Atul A. Gawande called 2025 Harvard Alumni Day speaker | News

The public health leader and surgeon Atul A. Gawande are working on this year's Alumni Day Speaker, the university announced on Wednesday.

The event, which is held annually by the Harvard Alumni Association, will take place on June 6th, a week after the opening ceremony for the 2025 class.

Gawande, who completed the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, has been a practicing surgeon in Brigham and Women's Hospital for more than twenty years. Previously, he was the deputy administrator of global health in the US Agency for International Development and a member of the COVID 19 advisory committee of the former President Biden-19.

The announcement follows Abraham Vergheese's selection as a spokesman for 2025. Both Gawande and Sergese are doctors, professors and bestselling authors with Stanford ties, similar to Harvard President Alan M. Garber '76.

“Atul Gawande is one of the most influential thinkers, writers and innovators in health and medicine today,” Garber wrote in a press release on Wednesday.

“From the further development of surgical security to the worldwide expansion of access to high -quality care, he brings a deeply humanistic perspective into his work and is devoted to ensuring the guarantee of health policy and systems that the people they serve,” he added.

Gawande has been regular with the New Yorker since his surgical training days and has written four bestseller books from the New York Times.

The research of Gawande in Healthcare Innovations has played a key role in the redefinition of the surgical security standards and shaped the surgical security checklist of the World Health Organization.

Haa -Alumni President Moitri Chowdhury Savard '93 praised Gawande for his “rare gift” and “heart of a storyteller”.

“He shows us that medicine is not just a science, but a profound human endeavor – one that requires reflection, empathy and continuous improvement,” wrote Savard. “Through his writing, research and leadership, he asked us all to ask: 'How can we do it better?'”

Gawande acquired his bachelor's degree from Stanford before he received his medical conclusion and his master from Harvard. He is a former professor of health policy and management at HSPH and professor of surgery at HMS.

“I look forward to returning to Harvard,” Gawande wrote. “This is a community like no other – in their history, discoveries and effects.”

“Nothing that I had expected since – surgery, innovation, writing, public health – without this place,” he added.

“While the world around us – around us – progresses at a rapid pace, he reminds us that real progress is not just about scientific or technological innovation,” wrote Sarah Karmon, managing director of the HAA, in a press release. “We also have to rethink how we take care of each other.”

Actors and writers Courtney B. Vance '82 served as spokesman for the Alumni day during the ceremonies of last year.