PHR Board of Directors

Jennifer Leaning 

Jennifer Leaning is Professor of the Practice of International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Her research and policy interests include issues of public health, medical ethics, and early warning in response to war and disaster, human rights and international humanitarian law in crisis settings, and problems of human security in the context of forced migration and conflict. She has field experience in problems of public health assessment and human rights in a range of crisis situations (including Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Kosovo, the Middle East, former Soviet Union, Somalia, the Chad-Darfur border, and the African Great Lakes area) and has written widely on these issues. 

Dr. Leaning also has extensive expe­rience in clinical medicine and medical management, most recently (1992-1997) as the medical director of one of the largest group practices in Massachusetts. She currently chairs the Harvard University Student Health Coordinating Board. She serves on a number of non-profit boards, including the Board of Directors of the American Red Cross, Massachusetts Bay Chapter; Physicians for Human Rights; and The Humane Society of the United States. She received her A.B. degree from Radcliffe College, magna cum laude; a Master's degree in demography and public health from the Harvard School of Public Health; and her MD with honors from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She trained in internal medicine and emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and is board certified in both specialties. Dr. Leaning is also a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians.