Laura H. Kahn

Bio

For almost 20 years, Dr. Laura H. Kahn was a research scholar with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Her education and training encompass nursing, medicine, public health, and public policy.

In April 2006, she published Confronting Zoonoses, Linking Human and Veterinary Medicine in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases which helped launch the One Health Initiative, a global movement promoting the health of all species by increasing communication and collaboration between human, animal, plant, environmental, and ecosystem health professionals.

Princeton University awarded her course, Hogs, Bats, and Ebola: An Introduction to One Health Policy, with a 250th Anniversary Fund for Innovation in Undergraduate Education. She converted the course into a free, online Coursera course, Bats, Ducks, and Pandemics: An Introduction to One Health Policy that enrolled over 9000 students from around the world from 2020 to 2023.

Dr. Kahn is the author of several books. The first, Who’s in Charge? Leadership during epidemics, bioterror attacks, and other public health crises, was originally published in 2009 by Praeger Security International. In 2020, a second edition was issued with a new preface discussing leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her second book, One Health and the Politics of Antimicrobial Resistance, was published in June 2016 by Johns Hopkins University Press. Her third book, One Health and the Politics of COVID-19, will be published in 2024 by Johns Hopkins University Press. She has written many online columns for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and has published in many peer-reviewed journals.

A native of California, Dr. Kahn holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from UC Los Angeles, a doctorate in medicine from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University and a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University. Dr. Kahn is a fellow of the American College of Physicians. In 2007, the New Jersey Chapter of the American College of Physicians awarded her with their highest honor, the Laureate Award. In 2014, the American Association of Public Health Physicians awarded her with a Presidential Award for Meritorious Service, and in 2016, the American Veterinary Epidemiology Society (AVES) awarded her with their highest honor for her work in One Health: the K.F. Meyer-James H. Steele Gold Head Cane Award.