Michele Barry, MD, director of the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, has received the 2026 Stanford Faculty Women’s Forum Deborah Rhode Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her efforts to support and cultivate women leaders. Barry, who is also senior associate dean of global health and the Drs. Ben and A. Jess Shenson Professor of Medicine and Tropical Diseases, received the award during a ceremony on Wednesday, May 27. 

Stanford’s Faculty Women’s Forum grants the Lifetime Achievement Award each year in recognition of individuals who have dedicated their careers and used their influence to support and develop academic women at Stanford. The award is named in honor of Deborah Rhode, the late Ernest W. McFarland Professor in Law and director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford Law School. Rhode was a former co-chair of the Faculty Women’s Forum Steering Committee and a world-renowned scholar, teacher, and advocate in the fields of legal ethics, access to justice, gender and the profession, and leadership.

“This award is especially meaningful as I knew Deborah and she was a fierce feminist as well as an outstanding legal scholar,” Barry said. 

Throughout Dr. Barry’s career in global health and academic medicine, advancement of her women colleagues has been a throughline. While an intern at Yale, she wrote the first policy for maternity leave in the Department of Medicine. She helped write a “bill of rights” for women in medicine at Yale, addressing women’s rights concerning maternity leave, transparency, and equitable pay. 

She became Stanford’s inaugural Senior Associate Dean of global health in 2009 and started the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health in 2010. She served on Stanford’s women’s faculty forum for two terms and ran one of the first panels on pay transparency.

A leading voice calling for women’s leadership in global health, she hosted the first Women Leaders in Global Health Conference at Stanford that brought hundreds of women to Stanford from around the world. She also catalyzed the creation of WomenLift Health, a Gates-funded international NGO dedicated to advancing women’s leadership in health and medicine. Given the close ties between climate and health, she also advocates for greater female representation in climate science and negotiations and has authored numerous publications related to women’s leadership in global and planetary health.

Known as a generous and enthusiastic mentor and advocate, Barry has mentored countless women in academic medicine at Stanford and beyond. She was previously awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal from the American Medical Women’s Association for her outstanding contribution to the cause of women in medicine. In 2023, the Consortium of Universities for Global Health honored Barry with the Distinguished Leadership Award, its highest annual honor.

“What sets Michele apart is not only what she has built, published or led, but also how she mentors others,” her nominator wrote. “She doesn’t just open doors; she holds them open. She doesn’t just encourage you to pursue opportunities; she creates them for you.”