Welcome to the Department of Global Health and Population (GHP). My name is Marcia Castro, and I serve as the chair of GHP. I am pleased to have this opportunity to welcome you to our department and introduce you to our work. As a community of students, educators, researchers, and practitioners from around the world, our department works together to produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere.
We are privileged to be the first department of population sciences in any school of public health, with a focus on global health from the very beginning. For more than 50 years, faculty members, students, and researchers in our department have helped shape the field and advanced some of the most significant ideas in global public health and population sciences. We have welcomed students and fellows from almost all countries in the world, and our trainees have gone on to do great things as ministers of health, leaders in national and international public health organizations, and scholars in academic institutions. Our alumni are part of a strong network of public health experts working to devise, implement, and evaluate effective strategies that improve the lives of millions of people around the globe.
Through our master’s and doctoral degrees, GHP is home to students developing expertise in areas such as health systems design, management, and evaluation; health economics; global nutrition; maternal and child health; global infectious and non-communicable diseases; and humanitarian studies and population ethics. Our research and teaching have a unique foundation in what we call global health methods, including competency in various quantitative and qualitative methods that we apply to the study of various problems and solutions. Our faculty works continuously to strengthen our educational offerings, stimulate new research, and build an intellectual community. Our array of term-time courses, winter-term and summer international experiences, and special events offer a comprehensive portfolio of learning opportunities for our valued student and postdoc community.
Today, GHP enjoys strong partnerships with the FXB Center on Health and Human Rights and the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. The department is home to the Takemi Program on International Health, the Bernard Lown Scholars in Cardiovascular Health Program, and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Of particular note are our regional initiatives, the China Health Partnership and the India Health Systems Reform Project, which allow special emphasis on some of the world’s regions that face particular public health challenges and have shown innovations in addressing these challenges.
I invite you to explore the many opportunities for participating in GHP’s work throughout the year. Please join us online for our weekly Brown Bag seminar series, held each Thursday throughout the term. These seminars are a wonderful way to learn about the wide variety of projects in which we are engaged.
From research and teaching in Boston and other parts of the U.S. to Brazil and Mexico, from China and India to Tanzania and Egypt, our programs and projects span the globe in more than 60 countries. Thank you for joining us in working towards advancements in the field of global health.
Marcia Castro, Chair
