About – Balsari Lab

The Balsari Lab comprises a large, interdisciplinary, and global team of researchers, practitioners and community members. Current research and education programs are focused in the Americas and South Asia, with partnerships that span the globe. Our research and innovation priorities are based on exhaustive population-based studies, deep community engagement, and clinical practice in hospitals in the Global North and South. All data, code, educational content, and digital tools are publicly accessible.

Dr. Satchit Balsari is Associate Professor in Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; and Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He is affiliate faculty at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard Kennedy School, and the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability; and serves on the steering committee of the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard and the Harvard Global Health Institute.

Dr. Balsari’s research and teaching are focused on complex humanitarian emergencies and digital health implementation science in resource-poor settings. He has worked with populations affected by war and disasters in Iraq, South Sudan, Jordan, Haiti, Puerto Rico and across South Asia. In the most vulnerable communities in the world, his team has leveraged cutting-edge digital tools and citizen science to advance public health planning, advocacy, and response.

Dr. Balsari co-directs CrisisReady.io, a research-response platform that builds data-driven decision tools for local communities and response agencies affected by disasters globally. Dr. Balsari is founding director of the tri-institute Climate and Human Health fellowship at Harvard, leads the climate platform at the Mittal Institute, and is co-investigator on the Salata Institute’s inaugural interfaculty cluster grant on Climate Change Adaptation in South Asia. He directs the Harvard India Digital Health Network at the Mittal South Asia Institute. IDHN’s outputs continue to shape the technological and policy landscape of digital health in India.

Dr. Balsari is the curator of Hum Sab Ek, an immersive multimedia traveling exhibition currently on tour. The exhibition is based on his research into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the 2.9 million members of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and their responses to the crisis.

Prior signature initiatives include EMcounter (a customizable, portable digital surveillance tool, the latest iteration of which was used at the world’s largest mass gathering, the Kumbh Mela in India) and Voices, a crowd-sourced, online disaster response analysis tool. In 2018, in collaboration with Professor Caroline Buckee (Epidemiology), he co-led the Hurricane Maria Mortality Study.

Dr. Balsari is a graduate of Grant Medical College, Mumbai; and completed his medical training at Harvard, Cornell and Columbia. Dr. Balsari is an Asia Society Fellow, an Aspen Ideas Scholar, and the youngest recipient of the BC Roy Award awarded by the President of India, the nation’s highest honor in medicine.

Research Team

The research team at Balsari Lab combines knowledge in public health, data science, and design to develop innovative solutions for global challenges, focusing on disaster response, health systems, and climate resilience.

Natalie Ayers Doctoral Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Research Associate, CrisisReady

Shubhangi Bhadada Fellow, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University; Senior Research Fellow, BalsariLab

Abhishek Bhatia Doctoral Candidate, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Kartikeya Bhatotia Climate Fellow, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University

Hiteshree Das Research Associate; MDes ’25, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Felipe González Casabianca Research Associate, CrisisReady

Karthik Girish Research Associate, MUP ’25, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Catharina Guidice Fellow, Climate and Human Health, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Robert McCarthy Research Associate, Harvard College

Robert Meade Climate Fellow, Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University

Noah Rosenburg Fellow, Climate and Human Health, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Tess Wiskel HGHI Burke Fellow; Instructor, Harvard Medical School

Harvard Collaborators

Collaborators across Harvard University represent diverse fields, including public health, environmental science, urban design, and emergency medicine. Their shared commitment to tackling global challenges drives impactful research and practical solutions.

Gary Adamkiewicz Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Exposure Disparities, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Caroline Buckee Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Caleb Dresser Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health, Harvard Chan School; Director of Healthcare Solutions at Harvard Chan C-CHANGE

Peter Huybers Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering; Department Chair of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University

Tarun Khanna Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School; Director, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University

Jennifer Leaning Senior Fellow (Director Emerita), Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights; Professor Emerita of the Practice at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health

Rahul Mehrotra John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization and Professor of Urban Design and Planning, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Daniel Schrag Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, and Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Harvard University

External Collaborators

External collaborators at the Balsari Lab bring expertise from diverse fields, including public health, emergency medicine, urban planning, climate resilience, and data science.

Their work encompasses research, policy, and interventions to address disaster response, health equity, and climate adaptation.

Shitij Arora Professor of Internal Medicine, Albert Einstein School of Medicine, USA

Sneha Asrani Senior Research Associate, Center for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CARBSE)

Rajani Bhat Pulmonary Critical Care Specialist, Bangalore, India

Mihir Bhatt Director, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute

Dhinagaran D St. John’s Research Institute; India Digital Health Net

Dhruval Gadhvi Research Associate, Center for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CARBSE)

Sahil Hebbar Senior Coordinator, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)

Rajvi Joshipura Senior Coordinator, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)

Bharat Kalidindi St. John’s Research Institute, India Digital Health Net

Manoj Kumar Founder, Social Alpha

Jay Lemery Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of Colorado, USA

Charuta Mandke Professor & Head, Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. R.N. Cooper Medical College & Hospital, Mumbai

Manoj Mohanan Creed C. Black Professor of Public Policy and Interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, USA

Reema Nanavaty Director, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)

Vishal Pathak Consultant, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute

Biraj Patnaik Executive Director, National Foundation for India

Tony Raj Professor of Physiology, Dean, St. John’s Medical Research Institute, India

Sabina Faiz Rashid Professor, Mushtaque Chowdhury Chair in Health and Poverty; Director, Center of Excellence for Gender, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University

Rajan Rawal Professor, CEPT University; Senior Advisor at Center for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CARBSE), CEPT Research and Development Foundation (CRDF)

Ahmed Shaikh Assistant Professor, Icahn School of Medicine, New York

Andrew Schroeder Vice President of Research, Direct Relief, USA; Co-director, CrisisReady

Yashkumar Shukla Principal Researcher and Center Head at Center for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CARBSE)

Amita Sudhir Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of Virginia, USA

Verghese Thomas St. John’s Research Institute; India Digital Health Net

Jay Vaidya Product Manager, GreenEarthX

Akash Yadav Research Associate, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute

Prior Collaborators

External Collaborators

Josyann Abisaab
Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine

Emily Chan
Professor of Medicine, Assistant Dean (External Affairs) at the Faculty of Medicine of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

Kevin Huang
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Co-Director, Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC)

Rex Lam
Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Chair of Specialty of 24-hour Outpatient and Emergency Department of Gleneagles Hong Kong Hospital

Elizabeth Newnham
Senior Lecturer, Curtin School of Population Health; Program Lead for the enAble Institute

Irdudaya Rajan
Chair of the International Institute for Migration and Development, India; Chair of the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD); Professor at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Kerala, India

Sujata Saunik
Chief Secretary, Maharashtra, India

Alumni

Isaac Chan, MPH ’22
Global Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Research Assistant, Community Science Alliance Project

Gail Ranglin Edwards, DrPH ’23
Population Health Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Kimberly Humphrey
Former Fellow, Climate Change and Human Health, Harvard C-CHANGE, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Visiting Scholar, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Neha Joseph, MUP ’18
Former Fellow, Climate Change Adaptation Project, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University (Completed in 2024)

Nishant Kishore, PhD ’20
Population Health Sciences, Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Nadyeli Quiroz Radaelli, MLA ’20
Irving Innovation Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Sraavya Samba, A.B. ’24
Computer Science; History & Science (concentration in Molecular and Cellular Biology), Harvard University
Former Research Associate, CrisisReady

Ravi Sadhu
Research Assistant, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
SEWA Impact Ascertainment Study; Rohingya Impact Ascertainment Study

Nivedita Saksena
Former Fellow, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Latoya Storr
Fellow, Climate Change and Human Health, Disaster Medicine, Harvard C-CHANGE, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

John David Wagner, MArch ’19
Irving Innovation Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Former Research Fellow, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University (Completed 2021)

Research Team

Harvard Collaborators

External Collaborators

Prior Collaborators

Join Our Newsletter