Stephanie Desmon is communications director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and a co-host and producer of Public Health on Call, an award-winning podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. A former journalist, she has been with the podcast since its launch at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The podcast has produced more than 1,100 episodes and has been downloaded more than 12 million times. Stephanie holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University and is the co-author, with Arturo Casadevall, of the 2024 book, “What if Fungi Win?,” from Johns Hopkins University Press.
Stephanie Desmon
Co-host and producer, Public Health on Call podcast, Communications Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs
Speakers and Panelists

Phil Anglewicz
Director, William H. Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health

Jennifer Sciubba
President and CEO, Population Reference Bureau

Sam Myers
Director, Planetary Health Alliance and the Johns Hopkins Institute for Planetary Health

Luba Zeifman
Population Affairs Officer, UN Statistics Division

Apoorva Jadhav
Demographic Futures Lead, William H. Gates Sr. Institute for Population and Reproductive Health and Senior Fellow, PRB

Melissa Kearney
Gilbert F. Schaefer Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

Wang Feng
Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine

Mahesh Karra
Associate Professor of Population and Family Health, Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health

Jack Goldstone
Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University and Senior Fellow, Mercatus Center

Monica Duffy Toft
Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Security Studies, Tufts University

C. Tadeusz Kugler
Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations, Roger Williams University

Ben Zaitchik
Associate Director, Johns Hopkins Institute for Planetary Health and Chair and Professor, Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, JHU

Kevin Kuruc
Assistant Professor of Economics, Middlebury College

Brian O’Neill
Scientist & Professor, Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland in College Park

Deborah Balk
Director, Cuny Institute for Demographic Research

Ruth Braunstein
Professor of Sociology, SNF Agora Institute

Elizabeth Fussell
Professor of Population Studies and Environment and Society, Brown University

Clive Mutunga
Founder, CHED Solutions

Rachel Marcus
Executive Director, Planetary Health Alliance and the Institute for Planetary Health

Nandita Bajaj
Executive Director, Population Balance

Kathleen Mogelgaard
President and CEO, Population Institute

Sono Aibe
Principal consultant at CHED Solutions

Carolina Cardona
Health economist and Assistant Scientist, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Alex Ezeh
Dornsife Professor of Global Health and Associate Dean for Global Health and Human Rights, Drexel University

Sathyanarayanan (Sathya) Doraiswamy
Senior Programme Advisor, Population, Development & Data, United Nations Population Fund

Feinian Chen
Professor of Sociology and Hopkins Population Center Director, Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Koko Warner
Director, University of Pennsylvania International Climate Observatory

Stephanie Desmon
Co-host and producer, Public Health on Call podcast, Communications Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs

Seth Borenstein
Science Writer, The Associated Press

Fernando Riosmena
Fellow, Institute of Behavioral Science Professor, Sociology and Demography, University of Texas at San Antonio Ph.D., Demography, University of Pennsylvania
