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Gaurab Basu, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance
Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Assistant Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Director of Climate Change and Health Societal Theme, Harvard Medical School

Gaurab Basu, MD, MPH is a primary care physician and Director of Education and Policy at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE). He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Global Health & Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His work focuses on the intersection of climate change, global health equity, human rights, medical education, and public policy. He practices internal medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance.

Dr. Basu has developed and evaluated numerous innovative health equity curricular programs. He is the faculty director of the HMS Climate Change, Environment and Health curricular theme and co-founded the CHA Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy. He serves on the Harvard University Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability Standing Committee on Climate Education. Dr. Basu received the inaugural HMS Equity, Social Justice, and Advocacy Faculty Award and the HMS Charles McCabe Faculty Prize in Excellence. He has been a HMS Curtis Prout Academy Fellow and a Harvard Macy Scholar. 

In 2021, Dr. Basu was named to the Grist 50 list of national climate leaders. In 2018, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation selected him to their Culture of Health Leadership fellowship. Dr. Basu advises the Massachusetts Governor’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) as a member of the Implementation Advisory Committee and the Climate Science Advisory Panel. He is a part of the city of Cambridge Mayor’s Climate Crisis Working Group and its Net-Zero Climate Task Force. His work has been featured by NPR's All Things Considered, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, the BMJ, andGrist, among others.

Dr. Basu previously worked for numerous global NGOs including the Gates Institute, Partners in Health, the Child in Need Institute, and Last Mile Health. He is on the advisory council for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, the Environmental League of Massachusetts, and the Weather Channel’s climate program “Pattrn.” He is an expert advisor to the non profit Rewiring America. He previously was on the board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility and served as one of the clinical leads of Cambridge Health Alliance’s COVID Community Management clinical services during the pandemic. 

He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, with a bachelor of arts in international relations. He received his medical degree from the Larner College of Medicine at UVM. Dr. Basu was a Sommer Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he studied human rights and received his masters in public health. He completed his internal medicine residency training at Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School.

Gaurab Basu, MD, MPH /Director of Education & Policy

Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment

Assistant Professor of Environmental Health

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Dr. Basu was a Sommer Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he studied human rights. From 2018-2021, he was a part of the Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Leaders program. 

Lessons from a social medicine and advocacy curriculum.
Authors: Authors: Basu G, Dryden EM, Pels RJ, Stark RL, Jain P, Bor DH, Sullivan AM, McCormick D.
Med Educ
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Coverage and Access for Americans With Chronic Disease Under the Affordable Care Act: A Quasi-Experimental Study.
Authors: Authors: Torres H, Poorman E, Tadepalli U, Schoettler C, Fung CH, Mushero N, Campbell L, Basu G, McCormick D.
Ann Intern Med
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Training Internal Medicine Residents in Social Medicine and Research-Based Health Advocacy: A Novel, In-Depth Curriculum.
Authors: Authors: Basu G, Pels RJ, Stark RL, Jain P, Bor DH, McCormick D.
Acad Med
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Clinicians' Obligations to Use Qualified Medical Interpreters When Caring for Patients with Limited English Proficiency.
Authors: Authors: Basu G, Costa VP, Jain P.
AMA J Ethics
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Facility-Based Delivery during the Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic in Rural Liberia: Analysis from a Cross-Sectional, Population-Based Household Survey.
Authors: Authors: Ly J, Sathananthan V, Griffiths T, Kanjee Z, Kenny A, Gordon N, Basu G, Battistoli D, Dorr L, Lorenzen B, Thomson DR, Waters A, Moore UG, Roberts R, Smith WL, Siedner MJ, Kraemer JD.
PLoS Med
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Remoteness and maternal and child health service utilization in rural Liberia: A population-based survey.
Authors: Authors: Kenny A, Basu G, Ballard M, Griffiths T, Kentoffio K, Niyonzima JB, Sechler GA, Selinsky S, Panjabi RR, Siedner MJ, Kraemer JD.
J Glob Health
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Reducing clinical errors in cancer education: interpreter training.
Authors: Authors: Gany FM, Gonzalez CJ, Basu G, Hasan A, Mukherjee D, Datta M, Changrani J.
J Cancer Educ
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Surgery Clerkship Evaluations Are Insufficient for Clinical Skills Appraisal: The Value of a Medical Student Surgical Objective Structured Clinical Examination.
Authors: Authors: Butler KL, Hirsh DA, Petrusa ER, Yeh DD, Stearns D, Sloane DE, Linder JA, Basu G, Thompson LA, de Moya MA.
J Surg Educ
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