Harvard T.H. Chan School
of Public Health
Department of Social and
Behavioral Sciences
Position Description:
Department Chair and Professor of Social and Behavioral
Sciences
Description
The
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
(Harvard Chan School) invites
applications for the position of Department Chair and
Tenured Professor in the
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS). We
seek an innovative scholar and visionary leader to direct
a large, diverse, multidisciplinary department. The
successful applicant will have an outstanding record of
academic and research accomplishments, demonstrated
leadership and administrative abilities, and a compelling
vision for the department.
The Department and School
SBS has a mission to improve health throughout the
lifespan, with a special emphasis on populations harmed by
injustice. The SBS department brings together faculty
trained in diverse disciplines whose research focuses on
the social and structural determinants of health and
behavioral outcomes, the development and evaluation of
interventions and policies leading to the improvement of
population health and health equity across the life
course; the expertise encompassed involves theory,
methods, and substantive knowledge. The department is a
thriving community that is working collaboratively to
build a healthier world in which there is improved health
for all and reductions in social inequities in health. The
department’s educational mission is to train both scholars
and practitioners: scholars whose research will illuminate
critical social and structural determinants of health and
who will identify and test innovative policy and
interventions; and practitioners who are skilled in
designing, implementing, and evaluating health enhancing
interventions in real-world clinical, community, and
policy settings. The department is composed of 26 primary
faculty, approximately 34 doctoral and 84 master’s
students, 97 academic appointees, and 34 full-time staff
members, and it includes 9 affiliated Centers, 2
affiliated interdisciplinary and interdepartmental
concentrations, and 1 intradepartmental concentration.
SBS is one of nine
academic departments at Harvard Chan School, which is
located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston,
Massachusetts, and the Chan School is home to more than
185 primary faculty and roughly 1,400 graduate-level
students. Harvard Chan School goals—delivering
evidence-based education, creating and sustaining an
inclusive intellectual community, translating academic
knowledge into impactful service and population-based
solutions, and employing the most innovative communication
strategies—embrace both the scale and difficulty of
today’s public health challenges. By deploying key
strengths in both the basic and social sciences, the
School is able to confront the most pressing diseases of
our time, to study their biopsychosocial foundations, and
to address both individuals and entire populations. The
goal is to consider health at the individual and
population level and elucidate structural, institutional,
and individual factors that influence health and thereby
inform progress in clinical care, population health, and
public policy for improving population health for all.
The core vision of the Harvard Chan School is: “Health,
dignity, and justice for every human.”
The Candidate
The successful candidate will advance the department’s
mission by fostering and expanding research activities,
enriching the educational mission and trainee experience,
attracting and mentoring early-career faculty, and
providing strategic and tactical leadership at the levels
of the department, School, and University. They will also
be able to articulate a long-term vision for the future of
the department to address existing and anticipated
academic and research needs and to advance public health,
both around the corner and around the world. As part of a
world-class team of deans and department chairs, the chair
of SBS will work laterally and vertically to address both
broadly shared and distinctly local challenges and to
advance the School’s mission of improving health and
promoting equity so all people can thrive.
The incumbent will meet
these goals in part through exhibiting strength in the
following areas:
Leadership and
Administration
·
Provide visionary leadership to the department that
inspires and catalyzes excellence and innovation by
faculty, staff, and trainees at all levels
·
In partnership with the Director of Administration,
oversee and manage departmental operations, including
budgeting, resource allocation, and strategic planning;
and support a culture of research compliance and
transparency in decision making
·
Develop and implement strategic plan for diversifying and
expanding portfolio of funding to the department through
grants, contracts, and gifts to support research,
training, and career development for students and faculty
at all levels
·
Play a key role in engagement with alumni and donors and
stewardship of philanthropic relationships to support
fundraising for the department and School
·
Set clear and consistent goals for department faculty,
staff, administrators, students, and non-faculty
researchers
·
Oversee strategic recruitment of new faculty members that
will strengthen the focus of the department on critical
issues
·
Oversee strategic curriculum development and planning for
both required and elective departmental courses and foster
strategic curricular and programmatic engagement with the
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the jointly
administered PhD programs
·
Oversee development of strategy for non-degree educational
programs
·
Define, prioritize, and measure the effectiveness of key
programs and core work areas
·
In partnership with the Dean and senior leadership, lead
the department’s primary faculty, core committees, and
flagship programs to manage change and navigate growth
effectively and efficiently
·
Foster a collaborative, transparent, diverse, and
inclusive culture within the department and School
Collaboration
·
Collaborate with the Dean and senior leadership to define
and advance the School’s overarching strategic direction
·
Collaborate with the Dean and senior faculty to set
high-level programmatic direction, including in new and
existing initiatives across all departmental programs and
endeavors
·
Foster a positive and supportive work environment that
encourages innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration,
including promoting efforts to obtain training grants,
career-development grants for students and faculty at all
stages, and other grants that build departmental research
and pedagogic capacity to advance health equity
Communication
·
Create and model strong working relationships with
programmatic and administrative leadership, faculty
committees, affiliates, peer institutions, and external
partners to support execution of programmatic initiatives
·
Represent and advocate for the department within the
School and University by developing productive
relationships with colleagues across the institution and
contributing to Harvard-wide priorities and initiatives in
line with internal goals and objectives
·
Represent the department to key audiences across the
School, University, and beyond, clearly articulating
strategic objectives and key impacts, and emphasizing its
unique value to both the institution and the world
Basic Qualifications
·
Doctoral degree (e.g., PhD, MD) with
scholarly expertise in relevant areas of public health,
such as social and behavioral determinants of health,
health and social policy, or health equity
·
Significant experience in procuring
research and career-development funding, conducting
academic public health research, teaching, administration,
and leadership
·
Forward-thinking leadership skills
and concomitant ability to communicate department and
School mission and vision to a variety of stakeholders
·
Deep commitment to diversity
and inclusion in and across all dimensions of
public health
·
Well-developed ability to prioritize
within an organizationally, intellectually, financially
complex environment; comfortable making decisions in a
multifactorial and dynamic financial climate
·
Experience handling sensitive and
confidential information
routinely and with the highest level of judgment; ability
to have difficult conversations, to address and mediate
conflict, and to provide highly customized mentorship
across a diverse community
·
Flexibility to pivot due to
unforeseen events or outcomes while maintaining core
priorities and meeting critical benchmarks
Diversity Statement
At the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, we
believe diversity is integral to the Harvard experience
and our mission of improving public health education,
research and policy. Diversity of cultural backgrounds,
identities, lived experiences, beliefs, perspectives, and
ways of understanding the world enriches our community and
enables us to best meet the public health needs of the
United States and the world. Ongoing learning and
development related to diversity allows for both
individual and institutional growth and is necessary to
foster and sustain a culture of inclusion. To achieve
this, we are committed to ensuring equitable access to
opportunities for learning, living, and working at the
Harvard Chan School. We maintain an unwavering dedication
to diversity, inclusion, and belonging as core to our
institutional values and to actively address racism,
sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, gender bias, and all forms
of discrimination.
Please apply to:
https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/14103
Applications should be
received no later than December 1, 2024, when the search
committee will begin reviewing candidates.
For questions, please
contact:
Megan Marchese| Faculty
Affairs Project Manager
Office of Faculty Affairs
| Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
marchese@hsph.harvard.edu
Additional information:
Key facts about the School
University and School faculty policies
Relevant employee benefits for faculty
Work/Life resources
|