Hosted by the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health

Event Description: Communicating about public and global health has never been more challenging — or more important. Our panel of global health communications experts will discuss the current challenges, including disinformation, the rise of AI, and declining public trust, and highlight solutions and best practices, based on a new commentary in Nature Health and insights from the Stanford Global Health Media Fellowship.

Details

Date: July 27, 2026

Time: 12-1pm PT

Location: Online (Zoom) | Register here

Panelists

Neha Mukherjee

2024-25 Global Health Media Fellow, Medical student, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai

Neha Mukherjee was the 2024-2025 Stanford Global Health Media Fellow and is a third-year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In 2022, Neha graduated from Brown University with degrees in Public Health and Journalism. Her work has been featured in CNN, where she helped lead coverage of the 2025 measles outbreak in Texas, NBC News, WIRED, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Gabriella Stern

Recently retired Director of Communications, World Health Organization

Gabriella Stern is a research fellow at the Harvard Center for International Development at Harvard Kennedy School, and a senior communications adviser at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she is also a journalist in residence at the Center for Health Communication. In addition, Gabby serves as an external adviser at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health. She retired as Director of Communications at the World Health Organization on Sept. 30, 2025 after 6 1/2 years in the role. She led the organization’s global communications strategy, managed a team of communications professionals, and served as spokesperson for the Director-General. She joined WHO in March 2019 after more than three years as  Director of Media & External Relations at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Before that, she spent almost 25 years at The Wall Street Journal in various editing and reporting roles in the United States, Europe, and Asia. 

Omar Ceesay

2026-27 Global Health Media Fellow and Medical Student, University of Nebraska Medical Center

Omar Ceesay is a medical student and aspiring neurosurgeon at the University of Nebraska Medical College and the incoming 2026-27 Global Health Media Fellow. His desire to reach underserved populations through quality health care and communication was shaped by personal experiences growing up in The Gambia, including surviving a malaria infection and witnessing his father’s preventable death due to a lack of available neurosurgery in his home country. His desire to address significant gaps in health communication, especially for Black communities, deepened during his medical training in the rural US. Ceesay is committed to rebuilding trust in healthcare through innovative approaches, including using social media to create engaging narratives that simplify complex medical information while building connection and trust.

Ben Johnson, PhD

Chief Editor, Nature Health

Ben Johnson is Chief Editor of Nature Health, a new journal of public, global and population health from the Nature Portfolio. Ben has a PhD in infectious diseases and has conducted virology and vaccine research at Public Health England and Imperial College London, before moving into academic publishing. Ben has more than 15 years of experience in publishing, journalism, communications and engagement, including as an Associate Publisher at BMC, Head of Communities & Engagement at Springer Nature and Senior Magazine Editor at Nature Medicine, with responsibility for news and opinion content. He has a strong interest in research conducted in resource-limited settings, including in the global south, in how research influences health policy and in equitable strategies to involve patients and communities in research.