Vice Chancellor, University of Global Health Equity
Professor Binagwaho is a Rwandan pediatrician who completed her MD in General Medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and her MA in Pediatrics at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science from Dartmouth College and earned a PhD from the University of Rwanda College of Business and Economics. She returned to Rwanda in 1996, just two years after the genocide in 1994 against the Tutsi. Working in collaboration with national stakeholders, health professionals, policymakers, and international partners, she has helped to build a health system in Rwanda that is one of the most equitable and high-functioning in Africa.
Professor Binagwaho was named Vice Chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity in 2017. From 2002-2016, she served the Rwandan Health Sector in high-level government positions, first as the Executive Secretary of Rwanda's National AIDS Control Commission, then as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, and then for five years as the Minister of Health. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a Professor of the Practice of Global Health Delivery at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, and an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.
Professor Binagwaho’s academic engagements include research on health equity, HIV/AIDS, information and communication technologies (ICT) in e-health, and pediatric care delivery systems. She has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles.
She holds an array of leadership and advisory positions on national and international scale, including but not limited to the African Advisory Board of the Stephen Lewis Foundation; the Advisory Board of the Friends of the Global Fund Africa; the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries; and multiple Lancet Commissions.
