About Natalia.
She’s an epidemiologist, experienced public servant, and mother of three.
Natalia Linos is the Executive Director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard and serves on the Poor People’s Campaign COVID-19 Health Justice Advisory Committee. From the very beginning of the global pandemic, she has been advocating for a government response that is centered on science and equity.
“Saving lives during this pandemic will require a different approach from simply “policing bad behavior.” Individual failures are not driving high rates of infection—rather, the infection reveals structural failures in the manner in which societies are organized.”
— Natalia Linos
Natalia’s commitment to public service and social justice began decades ago. When she was just 19 years old she traveled to Pakistan to help support the educational and health needs of the Kalash, an Indigenous tribe on the Afghan border, and the following year volunteered at a refugee camp in Greece working with Iraqi families.
Driven by a deep desire to fight injustice and inequality, she began a career at the United Nations, working first in Lebanon and then in New York advising governments across the globe to move the needle on key global priorities from poverty alleviation to ending gender-based violence and safeguarding global health. Following her doctoral training in epidemiology at Harvard University, she led the United Nations Development Programme’s work at the intersection of health and climate change, bringing together youth advocates and urging governments to take more ambitious action on climate change to meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement.
During the Ebola epidemic, Natalia worked as Science Advisor to the New York City Health Commissioner and continued her work to advance equity at a more local scale. She helped shape strategy around several key initiatives, including ThriveNYC, the Mayor’s $800 million citywide mental health initiative to tackle issues like opioid overdoses, depression and suicide, and an effort to end gun violence with the NGO Cure Violence.
She also contributed to launching new community health profiles for each of the city’s 59 districts, showing how structural racism, poverty, environmental injustice, and residential segregation were shaping the health of neighborhoods. She collected data and information to help communities advocate for greater investment in their district.
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Health is not simply the absence of illness. Health is about well-being and is shaped by how and where we live, work, learn, and play.
”
— Natalia Linos
Natalia is a three-time Harvard graduate, a first-generation Greek American, and lives in Brookline village with her husband, Paul, and their three children: 7-year-old Amalia, and 3-year-old twins, Leonidas and Alexandra. At home, she spends time reading to her kids about space and animals, playing math games, singing Greek songs from her childhood, and trying to survive yet another day of this new life that COVID-19 has sprung on all of us.
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