Dear colleagues,

I am delighted to share some terrific news. Michael Barnett, M.D., M.S. will be joining the School of Public Health as a professor of health services, policy & practice starting July 1, 2025. 

Michael comes to us from Harvard University, where he most recently held the role of associate professor of health policy and management with the T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and associate professor of medicine with the Harvard Medical School. He also holds associate physician positions with both Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Boston, as well as an affiliated faculty post with the Ariadne Labs. 

He earned his M.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Medical School and his M.S. in Health Policy and Management from HSPH. Over the past decade, he has emerged as one of the nation’s pre-eminent health services researchers, writing one groundbreaking paper after another. His intellectual breadth is enormous, covering critical work in nursing home care, opioid use and improving specialty care delivery.

He is also an excellent teacher and has been deeply involved in service to Harvard and the broader medical and public health community.

Finally, on a personal note, he is a generous and warm colleague who will build on the excellent culture at Brown SPH. 

I am grateful to the search committee that carefully vetted his candidacy — and particularly to our Chair of HSPP, Ateev Mehrotra, for his tireless efforts in persuading Michael to come to greener pastures. And none of this happens without the terrific team in faculty affairs who worked so closely with the entire leadership team to make this happen.

We continue to attract the very best and brightest because our school is tackling the big problems in public health with intellectual rigor and a commitment to translating our best science into practice in ways that make a real difference in people’s lives. And for that, I’m thankful to all of you.

Please join me in welcoming Michael to our community. 

Sincerely, 

Ashish K. Jha, M.D., MPH 
Dean, School of Public Health 
Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice