Dear BioMed Community,
I am pleased to announce that Adam C. Levine, MD, MPH, FACEP, professor of emergency medicine and health services, policy and practice, has been appointed the inaugural Associate Dean of Global Health Equity in the Division of Biology and Medicine, effective January 1, 2024.
Faculty and students at The Warren Alpert Medical School have been engaged in global health research and education since the early years of the medical program at Brown. Historically, this has been one of BioMed’s core strengths, with longstanding programs in HIV and other infectious diseases, in delivering surgical care, and in supporting the development and growth of health care research in countries around the world. This new leadership role will serve to unite and align efforts in global and social health across BioMed, recognizing that faculty efforts to address social determinants of health and reduce health care disparities abroad are very similar to work faculty are doing among refugee, indigent, and unsheltered populations here in Rhode Island. There are exciting opportunities to have impact both here in our own state as well as around the world by building stronger collaboration and connection between these arenas.
As Associate Dean of Global Health Equity, Dr. Levine will bring faculty together to support synergies across professional disciplines, and to work more collaboratively to attract federal and foundation funding. He will mentor junior faculty working to build careers in global health, as well as recruit talented global health faculty from other institutions. He will engage undergraduate students, PLME students, medical students, and other trainees with interests in global and social health to provide career advising and mentorship on specific research projects. He will also create connections between faculty working on social health issues and community health organizations here in Rhode Island.
Dr. Levine will also oversee Brown’s Global Health Initiative, which was established in 2009. Dr. Levine currently serves as GHI’s associate director, and will succeed Dr. Susan Cu-Uvin, GHI’s founding director, who will step down at the end of this year and will continue to serve as an active faculty member and director of the Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research. Dr. Levine will continue GHI’s work to help train the next generation of global health leaders. In addition, GHI will add to its portfolio administrative oversight of the 18 international medical exchange programs at The Warren Alpert Medical School as well as the Emerging Infectious Disease and HIV Scholars Program.
A scholar, clinician, and teacher, Dr. Levine is exceptionally prepared to take on this new role. After receiving his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and Master of Public Health (international health) from the University of California, Berkley, Dr. Levine completed the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency Program. He joined the faculty of The Warren Alpert Medical School’s Department of Emergency Medicine in 2009 and will conclude a five-year tenure as chief of the Division of Global Emergency Medicine at the end of this year. Dr. Levine is the founding director of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies, whose mission is to further a deeper understanding of human rights and humanitarian challenges around the globe, and encourage collaboration between local communities, academics, and practitioners to develop innovative solutions to these challenges.
Dr. Levine has spent his career working to improve the delivery of emergency care in resource-limited settings and during humanitarian emergencies. He served as principal investigator for International Medical Corps’ Ebola Research Team during outbreaks in West Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was named “Rhode Islander of the Year” in 2014 for his work in Liberia during that country’s Ebola epidemic. Dr. Levine conducted a series of studies in Rwanda and Bangladesh focusing on the development of new tools for the assessment of dehydration in children and adults with acute diarrhea caused by cholera and other illnesses. Most recently, he was site-primary investigator for a multicenter randomized controlled trial of convalescent plasma for outpatient treatment of early COVID-19 infection in adults. This work found that convalescent plasma can be used as an effective and low-cost treatment both during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the inevitable pandemics of the future.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Levine on his new role, and thanking Dr. Cu-Uvin for her leadership of the Global Health Initiative.
Sincerely,
Mukesh K. Jain, MD
Senior Vice President for Health Affairs
Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences