Sara N Bleich

Sara Naomi Bleich is the inaugural Vice Provost for Special Projects at Harvard University, a Professor of Public Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. With more than 190 peer-reviewed publications, she is a nationally and internationally recognized policy expert and researcher who specializes in diet-related diseases, food and nutrition security, and racial inequality. She previously served in the Biden and Obama Administrations. She was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine in 2023 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2025.

Early life and education Bleich is from Baltimore City and attended the Garrison Forest School. She holds a B.A. in psychology from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University.

Research and career

Bleich’s research has focused on increasing the public health impact of federal nutrition assistance programs to reduce poverty, improve nutrition security, and foster health equity. Her work on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has identified tangible policy opportunities.

In the domain of obesity prevention, Bleich has demonstrated that meaningful calorie labeling reduces youth purchases of sugary beverages, that mandatory disclosure of calorie information influences restaurant behavior, and that beverage taxes lower sugary beverage purchases. Bleich has also documented trends in consumption of sugar sweetened beverages.

Bleich's research career began at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where she was on faculty from 2007 to 2015. In 2015, Bleich was appointed as a White House Fellow in the Obama Administration where she worked at the United States Department of Agriculture as a Senior Policy Adviser for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services and on First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative.

In 2016, Bleich returned to Harvard University as a professor of Public Health Policy. From 2021 to 2023, Bleich worked in the Biden Administration - first as the Senior Advisor for COVID-19 in the Office of the Secretary at the USDA and then as the inaugural Director of the Nutrition Security and Health Equity at the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. She became the inaugural Vice Provost for Special Projects at Harvard in 2023, where she leads the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery.

Awards and honors 2015 Prize for Research in Public Interest Communications 2015 Frank Prize 2017 Garrison Forest Hall of Excellence 2017 Shiriki Kumanyika Diversity and Disparities Leadership Award 2023 Jean Mayer Prize for Excellence in Nutrition Science and Policy 2023 Inducted to the National Academy of Medicine 2025 Inducted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Selected publications