LarsonH-board

Heidi J. Larson, PhD

Founding Director of The Vaccine Confidence Project and Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine / Belgium

Heidi J. Larson, PhD, is Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Clinical Professor, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle; and Visiting Professor, University of Antwerp and KU Leuven, Belgium. Prof. Larson is Founding Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, and her research focuses on managing risk and building trust in vaccines and therapeutics from trials to delivery, and building public cooperation in the context of pandemics and other large-scale crises. She has a particular interest in trust in science and technology, and she worked for Apple Computer and Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) as an anthropologist to inform the early-stage design and introduction of novel technologies.

In 2021, Prof. Larson launched the Global Listening Project to investigate ecosystems of trust around health and information technologies, leading a 70-country study of public experiences and trust during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prof. Larson previously headed strategy and communications around new vaccine introduction for UNICEF’s Global Immunization Programme, chaired Gavi’s Advocacy Task Force, and served on the World Health Organization (WHO) SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy. Before starting her global role on vaccines, Prof. Larson was Senior Advisor in the Communicable Diseases Department at WHO headquarters in Geneva, working on strategies to support acceptance of disease control interventions in multiple countries. Earlier in her career, Prof. Larson was acting head of the South Pacific Office for UNICEF, covering 13 Pacific Island countries and particularly focused on mobilizing countries to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child and set up monitoring systems. Before that, she worked for UNICEF and Save the Children in Nepal.

Prof. Larson is the author of Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start—and Why They Don’t Go Away (Oxford University Press 2020). In 2021, she was named by BBC as one of the 100 most influential women in the world and was awarded the 2021 Edinburgh Medal.

Appointed to the board: June 2024