2026 Conference
Reimagining Population Health Science to Build Trust and Influence
Join us in Portland Oregon from September 29 – October 2, 2026
The 2026 IAPHS Annual Meeting theme will be “Reimagining Population Health Science to Build Trust and Influence,” reflecting a commitment to charting a new course for the field—one where rigor meets relevance and knowledge drives meaningful change. As researchers confront rising skepticism of science and scientists, reimagining how we produce and share evidence is essential to the future of population health science and population health at large. Planned plenaries will highlight research and communication strategies to (re)build trust and influence with a broad range of stakeholders.
2026 PLENARY SPEAKERS
“Public-Facing Communication in a Polarized World: Front-line Perspectives”
September 30, 9:00AM-10:30AM
Lisa Rosenbaum
Lisa Rosenbaum is a cardiologist and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. She serves as the national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine, where she also hosts the podcast “Not Otherwise Specified.” She completed medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, Internal Medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship at New York Presbyterian Weill-Cornell, and the National Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Her writing and podcast cover a range of issues at the intersection of science, medicine, and society. Prior to joining the Smith Center and BIDMC she practiced cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for 9 years.
Brinda Adhikari
Brinda Adhikari is an award-winning executive producer, showrunner and journalist with over 20 years of experience under her belt. She was most recently the executive producer of “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” and before that, she worked at ABC and CBS news for nearly 20 years. She is committed to impact-driven storytelling. She is currently the co-creator and co-host of the podcast called “Why Should I Trust You?” which looks at the breakdown in trust for science, medicine, public health and institutions writ large and what if anything we can do to rebuild it. It hit #18 on the news and commentary charts. One of the things it does is host conversations between supporters of the Make America Healthy Again Movement and traditional public health. It has been written up in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the New Yorker, Star News and it has been discussed on the Joe Rogan Podcast.
Steven Woolf
Steven H. Woolf, M.D., M.P.H., is professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, where he was the founding director of the Center on Society and Health. He holds the C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Distinguished Chair in Population Health and Health Equity and is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Dr. Woolf has edited three books and published more than 200 articles in a career that has focused on raising public awareness about the social, economic, and environmental conditions that shape health and produce inequities. He works to address these issues through outreach to policymakers and the public, including testimony before Congress, consulting, media outreach, and speaking engagements.
Dr. Woolf received his M.D. in 1984 from Emory University and underwent residency training in family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is also a clinical epidemiologist and underwent training in preventive medicine and public health at Johns Hopkins University, where he received his M.P.H. in 1987. He is board certified in family medicine and in preventive medicine and public health. Dr. Woolf began his career as a health services researcher, with a focus on evidence-based guidelines. He served on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and was elected to the Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine) in 2001.
“Research for Impact: New approaches to production and publication”
October 01, 9:00AM-10:30AM
Sandro Galea
Sandro Galea is the Margaret C Ryan Dean of the School of Public Health, the Eugene S and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health, and Vice Provost of Interdisciplinary Initiatives at Washington University in St. Louis. He has been named an epidemiology innovator by Time, a top voice in healthcare by LinkedIn, and is one of the most cited social scientists in the world. His writing and work are featured regularly in national and global public media. A native of Malta, he has served as a field physician for Doctors Without Borders and has held academic and leadership positions at Boston University, Columbia University, University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine.
Brian Nosek
Brian Nosek’s research and applied interests are to understand how people and systems produce values-misaligned behavior; to develop, implement, and evaluate solutions to align behavior with values; and, to improve research methods and culture to accelerate progress in science. Nosek co-developed the Implicit Association Test, a method that advanced research and public interest in implicit bias. Nosek co-founded three non-profit organizations: Project Implicit to advance research and education about implicit bias, the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science to improve the research culture in his home discipline, and the Center for Open Science (COS) to improve rigor, transparency, integrity, and reproducibility across research disciplines. Nosek is Executive Director of COS and a professor at the University of Virginia. Nosek received his undergraduate degree in Psychology with minors in Computer Science and Women’s Studies from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 1995, and his PhD in Psychology from Yale in 2002. He received honorary doctorates in science from Ghent University (2019) and University of Bristol (2022). Click here to learn more.
Cory Jane Clark
Cory Clark is an Associate Professor of Psychology at New College of Florida and the Executive Director of the Adversarial Collaboration Project at University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in Social and Personality Psychology from University of California, Irvine, and previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Behavioural Science at Durham University and as the Director of Academic Engagement for Heterodox Academy. Her research explores how social, moral, and political motivations interfere with pursuit of truth.
“Narratives, Influence, and Trust: Lessons from research and practice”
October 02, 9:00AM-10:30AM
Sarah Gollust
Sarah Gollust is a Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. A social scientist who studies the intersections of communication, politics, and health policy, Dr. Gollust has examined media influences and public opinion around significant health issues, including obesity, health equity, the Affordable Care Act, and cancer screening. She also examines how research is translated into policymaking. She is a co-lead of the Collaborative on Media and Messaging for Health & Social Policy, an interdisciplinary group of researchers who study how media and messaging shape public opinions, attitudes, and behaviors.
Lori Dorfman
Lori Dorfman believes that people who have a stake in the outcome should have a voice in the process. When she was a graduate student at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, with her dissertation chair Lawrence Wallack, she co-founded Berkeley Media Studies Group to put that belief into practice. With the talented staff at BMSG, Dr. Dorfman conducts research to help advocates, policy makers, and journalists understand how public health issues are covered in the media. The research informs the professional education BMSG provides for journalists and the media advocacy training BMSG conducts for organizers, advocates, and public health practitioners so they can raise their voices in policy debate. Since 1993, BMSG has worked with thousands of advocates across the country who have been changing policy at the local, state and federal level on many issues including tobacco, food, housing, early childhood, health equity, and various types of violence and trauma, among other issues. Dr. Dorfman was part of a groundbreaking interdisciplinary team that helped news organizations include a public health perspective in their crime and violence coverage. She led a team working with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center that uncovered the most effective ways to bring prevention to the fore in our public conversation about sexual violence. With colleagues at Center for Science in the Public Interest, she co-convened the Food Marketing Workgroup, a national network dedicated to eliminating harmful food marketing by identifying, investigating, and advocating changes to marketing practices that undermine health, especially those practices targeting children and youth of color and collaborated with the Center for Digital Democracy on exposing digital marketing that targets children and youth. BMSG is a project of the Public Health Institute.
Dr. Dorfman also teaches Mass Communication in Public Health at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is Adjunct Professor. Dr. Dorfman’s publications are available from http://www.bmsg.org/.
Ayesha McAdams Mahmoud
Ayesha McAdams-Mahmoud, ScD, MPH is the Senior Director of the Research & Insights teams for Salesforce’s Commerce and Marketing Clouds. She is an experienced research leader, behavioral scientist, and public health practitioner who helps businesses and communities leverage data to co-create brighter futures and experiences. She has a doctorate in social and behavioral sciences and leverages her interdisciplinary background in the arts, journalism, public health, and behavioral science to perform, document, and measure the impact of technology, narratives, and the expressive arts on human experiences. She has more than 15 years of experience leading research initiatives in partnership with businesses, nonprofits, and communities. She resides in North Carolina, USA.