This event is open to the public and will be recorded. Please register to attend. The doors open at 4:00 p.m. Please plan on being seated by 4:15 p.m. as the event will start promptly at 4:30 p.m.
PLEASE NOTE: Registration for this event has been high. Seating is on a first-come first-served basis. An overflow room will be provided and a recording of the event will be made available on the Weatherhead Center's YouTube channel a few days after the event.
The Trump Administration’s abrupt dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has triggered a wave of already hundreds of thousands of deaths, mostly of children, around the world. Atul Gawande—former leader of global health at the agency—draws on data, historical parallels, and on-the-ground fact-finding to reveal how gains against malnutrition, infectious disease, and child mortality are being rapidly reversed. Gawande argues that this is a case of “public man-made death,” and calls for accountability and renewed commitment to lifesaving global health efforts.
Read: "The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands" by Atul Gawande, The New Yorker (November 5, 2025)
Watch: Rovina's Choice, the short documentary that tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
Atul Gawande, John and Cyndy Fish Chair in Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Samuel O. Thier Professor of the Practice of Surgery, Harvard Medical School; writer, The New Yorker.
Erez Manela, Acting Center Director (2025–2026); Director, Graduate Student Programs; Faculty Associate. Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History, Department of History, Harvard University.
Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, is a renowned surgeon, author, and public health innovator. He holds the John and Cyndy Fish Chair in Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is the Samuel O. Thier Professor of the Practice of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He was Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID from January 2022 to January 2025. Prior to that, he cofounded and chaired Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation where he is now Distinguished Professor in Residence, and Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. From 2018–2020, he was CEO of Haven, the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase healthcare venture.
Dr. Gawande is also a longtime writer for The New Yorker magazine and has written four New York Times bestselling books: Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has won two National Magazine Awards, AcademyHealth’s Impact Award for highest research impact on healthcare, and a MacArthur Fellowship. And he is executive producer for three documentary films: the Emmy-nominated adaptation Being Mortal (2016), the Oscar-nominated film To Kill A Tiger (2024), and The New Yorker film Rovina’s Choice (2025).
Sarah Banse
sarahbanse@wcfia.harvard.edu
Illustration credit: Kristin Caulfield, screenshots from Impact Counter
The Jodidi Lecture is among the most prominent lecture series of the Weatherhead Center and is one of the most distinguished at the University. Established in 1955, the lecture series provides for the “delivery of lectures by eminent and well-qualified persons…for the promotion of tolerance, understanding and good will among nations, and the peace of the world.” For more information on the Jodidi Lecture, please visit the Lectureships page.
LOCATION:Tsai Auditorium (Room S010), CGIS South Building STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20260211T213000Z DTEND:20260211T230000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR