Allan M. Brandt is the Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He holds a joint appointment in the Department of the History of Science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. He has previously served as dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, chair of the Department of the History of Science, director of the MD/PhD program in the social sciences at Harvard Medical School, and director of the Division of Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School.
Prof. Brandt is a graduate of Brandeis University. He received his MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees in American history from Columbia University.
Discussant
Paul Farmer, medical anthropologist and physician, has dedicated his life to improving health care for the world's poorest people. Dr. Farmer holds an MD and PhD from Harvard University, where he is the Kolokotrones University Professor and the Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is co-founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that since 1987 has provided direct health care services and undertaken research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. He is professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Dr. Farmer is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Bronislaw Malinowski Award and the Margaret Mead Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan Davis) Award from the American Medical Association, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and, with his PIH colleagues, the Hilton Humanitarian Prize. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.