BILH Marks International Day of Women in Science with Former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH
Celebrating Women in Science at Beth Israel Lahey Health
BOSTON — In recognition of Women’s History Month, Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH) highlighted the achievements and contributions of women in science with a special event featuring Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, the 19th Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who led the agency during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Walensky joined Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH)/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) Chief Academic Officer Gyongyi Szabo, MD, PhD, and BILH Division President and President, Lahey Hospital and Medical Center Susan Moffatt-Bruce, MD, PhD, for a “fireside chat” on February 11th, the 10th International Day of Women in Science.
“This is a special moment to recognize the remarkable and valuable contributions of the women across BILH in the field of science,” Szabo said in her welcoming remarks. “Today, we come together to celebrate your achievements, acknowledge your impact in your field, and to inspire future generations of women in science.”
Approximately 125 people convened in Sherman Auditorium at BIDMC, while another 175 members of the BILH community watched the livestreamed event.
“At BIDMC, we know having a broad investigator community with a wide range of perspectives leads to different research questions and analytic approaches that make real differences in people’s lives,” said Alexa Kimball, MD, MPH, President & CEO of Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians at BIDMC who also provided introductory remarks. “I extend my thanks to all the women working in science across the BILH system for their dedication to discovery, their spirit of collaboration, and their pursuit of excellence.”
Sitting between Szabo and Moffatt-Bruce on stage, Walensky—an infectious disease clinician with deep experience in global HIV prevention, screening and care—candidly reflected on her historic tenure at the CDC from 2021 to 2023. She spoke about everything from the unexpected call she received the day Joseph R. Biden, Jr. was declared the winner of the 2020 election to the unprecedented public scrutiny she received during her time serving as CDC director in a landscape fraught with COVID-19 mis- and disinformation.
“It was the hardest job—I hope—I will ever have, and the biggest honor I will ever have,” said Walensky, a Massachusetts native and the former Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Moffatt-Bruce asked Walensky how she went about building trust across the sprawling agency, staffed by more than 12,000 employees across the United States and in 60 countries around the world.
“It’s done by tiny little acts over time,” Walensky said. “When it became clear I was meeting with the same people all the time, higher ups and center directors, I asked my chief of staff to put together a list of unsung heroes of the agency and I called five people each week, just to say, ‘Who are you?,’ ‘What do you do?, and ‘Thank you for your service to America.’”
Through these calls Walensky spoke with a CDC staffer who rappelled out of a helicopter to drop test kits on a cruise ship struck by a suspect COVID outbreak; she had the chance to thank the logistician who coordinated the public health screening of the 80,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan in August of 2021, among whom 44 people were found to have measles.
“It was just amazing to meet the kind of people who make the CDC run,” she said.
Szabo and Moffatt-Bruce wrapped up the chat by asking whether Walensky would do it all again, knowing what she knows now.
Walensky said she thinks she’d respond like any other physician. “When your code beeper goes off, you run because somebody thinks you can be helpful and your job in that moment is to help,” she said. “If I got a call because somebody thought I could be uniquely helpful, the answer is I would do it again.”
About Beth Israel Lahey Health
Beth Israel Lahey Health is a health care system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 4,700 physicians and 39,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education.
