Ashwin Vasan, MD, PHD Specialties: Internal Medicine

Dr. Vasan is a joint-appointed faculty in the Division of General Medicine, where he precepts in AIM clinic, and the Department of Population & Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, where he teaches a graduate seminar on Implementation Science in Global Health. In addition to this role, Dr Vasan is the founding Executive Director of the Health Access Equity Unit at NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, a new city-wide initiative started in early 2017 and aimed at improving the health and social welfare of marginalized communities, including people with a history of justice involvement, refugees and asylum-seekers, survivors of human trafficking, etc., through improved access to, engagement in, and quality of healthcare and social service delivery. This is the first government program of its kind in the nation – to focus specifically on the broad role of health systems and healthcare as a part of the solution to social systems failures, including to mass incarceration and reforming the criminal justice system. He has over 15 years of experience working in public health, primary care, and program implementation in resource-constrained settings, with low-income, vulnerable populations. Prior to joining DOHMH, Dr Vasan worked for a range of global health organizations in various roles, including 10+ years at Partners In Health in Rwanda, Lesotho, and Boston, the World Health Organization in Geneva and Uganda, and most recently, as Deputy Director of the ARCHES program at the Mailman School at Columbia, a $17 million program of community health systems implementation and research in Ghana and Tanzania. He is the author of over 25 peer-reviewed publications on global health and implementation science, and his writing has appeared in The Lancet and Lancet Global Health, amongst other fora. Dr. Vasan received his MD from the University of Michigan, his MSc in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health, and his PhD in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.