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Conflict, Sanctions, and Global Health

Programs in Research

Conflict, Sanctions, and Global Health

About the research

The world faces many geopolitical threats to human health and wellbeing, including war, famine, and a decline in global governance and commitments to development.  CIGH supports multidisciplinary research and international initiatives aimed at informing a more humane world – one where laws of war are respected, where sanctions are used to protect international norms and local populations, and global health and the well-being of local populations are central to international decision-making.



Our Team

Ruth Gibson, PhD

Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health

Ruth Gibson, PhD

Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health

Dr. Ruth Gibson’s research focuses on geopolitics and global health. Specifically, she focuses on geopolitically contentious issues, such as war, the impact of war on children, and sanctions as instruments of geopolitical coercion.

Dr. Gibson and Prof. Gary Darmstadt are co-chairs on the Lancet Series on Foreign Aid and Global Health. This Series is a multi-disciplinary international effort, led by Stanford University, to reimagine the future of foreign aid, including development, military, humanitarian, and economic assistance. Drs. Gibson and Darmstadt have begun engaging experts globally in foreign assistance, humanitarian aid, foreign aid policy, military aid, development, and global health. They are currently seeking leadership from low and middle-income countries with deep expertise in one domain of foreign assistance. To learn more about this series and how to become involved in this global initiative, please learn more in the “current projects” section of this page.

She is a member of the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions, based at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, working with an international team to design sanctions to bring about an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine. Her role in this group is to focus on how the war impacts Ukrainian children and how sanctions can be used to punish war crimes and end the war.

Dr. Gibson believes in the importance of academics’ engagement with broader audiences and is responsive to media inquiries and journalist interviews, for a sample of Dr. Gibson’s engagement with journalists, please see her insights in TIME from July 2025 related to famine in Gaza, or her interview with Ambassador Mike McFaul on the World Class Podcast discussing the changing world order and implications for global child health. She is available to speak with members of the media about topics including humanitarian consequences of war and system-level perspectives on geopolitical decisions on human health. Members of the media interested in interviewing Dr. Gibson may email CIGH Communications Manager, Jamie Hansen, at jmhansen@stanford.edu.

Dr. Gibson has been affiliated with the Center for Innovation in Global Health since 2022, when she was a postdoctoral scholar. She also received a 2022 CIGH Global Health Seed Grant for a multi-institutional investigation into the impacts of foreign aid sanctions on global health outcomes. Results from that study were published in the Lancet Global Health and were featured in the Stanford Report and news outlets around the globe, including Think Global Health. In August 2025, she and Stanford faculty Professor Gary Darmstadt published a comment in Lancet Global Health on four decades of academic research in sanctions and humanitarian outcomes.

Dr. Gibson can be reached at rmgibson@stanford.edu.

Paul H. Wise, MD, MPH

Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society and professor of pediatrics and health policy at Stanford University School of Medicine

Paul H. Wise, MD, MPH

Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society and professor of pediatrics and health policy at Stanford University School of Medicine

Dr. Paul Wise is dedicated to bridging the fields of child health equity, public policy, and international security studies. He is the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society and Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology and Developmental Medicine, and Health Policy at Stanford University. He is also co-Director, Stanford Center for Prematurity Research and a Senior Fellow in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Wise is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been working as the Juvenile Care Monitor for the U.S. Federal Court overseeing the treatment of migrant children in U.S. border detention facilities.

Wise received his A.B. degree summa cum laude in Latin American Studies and his M.D. degree from Cornell University, a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and did his pediatric training at the Children’s Hospital in Boston. His former positions include Director of Emergency and Primary Care Services at Boston Children’s Hospital, Director of the Harvard Institute for Reproductive and Child Health, Vice-Chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and was the founding Director or the Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention, Stanford University School of Medicine. He has served in a variety of professional and consultative roles, including Special Assistant to the U.S. Surgeon General, Chair of the Steering Committee of the NIH Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research, Chair of the Strategic Planning Task Force of the Secretary’s Committee on Genetics, Health and Society, a member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, and the Health and Human Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant and Maternal Mortality.

Wise’s most recent U.S.-focused work has addressed disparities in birth outcomes, regionalized specialty care for children, and Medicaid. His international work has focused on women’s and child health in violent and politically complex environments, including Ukraine, Gaza, Central America, Venezuela, and children in detention on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Contact Us

Dr. Ruth Gibson is available to speak with members of the media about topics including humanitarian consequences of war and system-level perspectives on geopolitical decisions on human health. For standard timeline media requests related to Dr. Gibson, please get in touch with the Director of Communication at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Gabriella Ermanni – germanni@stanford.edu. For urgent media or interview requests for Dr. Gibson (one-day or less turnaround), please write to Charlene Gage, Director of Public Relations – mediarelations@stanford.edu.

Interested collaborators can reach Dr. Gibson at rmgibson@stanford.edu.


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