Guided by the belief that all of the world’s people deserve access to health innovation, Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum’s research and teaching focus on developing low-cost, high-performance technology for low-resource settings. She is known for providing vulnerable populations in the developing world access to life-saving health technology, focusing on diseases and conditions that cause high morbidity and mortality, such as cervical and oral cancer, premature birth, and malaria. Dr. Richards-Kortum is also leading a multi-institutional team to develop a package of 17 life-saving neonatal technologies, designed for low-resource settings while providing the same efficacy as related technologies used in North America, but at a fraction of the cost.

In 2018 and 2019, Dr. Richards-Kortum served as a U.S. Department of State Science Envoy for Health Security where she undertook missions to Malawi and South Africa to expand access to American engineering research and curriculum in order to build engineering capacity and opportunities for U.S. collaboration with the sub-Saharan nations. Meridian was proud to be the State Department’s programmatic partner on her missions.