Susan Desmond-Hellmann presents fifth Patrusky Lecture at WCSJ2017
Patrusky Lecturer Susan Desmond-Hellmann accepts a commemorative sculpture from CASW President Alan Boyle at the 2017 World Conference of Science Journalists. (Photo by David Poller.)
Susan Desmond-Hellmann, a physician and scientist who serves as chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was selected by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW) to present the fifth Patrusky Lecture on October 27, 2017, at the 10th World Conference of Science Journalists.
Desmond-Hellmann, a pioneer in health care who has devoted her career to the eradication of disease, poverty and inequity, spoke “In Defense of Science.” At a time when facts-based, data-driven approaches to problems are being rejected as elitist, she made the case for science and data, drawing on personal testimony and powerful examples from the Gates Foundation’s work around the world and her own career in oncology and public health.
Desmond-Hellmann addressed journalists and science communicators from around the world gathered in San Francisco, California, for WCSJ2017. CASW and the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) were co-organizers of the conference, which incorporated CASW’s traditional New Horizons in Science briefings on research and issues in science. The conference was produced in partnership with the World Federation of Science Journalists and two host universities, the University of California at San Francisco and UC Berkeley.
“The Gates Foundation is one of the world’s biggest players in the field of global health, so it’s particularly fitting that Dr. Desmond-Hellmann will be giving the Patrusky Lecture at this year’s world conference – the first global event of its kind held in the U.S.,” said CASW President Alan Boyle, aerospace and science editor at GeekWire in Seattle (shown at left presenting the Patrusky Lecture glass sculpture to Desmond-Hellmann). “Her perspective is also a great fit for the annual Patrusky Lecture, which focuses on big-picture views of scientific and social frontiers.”
A full video recording of the lecture may be found on the Patrusky Lectures video page.
Desmond-Hellmann became CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2014, after serving as the first female chancellor of UCSF for five years. She leads the Gates Foundation’s vision for a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. Drawing on diverse experience in both the public and private sectors, she creates an environment for talented and committed individuals to help more children and young people survive and thrive, combat infectious diseases that hit the poorest hardest, and empower people—particularly women and girls—to transform their lives.
Trained as an oncologist, Desmond-Hellmann spent 14 years at the biotech firm Genentech developing a number of breakthrough medicines, including two of the first gene-targeted therapies for cancer, Avastin and Herceptin. In November 2009, Forbes named her one of the world’s seven most “powerful innovators,” calling her “a hero to legions of cancer patients.” Her time at Genentech put her at the forefront of the precision medicine revolution, and in her current role she champions a similar approach to global development: precision public health—getting the right interventions, to the right populations, in the right places, to save lives.
She credits a move to Uganda in 1989—to work on HIV/AIDS and cancer alongside her husband, Nick—as a turning point in her career. “It was so profound to recognize… that all the learning I had done to become a doctor didn’t matter at all if I didn’t make a contribution,” she says.
Desmond-Hellmann is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. She was listed among Fortune magazine’s “top 50 most powerful women in business” for seven years and, in 2010, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and elected to the Institute of Medicine. In addition to an M.D. from the University of Reno, Nevada, she holds a master’s degree in public health from UC Berkeley. She serves on the board of directors at Facebook Inc.
The Patrusky Lectures
The Patrusky Lectures were launched by CASW in 2013 to honor Ben Patrusky, executive director of CASW for 25 years and director of the New Horizons in Science program for 30 years. The previous Patrusky Lectures were given by chemist George M. Whitesides of Harvard University; paleontologist Donald Johanson of the Institute of Human Origins; Yale microbiologist Jo Handelsman, associate director for science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and the pioneering particle physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas at Austin.
