Anne-Emanuelle Birn is Professor of Global Development Studies and of Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the University of Toronto. Her research explores the history, politics, and political economy of global health, particularly in Latin America. Current projects examine: the history of child health in Uruguay; transnational perspectives on social activism and policy-making during the COVID-19 pandemic; social justice-oriented South-South health cooperation; and the health harms of Canadian extractivism. She has published widely in Latin American, African, Asian, North American, and European journals and presses. Her books include: Marriage of Convenience: Rockefeller International Health and Revolutionary Mexico (Rochester, 2006); Comrades in Health: US Health Internationalists, Abroad and at Home (Rutgers, 2013); Oxford University Press’s Textbook of Global Health; (2009; 2017/18); Peripheral Nerve: Health and Medicine in Cold War Latin America (Duke, 2020); and Going Public: The Unmaking and Remaking of Universal Healthcare (Cambridge, 2023).
Among other scholar-activist roles, she serves on the coordinating committee of People’s Health Movement-Canada, and as North America co-representative on the Global Steering Council of the People’s Health Movement. In 2023 she received the Viseltear Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Public Health History.