Careers in Global Health: Pathways, Challenges, and Opportunities

Interested in a future career in global health? As part of Worldwide Week at Harvard, we invite you to join us in-person at the Mignone Center for Career Success for an engaging panel featuring experts from Harvard Medical School, the School of Public Health, and the Business School. They’ll share their journeys into the field, the skills that helped them succeed, tips for finding meaningful experiences (in the U.S. and abroad), and their thoughts on where the field of global health is headed.

Whether you’re just exploring or already planning your path, this is a great chance to learn, ask questions, and get inspired! Panelists will share candid insights on refining your focus, landing your first global health job, and overcoming uncertainty. This event includes a Q&A session for you to get personalized advice and discover the wide-ranging career paths and opportunities in global health.

Agenda

• Panel Discussion: ~45 minutes
• Audience Q&A: ~15 minutes
• Optional 1:1 Conversations with Panelists (Post-event): ~15 minutes

This event is available to current Harvard graduate and undergraduate students.

Register

Featured Panelists

Jessica Cohen, PhD
Professor of Health Economics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Jessica Cohen is a Professor of Health Economics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she focuses on health policy, behavioral economics, and maternal and child health. Her research examines how health systems, policies, and programs influence maternal and newborn health in the U.S. and East Africa with the aim of embedding this evidence into policy design and increasing policy impact. Dr. Cohen was a member of the WHO Global Malaria Program’s Technical Expert Group on Surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation and has served on NIH expert review panels related to implementation science and impact evaluation. She has also co-authored the behavioral economics chapter in the textbook Health Behavior: Theory, Research, and Practice. Her contributions have been recognized through honors like the Alice Hamilton Award and the National Academy of Medicine Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award.

Daniel Palazuelos, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Medicine, HMS; Director of Community-Centered Medical Education, HMS; Director of Community Health Systems, PIH

Daniel Palazuelos, MD, MPH is a community health implementer-educator who holds positions at Harvard Medical School (HMS), the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and Partners In Health (PIH). He started his career in global health equity by living and working with community health workers (CHWs) in impoverished communities in Chiapas, Mexico, and these grassroots experiences have deeply influenced his approach to addressing the biggest challenges in global health. He worked over two decades to launch Compañeros En Salud – México (CES, PIH’s program in Mexico), the Financing Alliance for Health (FAH, which helps governments design and fund ambitious, affordable, and at-scale community health programs), and the Community Health Impact Coalition (CHIC, an advocacy, research and organizing initiative led by many of the most innovative implementers in community health). His unified goal is to assure that our finest clinicians are trained to understand the community perspective, and our health care system strengthening efforts are aligned to the real needs of people living in the poorest and most difficult circumstances.

Chuan-Chin Huang, ScD, MSc
Associate Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Instructor at Harvard Medical School

Chuan-Chin Huang, Sc.D., is an epidemiologist and biostatistician dedicated to advancing global health equity and infectious disease research, particularly tuberculosis. Currently, he serves as an Associate Epidemiologist at the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and as an Instructor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Huang has been involved in numerous interdisciplinary projects focused on understanding bacterial and host factors associated with TB outcomes. His work integrates pathogen and host genomics, clinical, and epidemiologic data from longitudinal field studies conducted in Lima Peru. His research has significantly contributed to understanding the transmission dynamics and epidemiology of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB. Ultimately, his goal is to use data to identify optimal TB control and treatment strategies, reducing morbidity and mortality from this deadly disease.

Ashley V. Whillans, PhD, MA
Volpert Family Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Ashley Whillans is the Volpert Family Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School, where she teaches Motivation course to MBA students. Her research explores the intersection of behavioral science and organizational effectiveness, investigating how intangible incentives—such as experiential and time-saving rewards—impact employee motivation, well-being, and performance.

Professor Whillans’ work examines the critical relationships between time, money, and happiness, with relevance to public health through her focus on stress reduction, work-life balance, and psychological well-being. Her research extends globally, with ongoing projects in the Thar Desert region of India and Nairobi, Kenya, examining how time-use patterns affect health and quality of life across diverse populations. As a 2019 Burke Global Health Fellow at Harvard, she conducted a large-scale field experiment with 1,200 financially constrained working mothers in Kibera, Kenya—the largest informal settlement in East Africa—focusing on alleviating “time poverty” among women in developing markets.

Moderator

Princess Magor Agbozo
Graduate Student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Princess Magor Agbozo is a Master of Science student in Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She holds a bachelor’s in Public Health from the University of Kentucky. During her undergraduate studies, Agbozo worked as an intern in the Division of Epidemiology and Health Planning in the Kentucky Department for Public Health, supporting perinatal epidemiologists with surveillance projects to determine substance use in Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) positive mothers. She has also conducted community-engaged research focused on crisis management, maternal and child health, and cervical cancer. Her current research interest lies in health systems strengthening and cross-sector partnerships between faith-based organizations and public health institutions to improve population health and well-being.

About the Harvard Global Health Institute

The Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) is an interfaculty initiative that facilitates collaboration across the Harvard community and partners worldwide to advance global health equity. We tackle the greatest health challenges of our time through innovative transdisciplinary research, education, and partnerships that build knowledge and drive positive change in global health.