Opening Plenary / Mary T. Bassett

Dr. Mary Bassett was appointed the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) in February 2014 by Mayor Bill de Blasio. With more than 30 years of experience in public health, Dr. Bassett has dedicated her career to advancing health equity. From 1985 to 2002, she served on the medical faculty at the University of Zimbabwe, where she developed AIDS prevention interventions. Subsequently, she served as deputy commissioner of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at DOHMH, where she directed key initiatives including bans on smoking and trans fats in restaurants, and the requirement of chain restaurants to post calorie counts. She also established the departments’ District Public Health Offices in East and Central Harlem, the South Bronx, and North and Central Brooklyn to lead targeted health and communication strategies in these communities that experience an excess burden of disease. Dr. Bassett then served as the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s program director for the African Health Initiative and more recently led its Child Well-being Program. She received her BA from Harvard, an MD from Columbia, and an MPH from the University of Washington.