Vanessa Kerry

Dr. Vanessa Kerry is the Co-Founder and CEO of Seed Global Health, a non-profit organization that focuses on health systems strengthening by training needed health professionals in resource limited settings. Under her leadership, Seed has helped educate more than 34,000 doctors, nurses, and midwives in seven countries, helping to improve health care for more than 73 million people.

In 2023, Dr. Kerry was appointed WHO Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health and is leading efforts to build advocacy around the impact of climate change on health in order to ensure equitable and just climate action. As co-chair of a workstream on the WHO’s Public Health and Emergency Health Workforce Roadmap, she is helping to galvanize consensus for investment in surveillance, detection, and treatment for the next pandemic.

Dr. Kerry is a critical care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where she also serves as both an instructor of medicine and Associate Director of Partnerships and Global Initiatives at the hospital's Center for Global Health. Additionally, she is Director, Program in Global Public Policy and Social Change in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Kerry received her undergraduate and medical degrees from Yale University and Harvard Medical School, respectively, completing her internal medicine residency and critical care fellowship at MGH. She earned her Master’s in Health Policy, Planning, and Financing from the London Schools of Economics and of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.