Sabs Quereshi

Sabs K. Quereshi has 16+ years of experience in strategic communication, government affairs and public policy with technical background in domestic and global public health, humanitarian aid, biomed science, health system strengthening, and tech innovations in the United States and around the world. She recently served as the Director of Global Public Health Strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation and as the Senior Public Health Advisor to the California Surgeon General and CA Secretary of Health in coordination with Governor Newsom's Office leading strategic communication (e.g., external media, testimony, social mobilization), private-public partnership, COVID-19 response, vaccination rollout, and long-term recovery. Prior to this, she was an Advisor and Expert at the United Nations’ divisions in communications for development, health and immunization, and public health emergencies in New York, as well as UNICEF country offices in the Middle East and Africa where she directly coordinated with local staff and populations on a transformative humanitarian and development aid agenda. As a Humanitarian Policy Advisor in the USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, she covered an extensive portfolio including, but not limited to, speechwriting and talking point development for senior executives, analyzing and innovating partnership approaches, humanitarian assistance reform, DRC Ebola outbreak response, donor engagement, and policy innovations to help solve pressing issues in state fragility. Sabs also previously served as the IRC and WHO Cluster Coordinator leading over ten relief organizations in North Syria, Country Supervisor for 2014 West Africa UN Ebola Response, Measles and Zika expert in South Sudan and South America, an emergency lead and analyst for the U.S. DHHS, and policy fellow on health care reform in the Office of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. She has published articles in academic journals ranging from Johns Hopkins University to Harvard’s Belfer Center as well as contributed to congressional testimonies and online publications alike (e.g., Los Angeles Times, APolitical.)

She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Presidential Leadership Scholar, holds a M.P.A. from Harvard Kennedy School, M.P.H. in Health Policy from George Washington University, and B.S. in Biomedical Science from Marquette University. She is a recovering neuroscientist, proud native of Wisconsin, multilingual in six languages, and advocate for building climate resilience across the global south.