In Memoriam: Kris Heggenhougen.

Kris Heggenhougen, a revered and beloved professor in the Department of Global Health for many years, died on August 12 of COVID-related respiratory illness.

A medical anthropologist, Kris joined SPH in 1999, where he was central to the expansion of global health research and teaching. Taking on the role of counselor and institutional matchmaker, in 2000, he helped attract a large group of researchers from the Harvard Institute for International Development to BU, where global health education and research have flourished over the last 20 years.

Kris received his BA in English and American literature from Bowdoin College, and his PhD in anthropology from the New School for Social Research. He was a lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an adjunct professor at the Center for International Health at the University of Bergen in Norway. He carried out extensive health and behavior/medical anthropological fieldwork research in Guatemala, Malaysia, and Tanzania. Some of his former positions include: associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health and senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was a fellow of the American Anthropological Association and formerly the senior editor for medical anthropology of the journal Social Science and Medicine. He was a member of the Social, Economic and Behavior Steering Committee of TDR/WHO, and the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Public Health.

Kris is remembered as an exceptional teacher who endeared himself to a generation of public health students. He will always be known for his abundant warmth, cultural sensitivity, absolute honesty, ability to put mission before self, and for reading poems in class. A decade ago, Kris retired to his hometown of Bergen, Norway, where he continued to teach and stay in close contact with his global community of friends and colleagues. May he rest peacefully and always be remembered for his powerful intellect, limitless kindness to all, profound decency, wicked humor, hallway dances, and his vision of a more just and equitable global community.

Jennifer Beard and Donald Thea are faculty in the Department of Global Health.