A Conversation with Dr. Mark Dybul on Career Paths in Global Health
By Zachary Gallin
Dr. Mark Dybul is the co-director of the Center for Global Health and Quality at Georgetown Medical School and the prior executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. He acted as a guest speaker for our Conversations in Global Health seminar earlier this week, where he discussed his path to becoming a leader in global health. I found Dr. Dybul’s stories of growing into his career to be useful as points of reference as I prepare to explore potential careers after graduating from Georgetown.
Dr. Dybul received his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown, focusing on poetry, philosophy and theology in his undergraduate studies. He says he “hated science,” and had no intention of going into medicine or global health until long after undergrad. After graduating Georgetown, Dr. Dybul worked under former Georgetown University President Tim Healy, who was one of his first mentors. Dr. Dybul became interested in HIV prevention after reading a news article about HIV in Africa, so he decided to go into global health work. He had developed strong skills in communication and management during his time with President Healy, and he used these skills to climb the ranks of the U.S. government as an employee in the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Dybul then worked with Dr. Anthony Fauci and President George Bush Jr. to found PEPFAR, the United States’ multibillion dollar campaign to combat AIDS worldwide. Dr. Dybul was appointed executive director of PEPFAR, and he became instrumental to building support for the program among African leaders. After leaving PEPFAR, Dr. Dybul served as executive director of the Global Fund, where he redesigned much of the Fund to make it more accountable to the people it was meant to serve.
I was struck by how nonlinear and serendipitous Dr. Dybul’s career path was, as he became one of the premier leaders in American global health policy by eagerly engaging in new and different opportunities. I feel that Georgetown’s strongly pre-professional culture at times comes with the expectation that students have a preconceived notion of what they want to do after graduating Georgetown, so it felt like a breath of fresh air to know that Dr. Dybul didn’t begin his work in global health until long after undergrad. I smiled as Dr. Dybul gave us the one piece of advice he claimed anyone should give: “If ten years from now, you’re working at the job you expected to be working at, then you did something wrong.” Dr. Dybul made it clear to us that his key to success was being open to change and unexpected opportunity, rather than having a strict plan of where he’d be working when. I haven’t yet decided where I want to work in ten, or even three, years, so this advice resonated strongly with me. I now feel more excited about the uncertainty surrounding my professional life and the plethora of opportunities that will inevitably come to me unexpectedly within the next few years.
Zachary Gallin (SFS ’20) is a junior majoring in Science, Technology and International Affairs – Biotechnology and Global Health and minoring in Arabic.
This blog was written by a student in Georgetown’s Conversations in Global Health course, which brings leaders in global health to Georgetown to discuss their careers and work.