It’s in the news—and in our lives: the increasing pressure on health services. For Dr. Gillian CHRISTIE’08, it’s a challenge that raises game-changing possibilities.
As director of operations at Boston’s Pearl Health, Gillian works to improve health-care access via the intersection of business and technology. Along with Pearl Health’s team of physicians, technologists and health plan leaders, Gillian believes that primary care providers are the key to America’s health.
“COVID-19 demonstrated how the public and private sectors could work together to develop creative solutions very quickly,” Gillian explains. “Without the ingenuity and investment in research over many decades, the vaccines would not have been available so rapidly.”
For Gillian, it was Branksome that nurtured her passion for expanding access to health care. It began, as innovation often does, with an eagerness to find out more about the world.
Entering Branksome in Grade 7, she immediately found co-curricular activities to join. Darragh KELLAM recalls Gillian “being inclusive, making friends with everyone.” The two of them enjoyed badminton, including competitions with other schools, as well as art and choir.
With the encouragement of her Clan advisor, Gillian’s co-curricular involvements widened. “Rosemary Evans fostered my growth leading to such formative experiences at the World Affairs Conference with Upper Canada College and teaching at the Queenstown Get Ahead Project in South Africa.”
Gillian wanted to keep helping the underserved. But could that be a career? Dr. Peter Singer, then the CEO of Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) and a former Branksome Board chair, helped her put a name to her interests: global public health.
“Don’t be shy about pursuing a path that doesn’t fit the mould, that involves ‘colouring outside the lines.’ The development of new technologies and approaches often demands non-conformity.”
As an undergrad at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, Gillian worked at GCC for several summers. “GCC exposed me to many areas of public health, and how technology can improve the health of people in lower-income countries,” she says. “It instilled in me the importance of supporting people with so much less than I have. This became a central theme in my career.”
At St Andrews she wrote her dissertation on reverse innovation. Also known as “trickle-up innovation,” this has been defined as “the development of a product or service in a low- or middle-income country and the subsequent commercialization of that product or service to a high-income country, ideally resulting in economic benefits for the country of origin.”
After completing her master’s at the University of Cambridge, Gillian worked in New York City at the Vitality Institute, a global research organization dedicated to health innovation. One of her first initiatives was convening 25 leaders focused on supporting Vitality’s Commission on Health Promotion and the Prevention of Chronic Disease in Working-Age Americans. With Microsoft and the Qualcomm Institute, Gillian and her colleagues came up with guidelines, as she explains, “for the responsible development and deployment of personalized health technologies. This demonstrated that the private sector can indeed be a force to improve health using technology.”
In addition to her role at Pearl Health, Gillian is an adjunct lecturer in health policy and management at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she earned her multidisciplinary doctor of public health degree in 2020. Gillian is impressed by her students’ commitment “to create the world they want to see.” For Branksome students similarly interested in tackling today’s health challenges, she advises: “Don’t be shy about pursuing a path that doesn’t fit the mould, that involves ‘colouring outside the lines.’ The development of new technologies and approaches often demands non-conformity.”
And, if they seek to emulate Gillian, Branksome alums will want to remain—as she has despite her accomplishments—“still humble!” exclaims Darragh.
Gillian is confident that, whatever field they choose, Branksome students will be empowered by the values she acquired:
“Developing a sense of independence, and being able to find your own voice and interests, so that if you see a challenge in the world, you can go and solve it.”
Featured image by Christian Peterson.
