Civic Rx, the podcast, is an effort to inspire more reflection and conversation about how we can build a healthier and more just society. Born of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also an attempt to help all of us make sense of the million different ways our world has since shifted — and to do so in partnership and dialogue with people whose work and ideas are shaping our collective understanding of and response to these changes.
Civic Rx is hosted by Dr. Sejal Hathi, a physician, public health advocate, and serial entrepreneur, who has dedicated her career to serving vulnerable communities in the United States and globally — with a special attention to women and girls. Presently, Sejal serves as a physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a joint faculty member at Johns Hopkins' School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. She's also Senior Policy Advisor for Public Health at the White House.
Over the last decade, Sejal has founded and led two social enterprises advancing women’s rights and agency — over time, across 6 continents and 100 countries. She has served on numerous national boards related to public service and public health, and today maintains a role as a founding board member of Indiaspora, which unites and mobilizes the Indian-American diaspora to engage in philanthropy and social change. In the first two years of the pandemic, Sejal cared for COVID-19 patients as a resident doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. Previously, Sejal advised Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign on its domestic health policy agenda. And in 2015, she completed her term as the youngest of 9 members appointed to the UN Secretary-General's Independent Expert Review Group, at the time the only independent accountability mechanism on evaluating global women's, children's, and adolescent girls' health.
Sejal received her M.D. and M.B.A. from Stanford, where she studied as a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow and a Harry S. Truman Scholar; and her B.S. with honors from Yale, where she served also as a Global Health Fellow. She has delivered addresses at TEDWomen, TEDxTeen, the Forbes's Women's Summit, the UNICEF International Day of the Girl Child conference, the Women in the World Summit, the United Nations's General Assembly, the World Health Assembly, and the Girl Scouts' centennial Girls' World Forum, among other settings. And she's been named to the Forbes 30 under 30, Newsweek's "150 Women Who Shake the World," Glamour's Amazing Young Women of the Year, Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards, World Economic Forum Global Shapers, Academy of Achievement delegates, and United States Presidential Scholars for her work.