Michele Heisler

Dr. Heisler has developed and helped scale up programs that improve health by promoting respect for human rights and mobilizing peer, family, and community support to address social and behavioral determinants of health. Her pathbreaking pragmatic clinical trials and implementation studies, supported with >$45 million in federal grants, have demonstrated the effectiveness of diverse peer support models--training and leveraging support from fellow patients, community members, family--to achieve sustained improvements in health and social wellbeing. She is working with health systems and plans in the US and overseas to implement these models. She has also gained international recognition for her research documenting health consequences of human rights violations, attacks on healthcare and health workers, development of medical-legal partnerships to document, prosecute, and prevent torture, violence, and discrimination against marginalized groups. Findings have informed recent legislation to prevent police violence against medics and protesters, reparations for individual victims and communities, United Nations (UN) protocols, resolutions, and commissions of inquiry, and successful prosecutions of perpetrators. As an expert in conducting Istanbul Protocol-based medico-legal evaluations to examine consistency of claims of torture and ill treatment with physical and psychological symptoms and signs, she has contributed evidence to multiple accountability mechanisms and trained clinicians throughout the world. She is leveraging her role as Medical Director of Nobel Peace Prize-winning Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) to strengthen rigorous research, medico-legal documentation, and cross-sectoral partnerships to promote health and human rights. She has authored or co-authored >300 peer-reviewed articles.