Hope Ferdowsian, MD, MPH is a double-board certified fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Preventive Medicine. Her expertise spans the fields of medicine, public health, and ethics. She serves as a medical consultant for Physicians for Human Rights Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, and has evaluated and cared for torture, sexual violence, and other trauma survivors for more than 15 years.
For more than a decade, Dr. Ferdowsian has cared for patients; taught undergraduate and graduate public health students, medical students, and residents; and led key research and policy initiatives. Many of these initiatives have focused on the connection between the health and wellbeing of people and animals. Dr. Ferdowsian has published broadly in this area, and her book, Phoenix Zones: Where Strength Is Born and Resilience Lives (The University of Chicago Press, 2018) also explores this topic.
Dr. Ferdowsian has lectured in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, and she has appeared on local, national, and international radio and television programs. Internationally, Dr. Ferdowsian has worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, the Federated States of Micronesia, South Africa, and Uganda. She is a member of the board of directors for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, which leads the state’s efforts to reduce and respond to sexual violence directed at children and adults, and she also serves on the Hero Women Rising Board of Directors, which supports grassroots women’s empowerment work in the Democratic Republic of Congo and beyond. As a result of Dr. Ferdowsian’s global health work, she has collaborated with the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Global Health on a United States Surgeon General’s global health call to action.
Domestically, Dr. Ferdowsian has worked with non-profit organizations providing health care and advocacy for vulnerable populations in urban and rural settings. She has served as an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Georgetown University, and now as an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.
After completing her bachelor’s degree in biology and bioethics at the University of Southern California and medical degree at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Dr. Ferdowsian completed an internship at Yale University-Griffin Hospital, preventive medicine and public health residency at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and internal medicine residency at the George Washington University Medical Center. She received a master of public health degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine.