Climate Change, Structural Racism and Organizing for Change

Gaurab Basu, MD, MPH is a physician and founding co-director of the CHA Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy (CHEEA). He is an Instructor at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. At the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Dr. Basu is a Health Equity Fellow at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, and Faculty Affiliate at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Dr. Basu has received numerous awards in medical education, including the Charles McCabe Faculty Prize in Excellence at Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance Academic Council award. He has been a Curtis Prout Academy Fellow at Harvard Medical School and a Harvard Macy Scholar. He has co-directed the social medicine course at Harvard Medical School and served on it’s Task Force to Address Racism. His academic work has been published in Academic Medicine, PLOS Medicine, and Annals of Internal Medicine, among others. Dr. Basu has been recognized nationally for his work in climate change and health equity. He was named to the 2021 Grist 50 list of climate leaders. He also received the Union of Concerned Scientists’ 2020 Science Defender Award. He has served on the city of Cambridge Mayor’s Climate Crisis Working Group and its Net-Zero Climate Task Force. His perspective pieces have appeared in the Boston Globe, Scientific American, the BMJ, Grist, NPR/WBUR, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, among others. His work in climate change medical education has been featured by NPR’s All Things Considered. Dr. Basu was a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Sommer Scholar, where he studied human rights. From 2018-2021, he was a part of the Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Leader fellowship. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Basu has served as one of the clinical leads of Cambridge Health Alliance’s COVID Community Management clinical services. Dr. Basu is trained in community organizing and has served as a coach for workshops run by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Marshall Ganz. He has previously worked for numerous global NGOs including the Gates Institute, Partners in Health, the Child in Need Institute and Last Mile Health.

Dr. Pedja Stojicic is a FXB Faculty Affiliate and Executive Director of People Power Health a group of community organizers and trainers focused on bringing the social movement and community organizing skills to healthcare professionals, caregivers, and healers. In the past, he was a Project Director at Rippel Foundation working with the Hospital Systems, RWJF, CMS, QIOs, Center for Public Health Leadership, Primary Care Progress, Way to Wellville, Healthcare Anchor Network and many others. As a life-long activist, he currently serves on the advisory board of Leading Change Network, one of the largest global networks of social movement leaders.

Originally from Serbia, Dr. Stojicic has served as president and executive director of Youth of JAZAS, a Serbian NGO fighting HIV/AIDS, and as a president of Serbia on the Move movement-building organization from Belgrade. He earned his Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Medical Degree from Belgrade University School of Medicine. Dr. Stojicic is an instructor at  T.H Chan School teaching three courses – Enabling Teams, Enabling Large System Change, and Narrative Leadership.