Goldie takes new post

Sue J. Goldie, the founding faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI), will transition into a new role as director of the new Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University, and as special adviser to the provost on global health education and learning.

The new incubator will leverage and strengthen the educational programs and resources developed under HGHI, with a targeted focus on testing and disseminating creative, effective strategies and tools for teaching and learning across both classrooms and the global landscape.

Goldie, the Roger Lee Irving Professor of Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, has spent the last four years promoting the examination of worldwide health issues through an interdisciplinary lens. She placed particular emphasis on infusing global health perspectives into educational opportunities across the University, through promotion of collaborative cross-disciplinary teaching, support of broadly inclusive learning spaces, and development of innovative pedagogical tools and approaches. This work will be built upon and expanded in the incubator.

Under Goldie’s leadership, HGHI has fostered and supported numerous educational initiatives for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and global partners. The institute has convened experts and stakeholders from across the University and around the world for forums, roundtables, and workshops that addressed interdisciplinary challenges such as the risks facing global youth, the coexisting epidemics of malnutrition and obesity, the international burden of malaria, and the gaps in global governance for health.

Over the past year, key efforts were made on global governance, ranging from collaboration on international commissions to underscore the value of investments in health, to a series of meetings exploring creative financing and access to vaccines in middle-income countries, which drew representatives from academia, industry, and government health ministries across the world. HGHI hosts regular discussions for students and faculty to explore novel and nontraditional perspectives and approaches in global health. And it leveraged the intellectual breadth and collective expertise of the Harvard community to help redefine the way world health is seen, analyzed, and approached.

“Urgent challenges in global health demonstrate the necessity of connecting experts across disciplines,” said Harvard President Drew Faust. “Through her thoughtful leadership of the institute, Sue brought together individuals from diverse disciplines who may not have met otherwise, creating connections and partnerships that can yield world-changing ideas and approaches. She is an outstanding teacher and mentor to students, postdocs, and junior faculty, and we are pleased that she will continue to shape the interests and careers of global health leaders through her work at Harvard.”

Founded in 2010, HGHI seeks to confront global health challenges that arise from or are made more complex by the increasing interconnectedness of people throughout the world. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the institute seeks to provide the intellectual space to tackle the most intractable health challenges and to inspire and invest in the next generation of global health leaders.

“I feel incredibly privileged for the opportunity to work across the broad Harvard community as we confront the most pressing health concerns of our time,” said Goldie. “I continue to be humbled by the talent and creativity of my peers, and inspired by the intellectual curiosity and entrepreneurial energy of our students. Reflecting on the last few years, I am most proud of the inclusive culture we have created, and am deeply committed to preserving it. I look forward to building on our tremendous educational platform. And I am grateful for the chance to couple my commitment to global health with the opportunity to leverage this field as a vehicle for learning, both at Harvard and across the globe.”

“Sue has been an extraordinary leader of and advocate for Harvard’s multidisciplinary approach to global health,” said Provost Alan M. Garber. “We are fortunate that she will be extending her contributions to global health education and to innovations in pedagogy more generally.”

Ashish Jha, professor of health policy and management at HSPH, will join HGHI as faculty director.

“Ashish brings a wide range of accomplishments to this role,” said Garber.   “A distinguished clinician and researcher and an influential policy expert, he is well-positioned to build upon HGHI’s success as a platform for University-wide global health engagement. We are delighted that he has agreed to take on this critical role.”

His work focuses on understanding the tools that policymakers and clinical leaders can use, such as public reporting of performance, financial incentives, and health information technology to drive improvements in health care delivery.

“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to serve the Harvard community more broadly,” Jha said. “Harvard has an enormously talented and engaged group of staff, students, and faculty who care deeply about improving the health of the world’s population. I look forward to meeting with, learning from and engaging key stakeholders in the Harvard community to put together the next chapter for HGHI.

“Sue has been a tremendous leader, and I am so pleased that she will continue to lead the University’s efforts to elevate innovative global health teaching and learning at Harvard,” he added. “I look forward to working with her and other global health leaders to further our shared goal of improved global health engagement and education across the Harvard community.”