It is with great sadness that we write to inform the SBS community of the tragic passing of our friend and classmate, Annette Habegger Martin Özaltin, SBS SM ‘07 (April 4, 1979 – October 21, 2023). Annette was a student with us in SBS’s Master of Science program from 2005 to 2007. She was an invaluable and engaged contributor across her classes and beyond the classroom, bringing perspective and experience from living in countries around the world as a child. Annette was an extremely kind and caring friend, a good listener, and a motivating presence with a contagious desire for fun and adventure. Through her warmth and positive energy, Annette infused cheer within and outside of the classroom, helping all of us to find joy and build strong friendships during the program. After graduating from Harvard Chan, she dedicated her career to the design and implementation of complex global health programs in low- and middle-income countries, living and working in East Africa, West Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia over her career. She served in a variety of roles across numerous organizations, including Deloitte, Results for Development, Academy for Educational Development, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Colleagues from around the world have described Annette as a talented manager, a strategic and analytical thinker and writer, and importantly, a role model. Annette achieved recognition in the field of health finance by assisting developing nations to support the long-term implementation of vaccination programs targeting common childhood illnesses. In addition, she led the development of a primary healthcare performance assessment framework that has been adopted by the World Bank and World Health Organization, as well as numerous countries worldwide. She also worked with experts from 6 countries to produce one of the most widely used global tools in health financing, titled “Costing of Health Services for Provider Payment: A Practical Manual.” Over the years, we periodically visited with Annette when she was in the DC metropolitan area, and each visit was inspiring and a reminder to embrace life with enthusiasm, fun, and a spirit of adventure. Annette was truly one of a kind and she will be deeply missed by all who knew her at Harvard and around the world. We send our deepest condolences to her husband Emre Özaltin (2011 SD graduate of Harvard Chan) and their young sons, Troy and Phoenix, her father Roy and brother Gregory, her coworkers, and her HSPH master’s cohort. A full obituary can be found here.
– Natalie Slopen & Kelly Blake (SBS doctoral cohort, 2005-2010)
