Irini Albanti

Irini Albanti is the inaugural Director of the Global Health Initiative at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Irini manages all international efforts and provides strategic and scientific leadership on the design, implementation, and evaluation of global childhood cancer programs in Central and South America, the Middle East, the Caucasus Region, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.  

Irini started her career in healthcare as the Administrator at the Center for AIDS Research at NYU Langone Health in 2004 where she was exposed to international health planning for HIV clinics in Kenya. She then became the Deputy Director at a 150-bed general hospital in Greece leading clinical operations, finance, human resources, purchasing, facilities, real estate, marketing, and other functions. She later launched the first International Patients Department at Euromedica and spearheaded the evacuation and hospitalization of war patients from Libya and delivery of systems-strengthening technical assistance to hospitals after conflict. In her capacity as Practicum Preceptor at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, she mentors Master of Public Health students on designing and executing global health research projects in strategy, leadership, quality improvement, impact assessment, and clinical operations. She is Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt certified (2017), serves as a Consulting Producer on the How I Live documentary, received the Women Leaders in Global Health Fellowship Award from Stanford University (2017), and was an Emerging Leaders Program Fellow at UMass (2019). She is passionate about bridging business concepts with science for social impact and applying data-driven strategies in the way we deliver social good. 

Irini holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (American College of Thessaloniki), a Master of Arts in Communication (University of Miami), a Master of Public Health (Columbia University), and a Doctor of Public Health (Boston University).