Dr Arush Lal

Arush Lal, PhD specializes in global health policy and diplomacy, bringing an interdisciplinary background across advocacy, research, and government relations. As a Visiting Fellow at LSE Health, he is particularly interested in strategies to build a more coherent, equitable, and resilient global health architecture amid fragmented geopolitics and overlapping crises.

Dr. Lal currently leads the Pandemics Programme at The Elders, advising a group of former heads of state and Nobel laureates on pandemic prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Prior to this, he served as Senior Technical Advisor on USAID’s COVID-19 Response Team and as a Commissioner on the Chatham House Commission for Universal Health. Dr. Lal has also held leadership and advisory roles supporting Women in Global Health, PAHO Strategic Fund, the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, and the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative. A Planetary Health Equity Fellow, his policy and research contributions have informed strategies at WHO, World Bank, US Congress, and the UK Cabinet Office, as well as appeared in The Lancet, International Affairs, and Devex.

Dr. Lal holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where his research examined how norms linking global health security and universal health coverage evolve through governance and institutional reform to strengthen multisectoral collaboration. He also holds an MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a BSc in Business Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Expertise: Global health diplomacy; global health governance; global health policy and politics; health architecture reform; global health security; universal health coverage; health equity; resilience; health systems strengthening