Nina Schwalbe (born 18 April 1966) is an American public health researcher who is the founder of Spark Street Advisors, a public health think tank based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Schwalbe specializes in vaccines. She has previously worked at

Gavi GAVI, officially Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (previously the GAVI Alliance, and before that the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) is a public–private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunization ...

UNICEF UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Devel ...

and

USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...

Early life and education

Schwalbe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother, Mary Anne Schwalbe, was one of the founders of the

International Rescue Committee The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in 19 ...

UK, and founding director of the

Women's Refugee Commission The Women's Refugee Commission is a 501(c)(3) Non-governmental organization, Non-Governmental Organization that aims to improve the lives and protect the rights of Women, Children, and Youth displaced by conflict or crisis. Established in 1989 ...

. Her brother Will Schwalbe is an author, editor, and entrepreneur. Schwalbe was an undergraduate student in Russian and Soviet Studies at Harvard Radcliffe Colleges, where she was the recipient of the Aloian-Beal Leadership Award. Immediately after graduation, Schwalbe joined the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. In 1993, Schwalbe received a Master’s in Public Health from the

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health The Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health is the public health graduate school of Columbia University. Located on the Columbia University Medical Center campus in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, the school ...

, where she concentrated on maternal child health, as well as a certificate from Columbia’s Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Career

Schwalbe started her career in Thailand and Russia, working for the

Soros Foundation Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a sta ...

and establishing the public health program in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. On returning to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

she was made Director of Public Health Programs at the Open Society Institute/Soros Foundation. Amongst other global initiatives, Schwalbe worked with Paul Farmer and Partners in Health to treat drug resistant tuberculosis in Russian prisons. She was on the founding board of the

Stop TB Partnership The Stop TB Partnership was established in 2001 to eliminate tuberculosis as a public health problem. Its 1500 partner organizations include international, nongovernmental and governmental organizations and patient groups. The secretariat is based ...

and spearheaded the development of first Global Plan to Stop TB. In 2005, Schwalbe was made Director of Policy at the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development. In this capacity, she developed collaborations and coalitions between governments of low and lower-middle income and

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...

countries, UN bodies and members of the G8 to accelerate the regulatory approval and procurement and distribution of new therapeutics for tuberculosis. Schwalbe joined

GAVI GAVI, officially Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (previously the GAVI Alliance, and before that the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) is a public–private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunization ...

, the vaccine alliance, in 2007, serving as Deputy Executive Secretary and Managing Director for Policy and Performance. In her seven years at Gavi, Schwalbe developed policies and strategy on vaccine investment, market shaping, monitoring and evaluation, and performance management. She worked on the

Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine is a pneumococcal vaccine and a conjugate vaccine used to protect infants, young children, and adults against disease caused by the bacterium ''Streptococcus pneumoniae'' (pneumococcus). It contains purified capsul ...

and GAVI's first gender policy. In 2011, Schwalbe successfully negotiated with pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders to expand the Gavi portfolio to include affordable

Human papillomavirus vaccine Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines are vaccines that prevent infection by certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV). Available HPV vaccines protect against either two, four, or nine types of HPV. All HPV vaccines protect against at least HP ...

s. Schwalbe was Chair of the GAVI Evaluation Advisory Committee from 2019 to 2021. Schwalbe worked as

’s principal advisor and acting chief of health, where she oversaw health programs in over 150 countries. She was responsible for delivering over 1 billion vaccines annually to children around the world. Working with experts, frontline providers, and communities worldwide, Schwalbe developed the UNICEF Strategy for Health 2016-2030, which lays out a detailed vision for ending preventable maternal, newborn and child death and promoting the health of all children and adolescents. Schwalbe was member of the interagency design team for the Global Financing Facility for Maternal, Child, Newborn and Adolescent Health (GFF) a partnership housed at the World Bank.

COVID-19 response

In 2021, Schwalbe established and served as the first director of COVID-19 Vaccine Access and Delivery Initiative at

, where she coordinated distribution of 1 billion vaccine doses to low- and lower-middle income countries and the development of the GlobVax, an all of government effort to accelerate US vaccine delivery assistance around the world. Schwalbe also co-chaired WHO-UNESCO Research Network Working Group on Educational Institutions and COVID-19.

Other activities

Schwalbe sits as Commissioner for ''

The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...

'' on gender and health, a commissioner for the

, and serves as a Principal Visiting Fellow at the United Nations International Institute for Global Health. She is a lifetime member of the

Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, mi ...

. She is also adjunct assistant professor in the Heilbronn Department of Population and Family Health at

Personal life

Schwalbe and her partner live in New York City with their two children.

Selected publications

Analysis and opinion

*Allotey P, Binagwaho A, Lehtimaki S, Liwanag HJ, Rhule E, Schwalbe N. Access to Education During Public Health Emergencies: Keep Schools Open. Think20 Italy; September 2021. https://www.t20italy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/TF1_PB01_LM02.pdf *Schwalbe N, Lehtimaki S. The World Should Treat Pandemics Like It Treats Chemical Weapons. Foreign Policy. Published online April 14, 2021. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/14/pandemic-treaty-who-tedros-china-transparency-inspections-data-covid-19-coronavirus/ *Schwalbe N. The US now has vaccines, but no strategy on how to use them to defeat coronavirus. The BMJ Opinion. Published online December 17, 2020. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/12/17/the-us-now-has-vaccines-but-no-strategy-on-how-to-use-them-to-defeat-coronavirus/ *Schwalbe N, Lehtimaki S, Gutiérrez JP. Non-Communicable Diseases and COVID-19: A Perfect Storm. The BMJ Opinion. Published online June 10, 2020. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/06/10/non-communicable-diseases-and-covid-19-a-perfect-storm/ *Schwalbe N, Fearon J. Time’s up for journal gender bias. The Lancet. 2018;391(10140):P2601-2602. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31140-1 *Schwalbe N. Global health: generation men. The Lancet. 2017;390(10096):P733. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31939-6

Journal articles

*Viner R, Russell S, Saulle R, Stansfield C, Croker H, Packer J, Nicholls D, Goddings AL, Bonell C, Hudson L, Hope S, Ward J, Schwalbe N, Morgan A, Minozzi S. School Closures During Social Lockdown and Mental Health, Health Behaviors, and Well-being Among Children and Adolescents During the First COVID-19 Wave: A Systematic Review. JAMA Pediatrics. Published online January 18, 2022. doi
10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.5840
*Oliver K, Raut A, Pierre S, Silvera L, Boulos A, Gale A, Baum A, Chory A, David NJ, D’Souza D, Freeman A, Goytia C, Hamilton A, Horowitz C, Islam N, Jeavons J, Knudson J, Li S, Lupi J, Martin R, Maru S, Nabeel I, Pimenova D, Romanoff A, Rusanov S, Swalbe N, Vangeepuram N, Vreeman R, Masci J, Maru D. Factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine receipt at two integrated healthcare systems in New York City: a cross-sectional study of healthcare workers. BMJ Open. 2022;12:e05341. doi
10.1136/bmjopen-2021-053641
*Aars OK, Clark M, Schwalbe N. Increasing efficiency in vaccine production: A primer for change. Vaccine: X. 2021;8(100104). doi
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvacx.2021.100104
*Schwalbe N, Wahl B. Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Global Health. Lancet. 2020;395(10236):1579-1586. doi
10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30226-9
*Kettler H, Lehtimaki S, Schwalbe N. Accelerating Access to Medicines in a Changing World. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 2020;98:641-643. doi
10.2471/BLT.19.249664

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwalbe, Nina 1966 births Living people Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health alumni Radcliffe College alumni American public health doctors Women public health doctors UNICEF people People of the United States Agency for International Development Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health faculty People from New York City