Sappho Zoe Gilbert, PhD MPH

I am an epidemiologist who studies how public policy and social and environmental factors shape food security, nutrition, and health, with a primary focus on Arctic and Indigenous communities. In my research, I utilize mixed methods and have longstanding, collaborative partnerships with community-based and multisectoral stakeholders.

Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Arctic Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, I was a National Institutes of Health T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with appointments in the Departments of Nutrition and Environmental Health, where I remain an affiliate. In addition, I was a 2024–2026 Fulbright Arctic Initiative Scholar. Beyond research, my teaching experiences at Harvard and Yale span the fields of epidemiology, food systems and nutrition, public health ethics, research ethics, and statistics.

I earned my PhD from the Yale School of Public Health, my Master of Public Health from Dartmouth College, and my Bachelor of Science in Biology (with a minor in Political Science) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During my doctoral studies, I was awarded a National Institutes of Health F31 Predoctoral Fellowship, a Yale Fox International Fellowship, a PEO Scholar Award, and a Yale Center on Climate Change & Health Predoctoral Fellowship. Prior to that, I was a Project Director at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and a Dartmouth College Lombard '53 Public Service Fellow.