Heather Wipfli, PhD

Bio

Dr. Heather Wipfli is Professor and the Clark Leadership Chair of Global Health in the Department of Global, Environmental, and Occupational Heath (GEOH) at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Over the past twenty-five years, Dr. Wipfli has successfully directed large multi-country research and training initiatives funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, Fogarty International Center, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Cancer Institute (ACS), Bloomberg Philanthropies, and others. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications to date, including in top academic journals such as The Lancet, Nature, and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Dr. Wipfli’s research focuses primarily on investigating the structure, stakeholders and influence of global health governance; carrying out policy-relevant implementation research to prevent and control chronic diseases; and conducting community-based participatory research with young people in low-resourced environments. She has conducted research in dozens of countries throughout the world and currently focuses much of her efforts in East Africa. Dr. Wipfli is also an award wining educator and mentor. Her Global Research, Implementation, and Training (GRIT) Lab provides hands-on experiential learning opportunities in global health for undergraduate through post-doctoral students.

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Prior to joining UMD, Dr. Wipfli was Director of the Undergraduate Global Health and Health Promotion degree programs at the University of Southern California (USC) and served as the founding Associate Director of the USC Institute for Global Health for over a decade. Before that, she directed research and training for the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and worked on the development of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as a technical officer at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva.