goodpods headphones icon

To access all our features

Open the Goodpods app
Close icon
headphones

PolicyCast

Harvard Kennedy School

Our hosts speak with leading experts in public policy, media, and international affairs about their experiences confronting the world's most pressing public problems.
profile image

1 Listener

not bookmarked icon
Share icon

All episodes

Best episodes

Top 10 PolicyCast Episodes

Best episodes ranked by Goodpods Users most listened

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who served as CDC director from 2021 to 2023, calls the job “probably the hardest thing I will ever do.” But she also calls it “the honor of a lifetime.” When she was appointed by President Biden as the CDC’s 19th director, she was already used to politicized health care issues, having spent her formative years as a physician working on HIV and AIDS. But COVID thrust her into an unprecedented spotlight, forcing her to lead a demoralized agency through the challenges of implementing policy and informing the public while navigating a highly polarized and often toxic public sphere and rapidly changing scientific data. Walensky says she learned some hard and valuable lessons during her tenure. After stepping down from the post this summer, Walensky is now a senior fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, studying the topic of women’s leadership in the health care field. She is also exploring health care policy issues in concurrent fellowships at both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky is a renowned expert exploring the challenges and what it means for leaders, organizations, and the world to protect public health. Dr. Walensky was the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and served as the 19th director of the CDC and the ninth administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Having received an M.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, she also trained in internal medicine and earned an MPH in clinical effectiveness from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2001. In the earliest part of the pandemic, Dr. Walensky served on the front lines, taking care of patients, serving on the Massachusetts General Hospital incident management team, and conducting research on vaccine delivery and strategies to reach underserved communities. Dr. Walensky’s tenure at the CDC began on January 20th, 2021, when she led the nation—and the world—through unprecedented times, facing the largest density of infectious threats likely ever seen in the United States. Dr. Walensky has also worked to improve HIV screening and care in South Africa, led health policy initiatives, and researched clinical trial design and evaluation in a variety of settings. She was chair of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council at the National Institutes of Health from 2014 to 2015. She has also been a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents and served as co-director of the Medical Practice Evaluation Center at Massachusetts General Hospital since 2011 before assuming the position of CDC director.

Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.

The co-producer of PolicyCast is Susan Hughes. Design and graphics support is provided by Lydia Rosenberg, Delane Meadows and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team.

play

10/05/23 • 41 min

profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

For more information, please visit:

The Institutional Anti-Racism and Accountability Project at the Shorenstein Center.

The Nonviolent Action Lab at the Carr Center.

play

06/08/20 • 45 min

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Recent polls show a majority of Americans say we need major changes to how police enforce the law and provide public safety. Policymakers and political leaders—under pressure from the Defund and Black Lives Matter movements after high police killings of Black people like Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and numerous others—are now considering a variety of measures to curb police brutality. But Harvard Kennedy School faculty members Sandra Susan Smith, the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice, and Assistant Professor of Public Policy Yanilda González say history has shown that reforming the police is much easier said than done.

In her studies of policing in Latin America, González says authoritarian police forces have been able to block or roll back reforms even in otherwise democratic countries. In countries with high levels of polarization and inequality, including the U.S., she says, police are often given the role of protecting “us”—the dominant group—from “them.”

Smith, the new director of the Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, says studies show that many widely-proposed reforms simply have not been effective in reducing police brutality. Measures like anti-bias training, body cameras, and diversity hiring fail, she says, because they put the pressure on individual officers to change deeply-entrenched systemic behavior.

So if those things won’t work, what will?

play

10/05/20 • 34 min

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

This is the first episode of PolicyCast's 2020-2021 season.

Alexander Keyssar is the Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. An historian by training, he specializes in the exploration of historical problems that have contemporary policy implications.

In this episode, Professor Keyssar discusses his new book: "Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?" (Harvard University Press, 2020) He is also the author of the widely-read book: "The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States" (Basic Books, 2000), for which he was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

PolicyCast is hosted by Thoko Moyo, the associate dean for communications at Harvard Kennedy School.

The podcast is produced and engineered by Ralph Ranalli and co-produced by Susan Hughes.

play

09/15/20 • 32 min

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Joining PolicyCast and host Thoko Moyo for this episode are Kennedy School Professors Mathias Risse and Jacqueline Bhabha of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

Professor Risse is faculty director of the Carr Center and his work focuses on global justice and the intersections of human rights, the climate crisis, inequality, and technology. He is also the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Administration at Harvard Kennedy School.

Professor Bhabha is an expert in public health — particularly involving children and vulnerable populations — as well as an internationally-known human rights lawyer. She is FXB Director of Research, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health and the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School.

To read more about the Carr Center’s work, please visit their website.

PolicyCast is hosted by Harvard Kennedy School Associate Dean of Communications Thoko Moyo. The show is produced by Ralph Ranalli and Susan Hughes.

play

07/01/20 • 35 min

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
play

04/20/20 • 30 min

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Ricardo Hausmann, the founder and director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Growth Lab, is helping developing countries around the globe create capacity to model the coronavirus pandemic and develop economic and epidemiological responses.

The Growth Lab COVID-19 Task Force explores the macroeconomic and fiscal implications of the pandemic and offers strategic guidance on policy decisions for collaborating nations including Albania, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, Namibia, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia.

For more about this effort, Growth Lab COVID-19 Task Force, please visit the Growth Lab COVID-19 Task Force home page.

Under Hausmann’s leadership, the Growth Lab, which is based in the Center for International Development, has grown into one of the world’s most well regarded and influential hubs for research on international development. Hausmann has served as principal investigator for more than 50 research initiatives in nearly 30 countries and is the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School.

play

05/11/20 • 33 min

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
play

04/20/20 • 30 min

First there was the shock of realizing that the COVID-19 pandemic would be widespread and lengthy. Now issues of race, equity, and the coronavirus are quickly coming to the fore, as data pours in showing how the virus is hitting minority communities the hardest.

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Cornell Brooks says historic systemic discrimination, lack of access to healthcare and healthy food, housing and employment disparities, and other issues have left communities of color uniquely vulnerable.

Discrimination means people in communities of color can’t follow many recommended individual actions for the pandemic including staying at home, working from home, stocking up on groceries, drive-through testing, and social distancing. Low-income “essential” workers, he says, have effectively become human buffers against the coronavirus for people with higher incomes.

There are also moral implications to unequal distribution of risk, including the spread of COVID-19 in prisons and in jails where people accused of crimes are waiting to be tried. A pandemic spreading in these “petri dish” situations means exposing potentially-innocent people to what amounts to a death sentence, he says, not to mention the exposure facing correctional officers and staff.

Brooks also says the pandemic is also causing widespread disruption in the current election season, and that it has the potential to exacerbate the current trend toward minority disenfranchisement, both purposeful and unanticipated. He says the recent election debacle in Wisconsin, where more than 90% of polling places in some cities were closed and voters were forced to break social distancing in order to participate in the democratic process, was a warning to the country about how the pandemic endangers both democracy and lives.

“We are ill-prepared for November,” he says. “It's not enough for us to say we are in the midst of a pandemic and we can only concern ourselves with face masks and ventilators. We also have to be concerned about ballot boxes and polling places.”

After the pandemic is over and life starts returning to normal, Brooks says American will need to learn from the experience and make long-overdue societal shifts to keep the impact of events like this from being so severe and unevenly distributed the next time.

Cornell Brooks is the Hauser Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit Organizations and Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Social Justice. is also Director of the William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice at the School’s Center for Public Leadership

PolicyCast is hosted by Harvard Kennedy School Associate Dean for Communications and Public Affairs Thoko Moyo. It is produced by Ralph Ranalli and Susan Hughes.

play

04/20/20 • 30 min

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
play

06/08/20 • 45 min

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Show more

Toggle view more icon

FAQ

How many episodes does PolicyCast have?

PolicyCast currently has 197 episodes available.

What topics does PolicyCast cover?

The podcast is about International, Media, Leadership, Policy, Journalism, Podcasts, Education, Global, Politics and Government.

What is the most popular episode on PolicyCast?

The episode title 'Dr. Rochelle Walensky on making health care policy under fire' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on PolicyCast?

The average episode length on PolicyCast is 29 minutes.

How often are episodes of PolicyCast released?

Episodes of PolicyCast are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of PolicyCast?

The first episode of PolicyCast was released on Jan 16, 2013.

Show more FAQ

Toggle view more icon

Comments

0.0

out of 5

Star filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey Icon

No ratings yet