Michele Barry

Michele Barry is a professor of medicine, and director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health and Senior Associate Dean for Global Health, both at Stanford University, where she entered after 28 years working at Yale. She specializes in tropical medicine, emerging infectious diseases, and in the globalization induced health problems of low income countries.

Barry is an advocate for women's rights in the medical profession. She wrote the first policy for maternity leave in the Department of Medicine at Yale. Later, she created the Women Leaders in Global Health Conference, first held in Stanford in 2017. The following year she was the recipient of the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal by the American Medical Women's Association.

Through the Center for Innovation in Global Health, Dr. Barry has allocated millions of dollars in funding from donors to diverse global health initiatives and research. She is also a thought leader in the field of Planetary Health and is an advocate for directing attention to this burgeoning and urgent field.

Biography[]

Barry graduated in medicine from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1977 and subsequently completed her internship and residency at Yale University, where she remained until 2009, having worked there for 28 years. She specialized in tropical medicine, emerging infectious disease, and in the globalization induced health problems of low income countries. Whilst at Yale, she was appointed professor of medicine.^[1][2][3] As an advocate for women's rights in the medical profession, and during her time at Yale, she wrote the first policy for maternity leave in the Department of Medicine.^[2][4]

Barry is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.^[1] In 2009, she was appointed both Stanford's Director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health and Senior Associate Dean for Global Health.^[5][6] In 2011 she became a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene,^[7] of which she was also a past president.^[8] In 2019 she was elected to the Board of the National Academy of Medicine to serve for five years.^[1]

Barry created the Women Leaders in Global Health Conference in response to the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions in global health.^[6] At its first meeting in 2017, she stated that

At least 75% of the global health workforce is female, as are the majority of caregivers and the most vulnerable patients. But with every step up the ladder, the proportion of women shrinks ... It’s a room full of men discussing women’s health.^[5]

She is Director of the Yale/Stanford Johnson & Johnson Global Health Scholars Program,^[2] which sends physicians to low resource settings, to improve health infrastructure.^[9]

Her research interests are in the fields of global health, tropical medicine, and emerging infectious diseases.^[1] Taking an approach that crosses disciplines, she aims to take into account the local context of global health issues such as infectious disease.^[10] In her work she highlights how areas of global unrest are often centres of emerging disease.^[11]

She has been one expert relaying predictions of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.^[12]

Awards[]

In 2010, she received the Ben Kean Medal, awarded to a clinician or educator for their dedication to clinical tropical medicine.^[13]

In 2018 Barry was awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, a prize awarded annually by the American Medical Women's Association, to a woman physician for her outstanding contribution to the cause of women in medicine.^[14]

In 2020 she was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[15]

Personal life[]

Barry is married to physician Mark Cullen, and they have two daughters.^[3][6]

Selected publications[]

• Wise, Paul H.; Barry, Michele (2017). "Civil War & the Global Threat of Pandemics". Daedalus. 146 (4): 71–84. doi:10.1162/daed_a_00460. ISSN 0011-5266.

References[]