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.
Shubhangi Bhadada
Mittal Institute Fellow; Senior Research Fellow, BalsariLab
Natalie Ayers
Doctoral Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Research Associate
Robert Meade
Climate Fellow, Salata South Asia Adaptation Cluster; CommunityHATS
Kartikeya Bhatotia
Climate Fellow, Mittal Institute
Karthik Girish
Research Associate, MUP’25, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Hiteshree Das
Research Associate; MDes’25, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Catharina Guidice
Fellow, Climate and Human Health, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Noah Rosenburg
Fellow, Climate and Human Health, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Felipe González Casabianca
Research Associate, CrisisReady
Abhishek Bhatia
Doctoral Candidate, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Tess Wiskel
HGHI Burke Fellow; Instructor, Harvard Medical School
Robert McCarthy
Research Associate; A.B.’23, Harvard College
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.
Caroline Buckee
Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Tarun Khanna
Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School; Director, Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University
Jennifer Leaning
Senior Fellow (former Director), Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights; retired Professor 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
Peter Huybers
Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering; Department Chair of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
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
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
Gary Adamkiewicz
Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Exposure Disparities, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
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.
Tony Raj
Professor of Physiology, Dean, St. John’s Medical Research Institute, India
Rajvi Joshipura
Senior Coordinator, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
Sahil Hebbar
Senior Coordinator, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
Ahmed Shaikh
Assistant Professor, Icahn School of Medicine, New York
Reema Nanavaty
Director, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
Akash Yadav
Research Associate; All India Disaster Mitigation Institute
Jay Vaidya
Product Manager, GreenEarthX
Verghese Thomas
St John’s Research Institute; India Digital Health Net
Amita Sudhir
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of Virginia, USA
Yashkumar Shukla
Principal Researcher and Center Head at Center for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CARBSE)
Andrew Schroeder
Vice President of Research, Direct Relief, USA; Co-director, CrisisReady
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 Raval
Professor, CEPT University; Senior Advisor at Center for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CARBSE), CEPT Research and Development Foundation (CRDF)
Sneha Asrani
Senior Research Associate, Center for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CARBSE)
Vishal Pathak
Consultant, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, India
Biraj Patnaik
Executive Director, National Foundation for India
Manoj Mohanan
Creed C. Black Professor of Public Policy and Interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, USA
Charuta Mandke
Professor & Head, Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. R.N. Cooper Medical College & Hospital, Mumbai
Jay Lemery
Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of Colorado, USA
Manoj Kumar
Founder, Social Alpha
Bharat Kalidindi
St John’s Research Institute, India Digital Health Net
Dhruval Gadhvi
Research Associate, Center for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CARBSE)
Dhinagaran D
St John’s Research Institute; India Digital Health Net
Rajani Bhat
Pulmonary Critical Care Specialist, Bangalore, India
Mihir Bhatt
Director, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, India
Shitij Arora
Professor of Internal Medicine, Albert Einstein School of Medicine, USA