Dr. Sue J. Goldie, Roger Irving Lee Professor of Public Health, is a physician, decision analyst, and public health scientist working to improve the health of vulnerable populations across the globe. Renowned for her scholarship in decision science, commitment to policy translation, and innovative approach to interdisciplinary education, Goldie serves as the Director of both the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator (Harvard University) and the Center for Health Decision Science (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health). Dr. Goldie is a senior faculty member in the Department of Health Policy and Management and has a secondary appointment as Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine (Harvard Medical School).
Internationally recognized for mathematical modeling and the application of decision analytic tools to guide public health decision making, her research has focused on viruses of global health importance, cancer prevention, and maternal mortality. She has published over 200 research papers, chapters, and reports and has been the principal investigator on awards from the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2005, she received the prestigious MacArthur award “for genius and creativity” in applying the tools of decision science to address major public health problems and in 2009 was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
She has served on numerous national committees and international advisory boards, including the Board of Global Health at the Institute of Medicine, and as a consultant to governments, global alliances, foundations and industry. Her work has influenced clinical guidelines, vaccine policy, technology adoption, and research priorities in low, middle and high-income countries. In 2008, she received the John Eisenberg Award for translation of research to practice. That same year, she was appointed as the Director of the Center for Health Decision Science (CHDS) by Dean Barry Bloom at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Under her leadership, CHDS has become an internationally recognized center of excellence, engaging more than 100 faculty, fellows, students and visiting scholars in collaborative scholarship, policy translation and education.
With a long-standing track record of building bridges across disciplines, Goldie co-chaired the Harvard Initiative for Global Health from 2007 to 2009 with Provost Steve Hyman. In 2010, she was appointed as founding director of the Harvard Global Health Institute by Harvard University President, Drew Gilpin Faust, advancing an ambitious agenda for cross-sectoral collaboration beyond the university, establishing forums to address interdisciplinary global health challenges, and playing a key role in initiatives such as the Commission on Global Governance for Health, Disease Control Priorities Project, and Lancet Commission on Investing in Health. Under her leadership, global health perspectives were infused into educational opportunities across the University, with creation of dozens of new courses across schools and novel learning communities. By the end of her tenure, more than 5,000 undergraduates had taken courses in global health, more than 1000 participated in experiential programs in 30 countries, and the secondary field in global health & health policy surpassed economics to become the largest at the college. In 2014, Goldie was named the Special Advisor to the Provost on global health education. That same year she was appointed as the Director of the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator (GHELI) at Harvard University, where she continues to promote the integration of global health and global learning within and outside the University, building collaborative cross-disciplinary teaching, creating novel learning spaces, and developing innovative pedagogical tools and approaches.
Dr. Goldie is recognized as one of the most innovative educators at the university. She teaches undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals, and has mentored hundreds of students, scholars and practitioners in public health. She teaches core courses in decision science, clinical decision making, health policy, public health and global health at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard College and co-teaches in a number of interdisciplinary courses across graduate and professional schools. Voted a favorite professor by undergraduate students over multiple years, her global health course has been taken by more than 2000 students. In addition to her brick and mortar classes, she created the first online course in health decision analysis, produced the first online public health ‘fundamental concepts’ course taken by all incoming students to the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and created, piloted and field tested numerous synchronous and asynchronous public health and global health modules and courses for K-12 teachers and community leaders. She serves on the FAS Standing Committee on Health Policy, and the Committee on Global Health and Health Policy at Harvard College. She received the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award from Harvard University, several Harvard Chan School Educational Awards, Citations for Teaching Excellence, and most recently the Roger L. Nichols Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Dr. Goldie attended Union College (1984) and Albany Medical College (1988) during which she was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, and completed her residency at Yale New Haven Hospital, Yale University School of Medicine (1988-1991). She joined the Harvard School of Public Health faculty in 1998, received tenure in 2006, and was named the Roger Irving Lee Professor of Public Health in 2007. In 2019, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from Albany Medical College. In 2021, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science Degree from Union College.