Dan Li
Believing that education and healthcare access are human rights, Dan Li devotes herself to clinical medicine, public health, and education. Driven by her passion and internal curiosity in medical science, Dan graduated from Harvard College with a BA with High Honors in Chemical and Physical Biology and a minor in Mathematical Sciences in 2015. She is currently a fourth-year MD/Ph.D. candidate at Yale School of Medicine/Yale School of Public Health studying Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases under Dean Sten Vermund, focusing on maternal and children’s health, healthcare access & implementation, and healthcare education. Recipient of the Gates Millennium Scholarship, Dan received full-ride scholarships through her undergraduate and graduate studies to pursue her dream of alleviating medicine and education inequality. She was selected as the Reed Young Scholars in 2010 and graduated as the valedictorian of her school. Dan conducted biomedical researches at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, The Boston Children’s Hospital, and the University of Texas, Southwestern, Yale School of Medicine, and Yale School of Public Health. She made a significant contribution to understanding protein trafficking, prostate cancer, breast cancer, sickle cell anemia, and rare metabolism disorders in neonates.
Dan published over ten high-impacting academic research articles, and many of her research results have been devoted to clinical practices and infectious disease control. She received the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize from Harvard College for her thesis research project in “Understanding the Structural and Functional Domains of BCL11A”, hoping to lead to therapeutic for sickle cell anemia. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dan is currently serving as an infectious disease consultant to the American National Institute of Medicine, the American National Institute of Science, Connecticut State Department of Health, and providing infectious disease prevention and control expertise and guidance to combat COVID-19 and save lives. She plays a vital role in guiding the Connecticut Public School System and the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools during the school reopening process to keep children safe during the pandemic. In addition, she serves as an undergraduate admission interviewer for Harvard College.