Prof. Ans Irfan is a multidisciplinary global public health practitioner, learning and development strategist, and climate-health expert with nearly two decades of experience advancing health equity in both domestic and international contexts. As a committed educator, scholar, and pracademic, his work spans Pakistan, China, Portugal, and the United States, bringing together cross-cultural insight with a systems-level understanding of public health, technology, and education.
He currently serves as a professor at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, where his teaching and applied research focus on learning transformation in public health education, and on the intersection of social, racial, and health equity with climate justice and climate innovation. He also serves as Director of Digital Learning & Innovation, where he advises institutional leadership on strategic learning design initiatives, mentors early career faculty and postdoctoral scholars, and coaches faculty in adapting and enhancing their teaching practice. In recognition of his teaching excellence and leadership, he was also appointed as the CET Faculty Fellow with the USC Center for Excellence in Teaching, a dean-appointed role for ‘senior faculty in becoming teacher leaders—developing practices, initiatives, and policies to further their school’s goals toward teaching excellence.’
Prof. Irfan is the founding director of the Climate & Health Equity Practice Fellowship and a Faculty Fellow with the Continuous Learning for Antiracist Curricular Change (CLARCC) Initiative. He also continues to serve as a Senior Fellow with the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice Fellowship at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and as a climate expert with the Lancet Countdown U.S. Brief Working Group for multiple years. As a critical public health scholar, he integrates multiple disciplines — including decolonial theory, global health, environmental and occupational health, health policy, migrant health, climate change, sociocultural anthropology, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), organizational change management, program development and evaluation, and implementation science. He applies a mixed-methods approach to develop interdisciplinary, practice-anchored public policy and programmatic interventions aimed at reducing social and health inequities. His writing, research, and public scholarship have been featured in publications such as The Boston Globe, Scientific American, Environmental Research Letters, and Environmental Health News, among others.
Beyond academia, Dr. Irfan has contributed to advising and supporting major public health and policy efforts through his involvement with national and global institutions such as UNESCO’s Inclusive Policy Lab, the American Public Health Association’s Center for Climate, Health & Equity, APHA Governing Council, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He is the founding director of the Center for Social Impact & Leadership with the DC Public Health Association and supports the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth. He has also supported the Energy Equity and Environmental Justice (EEEJ) portfolio, including Community Benefits Plans (CBPs), national stakeholder engagement strategy, and organization-wide change management, resilience-building, learning systems, and leadership development programming at the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO).
In addition to his public policy engagements, Prof. Irfan has built extensive expertise in science policy, translating research into actionable policies across sectors spanning philanthropy, nonprofit, academia, and the federal government. He has previously served as a Science Policy Fellow with the Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellowship at the National Academy of Sciences, where he contributed to consensus studies on the well-being of sexual and gender minority populations and on rising midlife mortality and socioeconomic disparities, and co-led a diversity, equity, and inclusion assessment initiative focused on improving institutional practices across the Academies. He was also a Fellow with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Policy Research Scholars Program, an affiliate with Harvard Innovation Labs at Harvard Business School, and Policy & Programming Director and founding member of the social impact nonprofit, National Association for Doctors of Public Health (formerly the DrPH Coalition, Inc.). He is also affiliated with the Harvard Climate Entrepreneurs’ Circle. In one of his most recent science policy engagements, he has served as a Social Science Fellow (Education & Workforce Development) through the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship program.
Selected Leadership and Institutional Engagements (Current & Recent):
Associate Professor, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California
Director of Digital Learning & Innovation, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California
Faculty Fellow, USC Center for Excellence in Teaching
Affiliate Faculty, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University
Advisory Board Member, Center for Climate Health & Equity, American Public Health Association
Senior Environmental Justice Fellow, Agents of Change in Environmental Justice, Columbia University
Religion & Public Health Fellow, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University
Faculty Fellow, Continuous Learning for Antiracist Curricular Change (CLARCC)
Climate Security Fellow, Center for Climate and Security, Council on Strategic Risks
Education
Doctor of Medicine (MD), Community and Global Health
Doctor of Education (EdD), Inclusive Higher Education & Organizational Change
Doctor of Public Health (DrPH), Climate-Smart Global Health Systems & Social Entrepreneurship
Doctor of Science (ScD), Information Technology & Equitable Climate Innovation
Master of Public Health (MPH), Environmental Health Science Policy
Master of Religion & Public Life (MRPL), Religion as a Structural Determinant of Public Health Policies
Graduate Certificate, Diversity and Inclusion for Human Resources
Graduate Certificate, International Migration Studies (Climate Refugees)
Select Applied Research Projects:
AI Ethics and Public Health Systems: This project examines the ethical, policy, and practice implications of integrating artificial intelligence into public health infrastructure, including research, education, policies, and practice. The first stage explores the ethics and metaphysical dimensions of AI in the public health education context.
Rethinking Public Health Education in the Digital Age: This project reimagines curriculum design through a praxis lens to embed employability, practice-based pedagogy, and ethical alignment with AI — including AI-proofing strategies and AI-smart assignments.
Climate Grief as a Structural Determinant—Thanatological Perspective: This project investigates and theorizes how the emergent threat of disenfranchised grief, specifically climate grief, functions as a structural determinant of health through a thanatological lens and its policy and practice implications.
Religion and Public Health Frameworks: This project explores the role of religion in shaping public health governance, research, education, and practice.
Climate Innovation and Information Technology: This project analyzes the social equity impacts at the intersection of climate technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation with implications for the philanthropic sector’s organizational learning frameworks and equitable development of technologies such as nuclear and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
Select Teaching Portfolio
As an experienced educator and learning & development expert, below are some of the select courses Prof. Irfan has developed and/or taught over the years:
Graduate Courses
PM 564: Public Health Leadership & Management
PM 525: Culture & Health: Global Perspectives
PM 599: Social Dimensions of Climate Change in a Sustainable World
PM 599: Environmental Justice: Theory to Practice
PM 565: Introduction to Global Health
PuBH 6199: Advancing Environmental Justice and Health Equity: Tools for Public Health Leaders
PuBH 6011: Environmental & Biological Foundations of Public Health
PuBH 6021: Essentials of Public Health Practice and Leadership
PuBH 6022: Managing Organizations and Influencing Systems
PuBH 6133: Social Dimensions of Climate Change
PuBH 6199: Philosophy of Religion, Public Health Practice & Policies
PuBH 6199: Public Health Entrepreneurship
PuBH 6001: The Biologic Basis of Disease in Public Health
Doctoral Courses
PuBH 8716: Leadership-in-Practice: Education & Workforce Development
PuBH 8724: Organizational Leadership and Change Management
Undergraduate Courses
HP 448: Global Environmental Changes and Health