Global Health Institute

On March 9, 2021, the Conversations in Global Health lecture series welcomed Dr. Margaret Hamburg, foreign secretary of the National Academy of Medicine. Prior to her current position, Dr. Hamburg served as the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, vice president and senior scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and New York City health commissioner. With an extensive background both in medical research and health policy, Dr. Hamburg reflected on her professional career and provided a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary perspective on health in the context of global diplomacy and social justice, offering illuminating feedback on the COVID-19 global response.

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021, Dr. Margaret Hamburg joined the Conversations in Global Health class for a discussion spanning the many facets of her career, from her early medical training to her recent work as FDA commissioner, founder of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and foreign secretary for the National Academies of Medicine. Dr. Hamburg began the conversation by reflecting on her career path, particularly how her experience as a medical student at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic fostered her interest in public health and ultimately led her to leave her residency in New York to learn more about health policy in DC. Her move was a sudden shift from the career in academic medicine she was pursuing, but, as a basic scientist interested in policy, I appreciated that Dr. Hamburg was not looking to abandon her interests in medicine. Instead, she wanted to contextualize how medicine related to other issues like public health, social justice, law, and policy.