Human Health, Environmental Change, and Sustainability

Dr. Yasmin von Schirnding's career focuses on advancing and promoting the science of environmental health in the context of sustainable development. She is an associate professor on the adjunct faculty of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and has held an adjunct associate professorship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, having served also as Advisor: Health and Sustainable Development in the New York office of the World Health Organization (WHO). Before coming to the US, she served in various leadership capacities at the WHO in Geneva, including as the point person for the Global Program of Action for Sustainable Development and as Manager of the Healthy Environments for Children Alliance in the follow-up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, for which she was WHO's technical lead. Prior to this work, von Schirnding was based in WHO's cluster on sustainable development and healthy environments, where she was responsible for cross-sectoral policies and interventions relating to health and sustainable development. Before that she was Director ad interim of the Office of Global and Integrated Environmental Health at WHO. Von Schirnding was Director of Environmental Health for the City of Johannesburg and held senior research positions at the Medical Research Council in South Africa, where she was Chief Medical Researcher and Specialist Scientist in the Research Institute for Environmental Diseases. She holds a BSc (University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University), MSc and PhD (University of Cape Town), and ALM (Harvard Extension School). Her degrees include concentrations in the fields of epidemiology, environmental studies/environmental and geographical science, and sustainability. She also holds a certificate in climate change and health from Yale University. She has published in peer-reviewed journals, authored a book, several book chapters, and multiple WHO documents and presentations given around the world.