Prativa Baral Epidemiologist & Co-Founder of Let Science Connect

Fearless Women Podcast By Janice McDonald

Prativa is the co-founder of Let Science Connect, an initiative aimed to restore trust in the scientific process by bridging science communication gaps between academia and the rest of the world. She is also an epidemiologist, operating at the intersection of global health and policy, and a Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, investigating methods in health systems strengthening, particularly in the context of crises.

She has served as a global health consultant and expert advisory committee member for various international agencies including the UN, the WHO, the GPMB, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Bank, with a special focus on institutional design for global health governance, monitoring efforts to better understand drivers of risk of health emergencies, as well as health systems resilience & service delivery during periods of shocks. Previously, she advised the Government of Canada in designing and drafting the country's first comprehensive global health research strategic plan.

Her commitment to working with groups facing vulnerable conditions emerged through her work with the refugee resettlement program in Québec, where she acted as a point of contact between a wide range of Canadian ministries, local community partners, and refugee families across Québec.

In 2018, she was selected to be a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, and in 2021, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Prativa is a graduate of McGill University’s Faculty of Science and has received a Master’s in Public Health in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from Columbia University as a Merit Scholar Recipient. She is also a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar (2021) as well as a recipient of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research’s Doctoral Foreign Study Award among other distinctions. Most recently, she served as the Canadian head delegate for the G7 Youth summit in Berlin, Germany (2022), and the sole Canadian representative as part of the Global Shapers delegation of young community leaders to the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos (2023).

Fluent in French, English and Nepali, Prativa is a former nationally-ranked chess player. She also regularly appears on CBC and CTV News and other media outlets providing Canadians with practical suggestions and advice regarding COVID-19.

Listen until 06:59 to hear Dr. Baral talk about her experience at Davos and being proud of who you are.

 ”Leadership is something that's been kind of advertised by corporate America, right? And you gotta wear that navy blue suit and speak a certain way and not show compassion or empathy or whatnot. And I think, I hope that our global definition of leadership is changing. And so if I go back next time to Davos, I think I would wear a lot more colours than I did.

So I did wear, you know, a red dress at a certain point and a red blazer at a certain point. But Davos, let me see that you want to stand out. I can't hide the fact that I'm a woman. I can't hide the fact that I'm brown. And so instead of trying to fit the mould and wearing a navy blue suit, which, you know, there's nothing wrong with wearing one, but I would wear something brighter and bolder.

Why would you want to hide your identity or the pieces of you that make you, you just wear the bright colours if that's what you want to wear, and just be because there's no one else like you. Right?”

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