Dr. Natalia Linos is a social epidemiologist and the Executive Director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard. She has over 15 years of experience working at the global and local levels on some of the most pressing public health challenges of our time: from climate change to systemic racism.

Since 2019, she has helped build a new research area for the FXB Center focused on racial justice. Along with Dr. Bassett, she co-leads the two largest programs in this area, namely to create an actionable field of scholarship on structural racism and health and make the public health case for reparations. These efforts build on their work together, including at the New York City Health Department and research on the social, legal and political determinants of health.

Prior to her role at Harvard, Natalia worked at the United Nations for over a decade in diverse roles. From 2016 to 2019, she led UNDP’s work at the nexus of health, climate change and the environment, and briefly served as interim Chief of Staff for the Bureau for Programme and Policy Support. From 2007 to 2014, she served as a policy specialist in Beirut, Lebanon, and later as an adviser and speech writer to former UNDP Administrator and Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark, while also completing her doctoral studies.

Natalia has a strong commitment to public service and bringing public health expertise into political decision-making. In 2020 and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Natalia ran for Congress to represent Massachusetts’ fourth Congressional district. She is currently a Town Meeting Member in Brookline and is a member of Brookline’s Advisory Council on Public Health. She also serves on the Board of the Environmental League of Massachusetts.

Natalia is a three-time Harvard University graduate, earning her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology, Master of Science in Social Epidemiology, and Doctor of Science in Social Epidemiology here. She also holds a Certificate in Forced Migration from Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre. She speaks Greek fluently and has basic conversational skills in Arabic, Spanish and French. Natalia has three young children.