Harvard Medical School Receives $20 Million Gift for Global Health Research

Billionaire and medical technology magnate Ronda E. Stryker and her husband William D. Johnston donated $20 million to Harvard Medical School to support global health research.

The gift will endow a professorship in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and provide funding—specifically for junior faculty and fellows—in fields including HIV and Ebola research.

Stryker’s gift is the most recent public donation to the school’s campaign, part of Harvard’s historic $6.5 billion capital campaign. As of the end of June, the Medical School has raised $574 million, just over 76 percent of its $750 million goal.

By Melanie Y. Fu

Paul Farmer, a University professor and the chair of the school’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, applauded the gift for allowing the department to expand its research capabilities and maintain its need-blind admissions policy for its program in global health delivery.

“This gift gives us the ability to solidify our foundation of collaborative research, care delivery and education for global health equity, while also providing crucial flexibility to respond to the needs of the communities we serve, as defined by the people within them,” Farmer said in a press release at the time of the gift’s announcement last month.

Medical School Dean Jeffrey S. Flier also praised the gift in the press release for supporting the school’s global health in its initiatives that “continue to improve the lives of people throughout the world.” Flier is set to step down from his position at the end of July, and Barbara J. McNeil—a professor at the school—will become the interim dean while Harvard continues its search for a permanent dean.

Stryker, who sits on the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows and Advisory Council on Global Health and Service, said in a press release that the gift will help Harvard Medical School “create a movement and effect real change in billions of people’s lives around the world, particularly women and children who often bear the brunt of the lack of access to health care.”

Stryker and her husband donated $100 million to Western Michigan University in 2012 and funded the creation of its medical school.

—Staff writer Brandon J. Dixon can be reached at brandon.dixon@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrandonJoDixon.