GHP@60: Symposium Speakers

Marcia Castro is Andelot Professor of Demography, chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and director of the Brazil Studies Program of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS). Her research focuses on the development and use of multidisciplinary approaches to identify the determinants of infectious disease transmission in different ecological settings to inform control policies. She has more than 15 years of collaboration with Brazilian researchers, Health Secretariats, and the Ministry of Health particularly related to infectious diseases. She made important contributions during recent public health emergencies (the Zika virus epidemic and the COVD-19 pandemic). Castro has projects on malaria, COVID-19, arboviruses, infant/child mortality and development, and climate change in the Brazilian Amazon. Specifically, on COVID-19 she has been assessing the spatiotemporal pattern of COVID-19 spread in Brazil, mortality, and fertility changes due to the pandemic, risk factors for mortality, and vaccine effectiveness. She serves on several advisory boards in Brazil, including the Institute for the Studies of Health Policies (IEPS), and the Science Center for Early Childhood (NCPI). She earned a PhD in Demography from Princeton University. 

 Michelle A. Williams, SM ’88, ScD ’91, is Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Angelopoulos Professor in Public Health and International Development. She is an internationally renowned epidemiologist and public health scientist, an award-winning educator, and a widely recognized academic leader. Prior to becoming Dean, she was Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School and Program Leader of the Population Health and Health Disparities Research Programs at Harvard’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Center. Her scientific work places special emphasis in the areas of reproductive, perinatal, pediatric, and molecular epidemiology. Dean Williams has published more than 500 scientific articles and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2016. In 2020, she was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and recognized by PR Week as one of the top 50 health influencers of the year. The Dean has an undergraduate degree in biology and genetics from Princeton University, a master’s in civil engineering from Tufts University, and master’s and doctoral degrees in epidemiology from the Harvard Chan School. 

Marcelo Medeiros studies social inequality. He has training in Economics and Sociology. He is currently a visiting professor at Columbia University. He was a researcher at Ipea, professor at the University of Brasilia and taught once a year at UNSAM – Buenos Aires. Marcelo was also a researcher at the International Poverty Centre – UNDP, served as a policy expert at the Brazilian Audit Court (TCU) and as an adviser for the Brazilian National Science Council (CNPq). He held visiting appointments at Princeton University, the Yale Law School – New Haven, University of California, Berkeley, Sophia University – Tokyo, CNRS – Cermes3 – Paris, the Institute for Human Development – Delhi, Indira Ghandi Institute – Mumbai and CSC – Cambridge University. Prof. Medeiros won the Fred L. Soper Award of the World Health Organization for best study in public health, 2012, the National Treasure Prize for studies in Public Sector Economics 2012 (3rd place), the Anpocs prize for best Brazilian PhD Dissertation in Social Sciences 2003, a Senate Medal for studies in development in 2000 and an award for best study by undergraduate students at the 1993 Eneco. Prof. Medeiros has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous books, book chapters and peer-reviewed articles in the areas of social inequality and mobility, demography, health, education, poverty, development theory, and disability and social protection. He is a member of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science. 

Guilherme Canela holds the position of chief of the section of Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. For 8 years, he held the position of Communication and Information Regional Adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean at UNESCO Montevideo Office. During those years, he performed as Regional Coordinator of the UNESCO Initiative for the Promotion of Democracy and Freedom of Expression in judicial systems in Latin America. He has a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Brasília (UNB) and a Master’s Degree on Political Science from the University of São Paulo (USP).

During the last two years, he coordinated important UNESCO’s programmes aiming to address the issue of disinformation/misinformation and other threats to our democracies. For example, the #coronavirusfacts project, the Social Media for Peace initiative, the global initiative for the transparency of internet companies.

For 8 years (2000-2008), Guilherme coordinated the media and journalism research area of the News Agency for Children’s Rights (ANDI). In this period, he was responsible for several surveys that evaluated the news media coverage on issues such as children’s education, rights, violence, health, sexual abuse, human and social development, drugs, participatory democracy, entrepreneurial social responsibility, human rights, among others.

He is co-author of 10 books published by ANDI on these issues (Series Media and Social Mobilization, Cortez Publisher) and several brochures, magazines and discussion texts on various topics related to the universe of human rights, of the rights of children, in particular of development and of democracies. He was research consultant for the United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders and for the Ayrton Senna Journalism Award.

Kevin Croke is assistant professor of global health in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), and director of the International Health Systems Program. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Center for International Development and the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. His research focuses on the politics of health and health systems, and on evaluation of large-scale health programs and policies.

Dr. Donovan is a leading public scholar and disinformation researcher, specializing in media manipulation, political movements, critical internet studies, and online extremism. She is the Research Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and the Director of the Technology and Social Change project (TaSC). Through TaSC, Dr. Donovan explores how media manipulation is a means to control public conversation, derail democracy, and disrupt society. TaSC conducts research, develops methods, and facilitates workshops for journalists, policy makers, technologists, and civil society organizations on how to detect, document, and debunk media manipulation campaigns.  

 Dr. Donovan is co-author of the book Meme Wars, The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America. Her research can be found in academic peer-reviewed journals such as Social Media + Society, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Information, Communication & Society, and Social Studies of Science. She is a columnist at MIT Technology Review,  a regular contributor to the New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, and PBS, and is quoted often on radio and in print.  

 Dr. Donovan has laid out the philosophical frameworks for how to research, report on, and understand this moment in internet history and American politics. Her conceptualizations of strategic silence, meme wars, and media manipulation campaigns provide crucial frameworks for understanding how the US got to this point. She coined many of the terms that the disinformation research field and mainstream media use to understand technology’s impact on society.   

 Dr. Donovan is the co-creator of the beaver emoji . 

Tina Purnat is Team Lead for Infodemic Management in the Unit for High Impact Events Preparedness, Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention  at WHO. She serves on the editorial board of the JMIR infodemiology and Blockchain in Health journals, and is Fellow of the Australasian Digital Health Institute. 

Tina has worked at the intersection of health research, analysis and policy-making with an emphasis on digital health and health information systems. Before leading WHO’s infodemic management team, she worked at WHO on frameworks for assessment and evaluation of AI and other digital health technologies in health. She also worked on health information exchange and interoperability, and related aspects of health data governance for sharing, research and use in policy-making. As part of the WHO COVID-19 response, she worked in developing and formulating WHO infodemic response and infodemic management interventions, for which she received the WHO Pathfinder and Innovation Award 2021.

She left basic science research in 2007 to join the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for the first time, to lead data collection, capacity building, and reporting of notifiable infectious diseases. She later worked at WHO and University of Munich as an analyst in clinical trials and implementation research studies in LMICs.

Between 2015-19, she was Unit Leader for Health Informatics and Information Systems, and 2016-2018 acting Unit Leader and Programme Manager for Health Information, Monitoring and Analysis at WHO Regional Office for Europe. There, she led the development of the European Health Information Gateway; capacity building courses in health information and evidence-informed policy-making; and assessment, integration and strengthening of health information systems in countries. She was managing editor of the European Health Report 2018, which outlined the vision for improved use of evidence, research and health information to inform policy-making in the WHO European Region. 

Marcia Castro is Andelot Professor of Demography, chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and director of the Brazil Studies Program of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS). Her research focuses on the development and use of multidisciplinary approaches to identify the determinants of infectious disease transmission in different ecological settings to inform control policies. She has more than 15 years of collaboration with Brazilian researchers, Health Secretariats, and the Ministry of Health particularly related to infectious diseases. She made important contributions during recent public health emergencies (the Zika virus epidemic and the COVD-19 pandemic). Castro has projects on malaria, COVID-19, arboviruses, infant/child mortality and development, and climate change in the Brazilian Amazon. Specifically, on COVID-19 she has been assessing the spatiotemporal pattern of COVID-19 spread in Brazil, mortality, and fertility changes due to the pandemic, risk factors for mortality, and vaccine effectiveness. She serves on several advisory boards in Brazil, including the Institute for the Studies of Health Policies (IEPS), and the Science Center for Early Childhood (NCPI). She earned a PhD in Demography from Princeton University. 

Kristie L. Ebi, Ph.D., MPH is a Professor in the Center for Health and the Global Environment in the School of Public Health, University of Washington. She has been conducting research on the health risks of climate variability and change for more than 25 years. Her research focuses on estimating the current and future health risks of climate change; designing adaptation programs to reduce those risks; and quantifying the health co-benefits of mitigation policies. She has provided technical support to multiple countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific in managing climate change-related risks. She was a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th assessment cycle, including the special report on warming of 1.5°C and the human health chapter for Working Group II. Her scientific training includes an M.S. in toxicology and a Ph.D. and a Master of Public Health in epidemiology, and two years of postgraduate research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She edited fours books on aspects of climate change and has more than 250 peer-reviewed publications. 

Dr. Kari Nadeau is the Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and John Rock Professor of Climate and Population Studies.  She practices Allergy, Asthma, Immunology in children and adults. She has published over 400+ papers, many in the field of climate change and health. Dr. Nadeau, with a team of individuals and patients and families, has been able to help major progress and impact in the clinical fields of immunology, infection, asthma and allergy.  Dr. Nadeau is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the U.S. EPA Children’s Health Protection Committee.  

For more than 30 years, she has devoted herself to understanding how environmental and genetic factors affect the risk of developing allergies and asthma, especially wildfire-induced air pollution. Her laboratory has been studying air pollution and wildfire effects on children and adults, including wildland firefighters.  Many of the health issues involving individuals and the public are increasing because of global warming, sustainability practices, and extreme weather conditions. She oversees a team working on air pollution and wildfire research along with a multidisciplinary group of community leaders, firefighters, engineers, scientists, lawyers, and policy makers.  Dr. Nadeau was appointed as a member of the U.S. Federal Wildfire Commission in 2022.  

Dr. Nadeau works with other organizations and institutes across the world. She is working with the WHO on a scoping review and report for health ministers and policy makers on wildland fires: how to mitigate, adapt, and follow UN SDG’s to create resiliency and co-benefits in communities, especially LMICs. 

She also launched four biotech companies, and founded the Climate Change and Health Equity Task Force and started the Sustainability Health Seed Grant initiative and Climate Change and Health Fellowship program at Stanford. She also developed climate change and health courses at Stanford.  

She also has served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the U.S. EPA.  

Dr. Nadeau earned her MD/PhD from Harvard Medical School in 1995, completing her doctoral work in biochemistry and immunology, followed by a pediatric internship and residency at Boston Children’s Hospital (1995-1997). She moved to California for a fellowship in the Stanford-UCSF Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology Program (2003-2006), joining the Stanford Medical School faculty as an instructor, followed by promotions to assistant professor (2008), associate professor (2011), and professor (2015). 

James H. Stock is Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University; the Director of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University; and the Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University. His current research includes energy and environmental economics with a focus on fuels and on U.S. climate change policy. He is co-author, with Mark Watson, of a leading undergraduate econometrics textbook. In 2013–2014, he served as Member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, where his portfolio included macroeconomics and energy and environmental policy. He was Chair of the Harvard Economics Department from 2007–2009. He holds a M.S. in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.