ABOUT THE EXPERT:

Dr. Vishnu Laalitha Surapaneni is a practicing hospitalist at the MHealth Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis and an assistant professor, educator, and researcher at the University of Minnesota Medical School with a public health degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Originally from India, Dr. Surapaneni completed her medical school training at Andhra Medical College King George Hospital in Andhra Pradesh, India, and her residency in internal medicine at University Hospitals Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Surapaneni’s areas of focus are impacts of climate change on health equity, sustainable healthcare delivery, and the role of physician advocacy in developing science-based policy. She is a member of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change United States Brief workgroup through the University’s Center for Global Health and Social Responsibility and an associate at the Institute on the Environment. She also currently mentors medical students in the Twin Cities Medical Society public health advocacy fellowship. Dr. Surapaneni has co-authored white papers on health harms of fossil fuel infrastructure and served on the Minnesota state Department of Transportation’s Sustainable Transportation Advisory Council in a governor-appointed role. As a physician advocate, she has provided testimony to the Minnesota legislature on numerous occasions on the health impacts of climate change and fossil fuel infrastructure. She currently volunteers with Konbit Sante, a Maine-based NGO, to support the climate resiliency needs of rural Haitian hospitals. As a science communicator, she regularly speaks with media outlets about public health impacts of climate change and has been interviewed by outlets such as MPR, Associated Press, and the Guardian. Her work has been cited in print and online outlets including the Star Tribune, MN Daily and Common Dreams. She also regularly contributes opinion pieces and is Public Voices fellow with The OpEd Project in partnership with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

CONTACT:

Contact Vishnu Laalitha Surapaneni at Experts@diversegreen.org.