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May 2, 2025
CHICAGO --- Leading economist and United Nations adviser Jeffrey D. Sachs will give a keynote address at Northwestern University’s symposium “Global Health Then and Now: Equality, Development and Globalization.”
The Global Health Interdisciplinary Symposium will be held Nov. 19 and 20 at the School of Law, Arthur J. Rubloff Building, 375 East Chicago Ave., Chicago campus.
Scholars, policy experts, non-governmental organizations and health professionals will come together in moderated interdisciplinary panel discussions on a number of topics related to global health. They include global health funding, the role of innovation and social entrepreneurship in global health and the impact of epidemics on human capital.
Sachs, the Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and Health Policy and Management and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, as well as Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, will deliver the keynote address at noon, Thursday, Nov. 19, in Thorne Auditorium at the Law School.
Twice named one of Time magazine’s most influential world leaders, Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries.
“A trained economist who has become the leading figure on global health and development, Sachs embodies the interdisciplinary nature of the field,” says Juliet Sorensen, clinical associate professor of law at Northwestern and one of the organizers of the event. “This symposium marks an opportunity to bring together leading scholars, policy experts and other practitioners to increase dialogue and ultimately elicit action.”
The objective of the symposium and resulting publications is to provide a contextual analysis of principles, policies and practices that have shaped and continue to drive contemporary global public health with the aim of reapplying those lessons in developing countries.
Once considered a purely medical pursuit, global health research has enjoyed phenomenal gains over the past 25 years, due in large part to the understanding that good governance, effective economic infrastructures and functional legal systems are critical to solving a varied set of problems.
A number of Northwestern organizations, including Equality, Development and Globalization Studies at the Buffett Institute for Global Studies, the John H. Hollister Lecture Fund and the Program of African Studies are co-sponsoring the event.
The symposium is free to attend, but registration is required. For more information, including a complete schedule of the symposium, visit http://globalhealthsymposium.northwestern.edu.
