Dr. Michael VanRooyen

Michael VanRooyen, MD, MPH is the founding director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), an interfaculty initiative at Harvard University dedicated to advancing evidence and professional development in humanitarian assistance. He has led complex humanitarian operations with numerous relief organizations in more than thirty countries affected by conflict and disaster, including Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan–Darfur, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine, and Ukraine. He has worked internationally as a humanitarian and leadership expert with several nongovernmental organizations, including CARE, Save the Children, Oxfam, and Physicians for Human Rights. In 2012, Dr. VanRooyen founded the Humanitarian Academy at Harvard to advance professional development for humanitarian leaders globally.

Dr. VanRooyen is the Chair of Emergency Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as well as the Enterprise Chief of Emergency Medicine for the Mass General Brigham health system. He leads all academic, education, and clinical services for ten emergency departments with more than 500 medical providers, serving more than 500,000 patients annually. He is also the J. Stephen Bohan Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Lavine Family Professor of Humanitarian Studies at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Domestically, Dr. VanRooyen has led responses to many local and national crises. He served on American Red Cross teams that responded to Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. He led emergency medical teams responding to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, mobilized medical support for the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and led his emergency medical teams through two hospital shootings and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. VanRooyen teaches courses at Harvard University on humanitarian leadership and humanitarian operations in conflict, complex emergencies, and disaster contexts. He has authored the textbook Emergent Field Medicine; his most recent book The World’s Emergency Room describes the evolution of modern humanitarian assistance and the threats facing humanitarian and health care workers in conflict zones.