Laura Helene Kahn MD MPH, MPP

Summary

• Dr. Laura H. Kahn is an internal medicine specialist and biodefense policy expert based in Bethesda, MD, with a medical degree from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, class of 1989. After her medical education and training, she received a Master's degree in Public Health from Columbia University School of Public Health and a Master's degree in Public Policy from Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs. She served as a Research Scholar at Princeton University from 2002 to 2019 where she conducted policy research and taught undergraduate students. Her areas of expertise include public health, leadership, zoonotic disease outbreaks, antimicrobial resistance, biosafety, biosecurity, bioethics, food safety and security, and agriculture and climate change. Dr. Kahn co-founded the One Health Initiative, a global effort to improve the health and well-being of all species. The One Health concept has been embraced by the World Health Organization, the World Animal Health Organization, The Food and Agriculture Organization, and the UN Environmental Program. She has published 3 books. The first, published in 2009 with ABC-CLIO press, was "Who's in Charge? Leadership During Epidemics, Bioterror Attacks, and Other Public Health Crises." She published a second edition in 2020 with a new preface. She published her 2nd and 3rd books, "One Health and the Politics of Antimicrobial Resistance" and "One Health and the Politics of COVID-19" in 2016 and 2024, respectively, with Johns Hopkins University Press. Her contributions to the burgeoning field of One Health have earned her several honors, including the K.F. Meyer/James H. Steele Gold Head Cane Award from the American Veterinary Epidemiology Society in 2016.