“Staying in the Fight”: The State of Global Health with Stephanie Psaki
By Lili Rodgers (C’25)
On February 11, 2025, the Conversations in Health: Global to Local course was honored to host Stephanie Psaki, former special assistant to the president and U.S. coordinator for global health security, as well as former senior advisor on human rights and gender equity in the Office of Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Psaki began her career as a Hoya herself, an inspiring story for us as current Georgetown students. She shared her experiences navigating the world as a senior in college, detailing the challenges of having her thesis nearly not be approved due to the controversial nature of a human rights argument regarding American intervention in the AIDS crisis in Africa.
Her story revealed a number of important lessons about the nuances of global health work as well as advice on navigating career changes. In her first jobs out of college, she recalled thinking, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” Her path led her to pursue a master in science degree in public health, followed by a Ph.D. in public health with a focus on demography. She emphasized finding what sparks one’s excitement–for her, statistics. In her master’s program, she discovered a love for quantitative analysis, a specialty that led to her heading a research program at the Population Council.
Psaki’s quantitative interests also allowed her to focus on the most effective programs and on the best ways to spend limited funds, questions she often investigated in program impact evaluations. She also highlighted the unique challenges of the post-colonial global development space, where so-called “experts” often make funding decisions based on antiquated colonial assumptions.
Her career took a turn when she transitioned to government work, an interest sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. She highlighted the interdisciplinary staff detailed to the National Security Council (NSC), allowing for many different areas of expertise in one room. She also touched on the state of global health given the recent events surrounding USAID funding and more broadly throughout the U.S. government.
We were fortunate to engage Psaki in a Q&A session, where she emphasized the strengths and drawbacks of working in different sectors. She also discussed the importance of a smooth transition between presidential administrations. Additionally, she touched on intersections between One Health and U.S. government strategy, the H5N1 bird flu, and the critical role of non-governmental organizations and other countries in funding global health initiatives.
Finally, Psaki offered inspiring and poignant advice on how to continue working in politicized spaces like global health that are being affected by the current events in the United States – what she called “staying in the fight.” She advised us: “You can make a choice about waking up every morning and looking at the news and feeling dejected and worried and hopeless, or you can focus your eyes on the horizon and think about building what’s next.” Though she admitted that she herself does a lot of the former, she emphasized the importance of thinking about building blocks to the future and welcomed us to join the fight for global health equity.
Lili Rodgers (C’25) is an undergraduate student at Georgetown University majoring in the biology of global health. She is a student in the Conversations in Health: Global to Local class.