access to courses, simulated trainings and case studies.

In 2013, Jonathan and Jeannie became co-chairs of the Capital Campaign for Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, announcing the School’s intention to raise $450 million by 2018 at a Gala two-day launch event that also celebrated the School’s centennial. Jonathan and Jeannie were co-chairs of the Gala Committee for that event, which also included a leadership summit attended by public health leaders from around the globe. In 2017, the Lavines made a record-breaking gift of $12 million to Harvard Business School. The gift supports fellowships for first-generation college students attending HBS. Later that year, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health announced a $5.5 million gift from the Lavines to establish the Lavine Family Professorship of Humanitarian Studies. The new professorship promotes the study of humanitarian issues which include relief, preparedness and public health. Jonathan Lavine said of the new professorship, “Improving the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian work is a major focus of our philanthropic efforts, because having well-trained professionals on the ground can mean the difference between helping people when they need it most and making an unfolding crisis even worse. Supporting strong leadership at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and the Humanitarian Academy at Harvard is a great way to ensure this important work continues.”

Aside from their Harvard involvement, Jonathan Lavine represents the Lavine family on several boards, including the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard-affiliated medical center. He is a member of the boards of Children’s Hospital Trust, Opportunity Nation, and Horizons for Homeless Children. He also serves as a Trustee of Columbia University and a Director of the Boston Celtics. In 2013, he was elected Chair of City Year’s National Board of Trustees, and currently serves as Co-Chair of the organization. Jeannie Lavine serves on the Board of Directors of The Better Angels Society, an organization that supports the historically significant documentary films of Ken Burns and works to share them through educational outreach. The Lavines also support organizations including, uAspire, EJI and LIFT.

In 2012, Jonathan Lavine was honored by the Anti-Defamation League with the Distinguished Community Service Award. In 2015, Jonathan was recognized with the Voices for National Service “Citizen Service Award” due to his support and involvement in the national service movement.

The Lavines reside in Lexington, Massachusetts and have two children.

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