Mailman's Dr. Mary Bassett Named NYC Health Commissioner

Mary Bassett, MD, MPH, associate professor of clinical Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, was named New York City’s Commissioner of Health by Mayor Bill de Blasio.  In addition to her faculty position, Dr. Bassett served as program director of the African Health Initiative at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, an effort that focuses on strengthening health systems in projects underway in Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia.  Dr. Bassett is also a graduate of College of Physicians & Surgeons’79. 

Prior to her work at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Dr. Bassett was a deputy commissioner at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where she oversaw programs that addressed non-communicable disease and maternal and child health as well as the district public health offices based in Harlem, Central Brooklyn and the Bronx. Between 1985 and 2002 she lived in Harare, Zimbabwe where she remains an adjunct a member of the medical faculty at the University of Zimbabwe.

Dr. Thomas Farley, outgoing Commissioner of Health under Michael Bloomberg, serves on the Mailman School Board of Overseers.