Dear Colleagues,
I am delighted to announce the appointment of Sara N. Bleich, Professor of Public Health Policy, to the newly created position of Vice Provost for Special Projects as of January 23, 2023.
In this role, Sara will lead the fulfillment of the recommendations from the Presidential Committee on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery (H&LS) and its Implementation Committee. She will work with leadership across the University to guide Harvard’s reparative efforts, engaging with faculty, students, staff, researchers, and alumni as well as with descendants and the public throughout the process. She will also act as a spokesperson for Harvard on issues of reckoning, repair, and the pursuit of reconciliation both nationally and internationally.
Sara is an expert on policy interventions to prevent obesity, food insecurity, and diet-related diseases, with a focus on historically underserved populations. She has served as a Professor of Public Health Policy at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health since 2016 and is a member of the Harvard Kennedy School Faculty. At the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, she is the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor as well as a former Faculty Director of the Social Sciences Program.
She is currently on leave from Harvard serving in the Biden Administration. In January 2022, she was named the first Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity for the Food and Nutrition Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), where she works to ensure that all Americans have consistent and equitable access to healthy, safe, and affordable foods essential to optimal health and wellbeing. Prior to that, she served in the new position of senior advisor for COVID-19 in the Office of the Secretary at USDA, where she led efforts related to the pandemic, economic recovery, and Federal nutrition assistance programs. She also served in the Obama Administration as a White House Fellow from 2015 to 2016, where she worked as a Senior Policy Advisor in the USDA’s Office of the Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services and for the First Lady’s Let’s Move initiative to reduce childhood obesity and improve children’s health.
The creation of the role of Vice Provost for Special Projects is a critical next step in ensuring the University and Schools make needed progress in addressing Harvard’s ties to slavery and remedying the many aspects of its persistent aftermath. Sara’s work at the intersection of public health and social justice, in addition to her expertise in helping build a collaborative culture of intellectual exchange across academic disciplines and sectors, make her uniquely suited for this work. For more information on Sara and her work, please see the related story in the Harvard Gazette.
Please join me in congratulating Sara and welcoming her to her new role.
Sincerely,
Alan M. Garber
Provost