RE Log - Fall 2021

10 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2021 While she and Clinton were finishing the book, Sridhar was offered a faculty position at Oxford, then lured to Scotland, where she became the founding Director of the Global Health Governance Programme at Edinburgh. In that role, she oversees post-docs, researchers, PhD candidates and medical students, and also teaches a course, Investing in Global Health, to students in the university’s master’s program. Her research team is engaged in health issues around the globe, yet when COVID-19 hit, it was Sridhar who took the lead. “Devi stepped up very early,” said Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh. “She realized far earlier than I, and many of my colleagues: this was going to be something we had not seen in our lifetimes.” The pace for the next 18 months was dizzying; the one thing Sridhar sacrificed, she said, was sleep. “I guess it’s my personality: full on,” she said. “I’m full on into my work. It’s just about being in the moment. If I’m writing something, I try to focus on it; if I’m talking to you, I try to focus on it; if I’m doing my exercise, I focus on it. I think that helps with the mental overload. That helps each day come together.” Dignity and humility Despite her fast ascent in her field, Bauld said, Sridhar has remained grounded, winning admirers by displaying an uncommon dignity and humility. “She’s genuinely collaborative,” Bauld said. “She’s built an excellent team around her, and works across disciplines … She’s got a strong sense of self and identity that has allowed her – even though she’s so young – to be a leader. She’s a leader that takes people with her … She doesn’t have the arrogance that we see so often in our field, and many fields.” Sridhar, who is writing a book on the pandemic that will be released next year, said she would encourage current Ransom Everglades students to ignore traditional notions of success as they consider life after high school. “You should do what makes you happy, and what you can make a career out of – not what you are expected to do,” she said. “The people I’ve met who have really changed the world and are happy, are people who have kind of aligned what they’re good at, what they like doing, and what the world needs. Find those three things, and chart your own path.” Frenk, the University of Miami president, confessed that he hoped Sridhar would chart her path back to Miami. He admitted that one of his first moves when he assumed the presidency in 2015 was to try to coax her onto UM’s faculty. “I am still keeping my fingers crossed that she will come back one day and teach and be an academic leader on this side of the ocean,” Frenk said, laughing. “I don’t lose hope.” For now, Sridhar is happy in Edinburgh. The city, she said, is just like Miami. Except for the sheep. And a few other things. “I always joke about Edinburgh being the Miami of the North,” she said. “We have amazing beaches. We have surfing. There’s stand-up paddle boarding ... We just don’t have the weather.” “ She’s got a strong sense of self and identity that has allowed her – even though she’s so young – to be a leader. She’s a leader that takes people with her … She doesn’t have the arrogance that we see so often in our field, and many fields.” – Linda Bauld, professor of public health at University of Edinburgh