Dr. Seema Yasmin

Seema Yasmin is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, medical doctor, professor and author. She is director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative, clinical assistant professor in Stanford University’s Department of Medicine, and visiting professor at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA where she teaches crisis management and communications.

Yasmin was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news in 2017 with a team from The Dallas Morning News for coverage of a mass shooting. She is the recipient of two awards from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Her reporting appears in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, WIRED, Scientific American, and other outlets. She is a medical analyst for CNN and a correspondent for Conde Nast Entertainment.

Yasmin is a fiction fellow of the Kundiman and Tin House writing workshops. Her poems and short stories have been published in literary magazines and anthologies including The BreakBeat Poets Vol 3: Halal If You Hear Me, New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims, The Georgia Review, The Literary Review, Foundry, The Los Angeles Review, and others. Her writing has earned awards and residencies from the Millay Colony for the Arts, the Mid Atlantic Arts Council, Hedgebrook, and others.

After training in medicine at the University of Cambridge, Yasmin served as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she investigated outbreaks in prisons, hospitals, reservations and other settings; principal investigator for a number of epidemiologic studies; and deployed as strategic advisor to foreign ministries of health. She trained in journalism at the University of Toronto and worked as a staff writer at The Dallas Morning News covering Ebola’s arrival in Texas.

Her scholarly work focuses on the spread of health misinformation and disinformation, the growth of medical and news deserts, and the impact on public health. She teaches creative nonfiction including health and science journalism, global health storytelling, practicing medicine with empathy and compassion, and advanced clinical communication skills.

Her unique combination of expertise in epidemics, science communication and journalism has been called upon by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, the Aspen Ideas Festival and the Skoll World Forum.

Current Roles at Stanford:

• Clinical Assistant Professor, Stanford Medical School
• Director, Research and Education Programs, Stanford Health Communication Initiative
• Lecturer, School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences

Honors and Awards:

• Mayborn Award for Literary Non-Fiction, Mayborn School of Journalism, University of North Texas. (2015)
• Mayborn Award for Literary Non-Fiction, Mayborn School of Journalism, University of North Texas (2016)
• Westfield Trust Prize for Academic Excellence, Queen Mary University of London (2005)
• Unit Commendation, United States Public Health Service (2014)
• Public Health Award for Media Excellence in Print Media, Texas Public Health Association (2015)
• National Health Journalism Fellowship Award, Center for Health Journalism, University of Southern California (2015)
• John P. McGovern Award in Health Promotion, University of Texas at Austin (2016)
• Physician Excellence in Reporting, Texas Medical Association (2016)
• Finalist, Pulitzer Prize (2017)Reporting award, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting (2015)
• Reporting award, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting (2017)
• Emmy, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (2016)

Education & Certifications

• MD, University of Cambridge
• Journalism, University of Toronto
• Biochemistry, Queen Mary University of London