Sofia Gruskin, JD, MIA

Sofia Gruskin directs the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health (IIGH). She is Distinguished Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences and Law, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Chief of the Disease Prevention, Policy and Global Health Division at the Keck School of Medicine; and Professor of Law and Preventive Medicine at the Gould School of Law. Within USC, she is highly engaged in university service, including serving as a member of the USC President’s Faculty Advisory Committee. Gruskin was awarded USC’s highest academic honor, a Distinguished Professorship, in March 2024.

Gruskin currently sits on numerous international boards and committees, including the Lancet–WHS Academic Alliance Commission on Academic Responsibility, Trust in Science, and Societal Change and the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Population Registers, Ethics and Human Rights. Most recently she was also a member of the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board; the Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health; and the Lancet Commission on Health and Human Rights. Professor Gruskin has published extensively, including several books, training manuals and edited journal volumes, and more than 200 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics. She is an associate editor for Global Public Health, on the editorial advisory board for Revue Tiers Monde, and a trustee of Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. Previously, she served as an associate editor of the American Journal of Public Health and editor-in-chief for Health and Human Rights, both for over a decade.

A pioneer in bringing together multidisciplinary approaches to global health, Gruskin’s work — which ranges from global policy to the grassroots level — has been instrumental in developing the conceptual, methodological and empirical links between health and human rights. With a long-standing focus on HIV, sexual and reproductive health, child and adolescent health, gender-based violence, non-communicable disease, and health systems, Gruskin’s work also seeks to address the manifestations of inequalities in a range of areas, including sustainability, climate change, and the long-term impacts of COVID-19 and other emerging pandemics.

Research partners include the LA Mayor’s Office of International Affairs, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, the International AIDS Society, Durex/Reckitt Benckiser as well as local organizations and universities in Brazil, Kenya, India, South Africa, Uganda and Vietnam.

In recent years, Gruskin served on the board of directors for the Guttmacher Institute; the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Outcome and Impact Evaluation of Global HIV/AIDS Programs Implemented under the Lantos/Hyde Act of 2008; the UN Technical Advisory Group for the High-Level Working Group on the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents; the Technical Advisory Group of the UN Global Commission on HIV and the Law; the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights; and the Global Advisory Board on Sexual Health and Wellbeing. Gruskin was with Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health for many years, during which time she served as director of the Program on International Health and Human Rights; associate professor in the department of Global Health and Population; and co-founder and co-director of the Interdepartmental Program on Women, Gender and Health.

• Ferguson, Laura
• Klausner, Jeffrey
• Withers, Mellissa
• Samari, Goleen
• Blosnich, John
• Bluthenthal, Ricky