Jonathan Cohen | USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health

Jonathan E. Cohen, JD MPhil (he/him/his) is Professor of Clinical Population and Public Health Sciences at the University of Southern California and Director of Policy Engagement at the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health. He represents the Keck School of Medicine and Institute on Inequalities in Global Health on USC’s new Capital Campus, a coast-to-coast bridge between interdisciplinary scholarship and global health policy making in Washington, DC. Professor Cohen was previously the Public Health Program Director at the Open Society Foundations, overseeing one of the world’s largest philanthropic enterprises to advance human rights in global health. A Canadian-born international lawyer, he has worked for over two decades to strengthen human rights standards, programs, and advocacy initiatives in diverse domains of population and public health. His academic research, human rights investigations, and commentaries have contributed to the normative development of fields as diverse as access to essential medicines, harm reduction, HIV/AIDS, mental health, palliative care, and reproductive and sexual health. Professor Cohen is an emerging leader in the field of population aging, having served as a visiting scholar studying LGBTQ+ aging at the Hastings Center and a Health and Aging Policy Fellow in the United States Senate. His current work seeks to equip low and middle-income countries to equitably confront the challenge and opportunity of population aging and demographic change. In addition to his academic work, he is a member of the board of HelpAge USA and a consultant on health and aging policy with Grantmakers in Aging and Grantmakers in Health. Professor Cohen began his career as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada and as a researcher with the HIV/AIDS Program at Human Rights Watch. He holds degrees from Yale College, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.