Krishnakumar Udayakumar
Associate Professor of the Practice of Global Health

Dr. Krishna Udayakumar leads multiple initiatives at Duke in the fields of health innovation and globalization of healthcare. He is the founding Director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, focused on generating deeper evidence and support for the study, scaling, and adaptation of health innovations and policy reforms globally.  He is also Executive Director of Innovations in Healthcare, a non-profit co-founded by Duke, McKinsey & Company, and the World Economic Forum, leading the organization’s work to curate and scale the impact of transformative health solutions globally.

As Head of Global Innovation for Duke Health, Dr. Udayakumar is responsible for the development and implementation of global strategy as well as global business development for Duke Health, across healthcare delivery, biomedical sciences research, and health professions education and training.

At Duke University, Dr. Udayakumar holds the rank of Associate Professor of Global Health and Medicine, and is Associate Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, and Academic Medicine.

Born in Bangalore, India, Dr. Udayakumar spent his childhood in Virginia, and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia, with a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies with distinction. He received both an MD and an MBA (with a concentration in Health Sector Management) from Duke University, where he was a Fuqua Scholar. Dr. Udayakumar completed his residency training in internal medicine at Duke and served as Assistant Chief Resident at the Durham VA Medical Center before joining the faculty of Duke University. 

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