As he enters his seventh month at the School of Public Health, Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor Adnan Hyder is featured in the February 21, 2026 edition of The Lancet. 

The profile, published in the journal’s Perspectives section, explores Hyder’s personal and professional journey from a budding career in neurology to a world-renowned scholar in health systems and policy who discovered the field of public health through his desire to achieve social justice—particularly through injury, trauma, and chronic disease prevention.

“I saw poverty, grief, and ill health like I’ve never seen before,” Hyder says in the article, recalling a volunteer stint in rural Pakistan while he was a medical student at Aga Khan University. “And I felt, at that time, tremendous anger, and that anger continued when we started work in the urban informal settlements of Karachi. … I told myself, I’ve got to do something around community health, public health—whatever I do, I’ve got to be very conscious of this.”

After serving in leadership positions at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, and strengthening healthcare in low- and middle-income countries for more than 25 years, Hyder now leads SPH at a pivotal time for the field and for the school. This year marks SPH’s 50th anniversary and, with it, he says, an opportunity to become a school “that really reimagines public health,” as we strive to improve communities near and far and prepare the next generation of public health leaders to tackle the world’s unprecedented challenges. 

The Lancet previously highlighted the work of multiple SPH community members in honor of the school’s 40th anniversary in 2016.

Read the full story about Dean Hyder here.