Petrie-Flom Welcomes Rochelle Walensky as Senior Academic Fellow!

August 16, 2023 — The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is delighted to welcome Dr. Rochelle Walensky as a Senior Academic Fellow this year. Dr. Walensky will join Petrie-Flom Center events, activities, and programming, and lead a reading group at Harvard Law School titled “At the Intersection: Health, Public Health Policy and the Law.”

Dr. Walensky served as Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2021 to 2023. Prior to her appointment at the CDC, Dr. Walensky served as Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where she served on the faculty since 2001.

The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School was founded in 2005 through a generous gift from Joseph H. Flom and the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation. The Center’s founding mission was to promote interdisciplinary analysis and legal scholarship in these fields. Today, the Center has grown into a leading research program dedicated to the unbiased legal and ethical analysis of pressing questions facing health policymakers, medical professionals, patients, families, and others who influence and are influenced by health care and the health care system. 

Dr. Walensky also will join Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) as a Research Fellow, conducting research on women’s leadership in the health care field and engaging with faculty and students at Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Walensky will also have an Executive Fellow affiliation at Harvard Business School, where she will work with Professor Robert Huckman and the HBS Health Care Initiative.