Craig Spencer, MD, MPH is a globally recognized emergency medicine physician and Associate Professor of the Practice of Health Services, Policy, and Practice at Brown University School of Public Health. His career spans nearly two decades of frontline humanitarian and public health work, blending expertise in global health, humanitarian response, and pandemic preparedness.
Dr. Spencer has worked extensively across Africa and Southeast Asia as a field epidemiologist, addressing critical health and human rights challenges. His projects have included investigating maternal health and mortality in Burundi, examining child separation in emergencies in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, leading hepatitis E surveillance in Chad, and coordinating Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) national epidemiological response in Guinea during the Ebola outbreak. His clinical contributions also extend to providing medical care in the Caribbean, Central America, and West and East Africa, as well as aboard an MSF search-and-rescue vessel in the Mediterranean.
Elected to the Board of Directors for Doctors Without Borders USA in 2019, Dr. Spencer remains deeply committed to advancing global health equity. His work at Brown focuses on the historical determinants of public health, with a particular emphasis on humanitarian response, global health security, and pandemic preparedness. He frequently shares his insights on public health and policy through writing, with pieces featured in leading outlets such as the New England Journal of Medicine, New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Politico, STATNews, Los Angeles Times, Council on Foreign Relations’ Think Global Health, USA Today, and more.
In 2024, Dr. Spencer joined the Council on Foreign Relations as a life member. He currently serves on the Board of Advisors for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières USA.
