Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Dr. Sara Bleich is the inaugural Vice Provost for Special Projects at Harvard University, Professor of Public Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. With more than 190 peer-reviewed publications, she is a policy expert and researcher who specializes in diet-related diseases, food insecurity, and racial inequality. Prior to this, Dr. Bleich served in the Biden Administration as the Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service and as the Senior Advisor for COVID-19 in the Office of the Secretary at USDA. As a White House Fellow during the Obama Administration, she worked at USDA as a Senior Policy Adviser for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services and on First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative. Dr. Bleich was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2023 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2025. She holds a B.A. in psychology from Columbia University and a PhD in health policy from Harvard University.