Lisa V. Adams MED’90, faculty
Associate Dean for Global Health, Geisel School of Medicine
Professor, Department of Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine
Dr. Lisa V. Adams’s work exemplifies her commitment to global health equity education and practice. She is recognized as the guiding force behind the development of global health equity programs at Geisel and throughout Dartmouth’s undergraduate and graduate programs. Her scholarship investigates the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of tuberculosis in low-income settings with a particular focus on countries in eastern and southern Africa, as well as institutional and pedagogical approaches to promoting global health equity education.
Since joining the Geisel faculty as an instructor in 2002, Lisa has launched numerous interdisciplinary global health equity educational programs and opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students and faculty across the institution. She currently serves as director of Geisel’s Center for Global Health Equity. She serves as faculty advisor for approximately 25 medical students in the Global Health Scholars program and as the faculty lead of Dartmouth’s Global Health Initiative at Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for International Understanding. Lisa has also forged more than half a dozen durable partnerships with academic institutions across the globe and most notably established bilateral student clinical training experiences with leading academic medical centers in China, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
In recognition of her expertise, Lisa has been tapped for myriad leadership roles. She was a member of the 4-person Strategy Advisory Group in the Dartmouth President’s Office, is the director of Global Initiatives in the Provost’s Office, and served on Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s Global Health Initiatives Steering Committee. She is Dartmouth’s program director for the Rwanda Human Resources for Health Program, a seven-year project that, together with the participation of six peer medical schools, is working to rebuild the medical education system in Rwanda.
More recently, Lisa has served as co-chair for Dartmouth’s COVID-19 Response Task Force, an ongoing, demanding, and critical position responsible for the remarkably successful control of the pandemic at Dartmouth College and throughout its professional schools. Across campus, Lisa is known for her clarity, energy, and expertise, all qualities on ample display in her near-daily emails and policy statements throughout the pandemic. Even prior to the emergence of COVID-19, Lisa’s personable and collegial nature was widely known within the Geisel community through her service on the 2021 reunion committee, as a White Coat note writer from 2011–2020, and as a member of the Alumni Council since 2011. In 2020, she delivered a memorable and inspiring speech— “Making Your White Coat Your Cape: Privileges and Pandemics”—as that year’s White Coat Ceremony speaker. Reflecting on her time leading the COVID-19 task force at Dartmouth, she talked about how medical training prepares you to approach every challenge with empathy, calm reassurance, thoughtfulness, and skill – so that you can be that person in the room to calmly guide others through any crisis, large or small.
Lisa’s commitment to social justice and pursuit of equity and reciprocity in each of Dartmouth’s international programs has cemented her reputation for innovation, hard work, and thoughtfulness. She maintains a strong sense of cultural humility that has allowed her to forge some of the strongest professional relationships present in Dartmouth’s global health partnerships.
Lisa earned her bachelor’s degree at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and her MD at Dartmouth. She completed her internship and residency at Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where she served as chief medical resident for primary care internal medicine.
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