This talk explores how to equip health professionals with the knowledge and skills needed to address climate change as a major health threat. Climate change presents one of the most significant global health challenges, affecting communities through extreme weather, air pollution, infectious diseases, and food insecurity, among others. Health professionals are uniquely positioned to build health sector resilience while empowering patients and communities to mitigate and adapt to health impacts. Further, the health sector contributes nearly 10% of all global greenhouse gas emissions and has an urgent mandate to reduce harm.
Presenter Bios
Cecilia Sorensen, MD is the Director of the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education at Columbia University, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Columbia Irving Medical Center and Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. As a physician-investigator at the nexus of climate change and human health, translating research into policy, clinical action, and education to build resilience in vulnerable communities is the focus of her research.
Julie Scott Taylor, MD, MSc, is a board-certified academic family physician with expertise in international medical education and maternal-child health.
Dr. Taylor has been on the faculty at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Rhode Island since 2001. Currently an Adjunct Professor at Brown, she previously served as the Director of Predoctoral Education in Family Medicine and as the Director of Clinical Curriculum for the medical school. From 2014 to 2023, she was in various senior leadership roles at American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine (AUC) where she oversaw academic and student affairs across two campuses and 23 clinical sites in the US and UK. She is currently the inaugural Associate Dean for Medical Education at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in New Hampshire.
Dr. Taylor holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Harvard College, an MD from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and a Master of Science in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Boston University. She has been the Principal Investigator for multiple grants and has authored more than 135 publications. She is also Past President of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, a worldwide physician organization.