I am an internationally renowned speaker, surgeon, author, coach and cat dad. I serve as the International Chief Medical Officer at Mercy Ships and as a Lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School.

Previously, I served as the founding O’Brien Chair of Global Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, as the founder and Director of the Center for Global Surgery Evaluation at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and as the Research Director for the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard. 

In my academic life, I’ve authored seminal papers on the global burden of surgical disease, the financial burden facing surgical patients, and the number of people who cannot access safe surgery worldwide. I also had the privilege of serving as a co-author on the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery.

I graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1996 with a BA in molecular biology. I received my MD from the University of Texas in 2001, after taking a year to teach organic chemistry in Singapore. Medical school was followed by a residency in otolaryngology at the joint Columbia/Cornell program in Manhattan, followed, in turn, by a fellowship in head and neck surgical oncology at the University of Toronto in 2007. I then took a year off to work in Liberia before returning to Toronto to complete a second fellowship in microvascular reconstructive surgery in 2008. I was the first to identify a novel independent prognostic indicator in head and neck cancer.

To date, I’ve worked and taught in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Benin, Togo, Congo, Haiti, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, Zambia, and Madagascar. In May, 2011, I received my MPH in global health from the Harvard School of Public Health, where I was a finalist for both the Albert Schweitzer award and the HSPH Student Recognition award. Then in May, 2015, I got my PhD in health policy from Harvard University, with a concentration in the science of decision-making. In 2018, I was awarded the Arnold P. Gold Humanism in Medicine Award by the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery.

My research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Iris O’Brien Foundation, the Damon Runyon Cancer Foundation, an anonymous donation to the Center for Global Surgery Evaluation, the GE Foundation’s Safe Surgery 2020 project and the Steven C. and Carmella Kletjian Foundation.

My academic pursuits focus on decision-making and surgical delivery in low- and middle-income countries, where I have a specific interest in the intersection of health, impoverishment, inequity, and global development. My work aims to determine optimal policies and platforms for surgical delivery that maximize health benefits while simultaneously minimizing the risk of financial catastrophe faced by patients.

My coaching and writing both focus on helping people navigate the difficult decisions in life, get out of the stuckness we all find ourselves in, and create a life of purpose, meaning, and deep contentment.

When I’m not working, I’m a photographer, rock climber, and ninja warrior. I competed on Seasons 8, 9, and 11 of American Ninja Warrior.