Joseph D. Tucker

Joseph D Tucker Born 12 April 1978 Chicago, U.S. Occupation physician, researcher, social innovator Alma mater NCSSM (Class of 1996), Swarthmore College (Class of 2000), UNC-Chapel Hill (Class of 2004), Harvard University (Class of 2010), LSHTM (Class of 2014) Genre infectious diseases, public health, social innovation Years active (2007–present)

Joseph D. Tucker (born 1978) is an American physician researcher who has made contributions to crowdsourcing and open innovation related to medicine and public health. He is the founder of SESH, a partnership that leverages crowd wisdom to develop public health interventions and community engagement practices. Tucker is a tenured Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he also is Director of the UNC Project-China. He is a Professor of Global Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sexual Health.

Education Tucker graduated from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, North Carolina and then earned a bachelors of arts degree from Swarthmore College. He received his M.D. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2004) This research study has been widely cited and resulted in several subsequent investigations of syphilis in China. A University of College London research team noted that his New England Journal of Medicine article directly informed China's national syphilis screening program.

Tucker's research group examines how crowdsourcing approaches such as open contests and hackathons can be used for medical and public health purposes. Tucker has led several randomized controlled trials showing that crowdsourcing can enhance HIV test uptake. As part of this research, he adapted the hackathon methodology to design health interventions, called a designathon. This line of research has led to similar projects in Nigeria, the United States, Vietnam, and other countries. In addition, Tucker has used crowdsourcing methods to develop pay-it-forward approaches for health. Pay-it-forward has an individual receive a free gift and then decided whether they would like to support other people to receive the same gift. The research team led by Tucker showed that pay-it-forward could be used to increase gonorrhea and chlamydia testing among sexual minorities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tucker helped to organize a crowdsourcing open call to inform the fall semester at UNC Chapel Hill called the Carolina Collective. This project brought together students, faculty and staff to identify community-based solutions related to COVID-19.

Awards Tucker's crowdsourcing research was identified by TDR in 2017 as one of the top global innovations. The pay-it-forward research was recognized at the 2018 World Health Summit, the 2019 UNAIDS Health Innovation Exchange, and the 2020 World Health Organization Re-Boot Challenge. He received a mid-career Award from the National Institutes of Health based on his global experience with HIV research mentorship.

Publications He has published over 500 research manuscripts and has an h-index of 57 and an i10-index of 290.

Service Tucker is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases. He was invited to give oral presentations at World Health Organization meetings in Kampala, Uganda (WHO/TDR, October 2019), Nairobi, Kenya (WHO/HRP, January 2020), Geneva, Switzerland (TDR, 2019), Jakarta, Indonesia (WHO SEARO, 2016), New Delhi, India (WHO SEARO, 2015), and Tokyo, Japan (WHO WPR, 2015). He has contributed to six World Health Organization guidelines or guidance documents, including leading the development of a TDR/SIHI/SESH Practical Guide on Crowdsourcing in Health and Health Research. He currently serves on the TDR Global Working Group.

Most Cited Articles