Lyndon James Receives Teaching Award

May 30, 2018
Lyndon James.

Every year during graduation, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health presents awards to graduating students, faculty, and staff. This year, Lyndon James, Research Assistant at the Center for Health Decision Science (CHDS) at the Harvard Chan School, received a Teaching Assistant Award in recognition of his excellence as an educator. With his characteristic thoughtfulness and humor, James has served as a teaching fellow for introductory and intermediate-level decision science courses.

For anyone who knows James, this comes as no surprise. “Lyndon is a compassionate educator,” says Smita Bhattacharya, CHDS Research Assistant and previous Incubator Artist-in-Residence, who has worked closely with James to curate educational materials for the CHDS repository.  “He uses engaging examples to break down complex topics into understandable pieces—his passion for public health work shines through in his enthusiasm for teaching these topics!”

At the Incubator, James develops innovative and experimental learning materials focused on decision science. In close collaboration with Incubator Scholar in Residence, Dr. Eve Wittenberg, he has led workshops that coach public health graduate students on writing skills and has curated teaching packs and problem sets on fundamental decision science topics.

“I love helping to make complex problems more intuitive to students by working one step at a time, using visual aids or analogy to build each new concept,” says James. “It has been my privilege to work with such a motivated and diverse group of students, and it's incredibly rewarding to know that I may have helped them to have a positive impact with their research, clinical career, or public health practice.”

Before moving to Boston, James served as a medical doctor in the UK in internal and emergency medicine. James also holds an MPH from the Harvard Chan School. This fall, he will be joining the PhD Program in Health Policy decision science track at the Harvard Chan School.

Congratulations, Lyndon!