Books I worked on while I was at HarperCollins Publishers.

Each year, Global Health Corps (GHC) fellows kick off their fellowship with a multi-day training that connects them with each other and with global health experts as they begin to orient to the sector and the GHC community. This year, fellows had the honor of hearing from Dr. Alex Coutinho, a Ugandan medical doctor who is now working with the Gates Foundation to improve the control of malaria in several African countries as well as the Africa CDC, where he launched the inaugural COVID-19 global health leadership program.

The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated how make-or-break leadership can be. The pandemic provided an opportunity for global health to look at itself in a mirror and begin to address the lasting impact of colonialism and white supremacy on the sector.

The intersectionality of race and gender is not a new topic of conversation. It has served as a significant social determinant of health inequity across cultures for generations, causing a weathering effect on women, girls, and people of color. With the rise of COVID-19 cases, we immediately saw how it disproportionately impacts people of color as these communities experience much higher rates of infection and hospitalization.

Mindful leadership revolves around the practice of looking inwards to inform how we engage with others and the world around us. Mindfulness itself is the ability to develop mind-body awareness, letting everything around you fade away and simply focus on the way you feel in the present moment. During this time period of uncertainty as we are living in a global pandemic, facing civil unrest, preparing for upcoming elections, and much more, it is difficult to create space to pause and reflect.

At 7:40 PM on Friday, September 18, I received a text from my friend: “RBG JUST DIED.” My heart sank. That couldn’t be true. I immediately checked Twitter, and my entire feed was flooded with tweets about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.