Sam Myers Faculty Director

Sam is interested in policy interventions to improve human health while stabilizing Earth’s natural systems. With faculty Director roles at the Planetary Health Alliance and the new Johns Hopkins Institute for Planetary Health, he oversees multi-institutional efforts focused on understanding and quantifying the human health of global environmental change and translating that understanding into action globally. He is the co-editor with Howard Frumkin of Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves, which was voted one of the 25 Best Books of All Time by American Journal of Health Promotion in 2021. He has authored over 100 peer reviewed articles and book chapters.

Prior to joining Johns Hopkins University, Sam was a Principal Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His projects include exploring the human nutritional consequences of rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, falling populations of pollinating insects, changes in global fisheries in response to ocean warming, and impacts of climate shocks and market responses on food security in Africa. For his research, Sam was the inaugural recipient of the Arrell Global Food Innovation Award in 2018 and Prince Albert II of Monaco prize for research at the interface of health and environment in 2015.

Sam was a Commissioner on the 2015 Lancet-Rockefeller Foundation Commission on Planetary Health and is the founding director of the Planetary Health Alliance (PHA), established in 2015, and the Johns Hopkins Institute for Planetary Health (JHIPH), launched in 2024. He currently serves as Faculty Director for both organizations. He holds an MD from the Yale School of Medicine, an MPH from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and a BA from Harvard College.