Sonia Sarkar (Baltimore City Health Dept.) Sonia Sarkar is Chief Policy and Engagement Officer for the Baltimore City Health Department. Previously, she was Director of Provider Solutions at AVIA, a health system-led innovation accelerator, and also served as Special Advisor and Chief of Staff at Health Leads, a national social enterprise that envisions a healthcare system that addresses all patients’ basic resource needs as a standard part of quality care.
As an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University, Sonia co-founded and served as campus coordinator for Health Leads’ Baltimore site, and also completed a term as a student member of the organization’s national Board of Directors. Subsequently, Sonia served as a Baltimore City Mayoral Fellow with BCHD prior to joining the Health Leads staff team as the Baltimore Program Manager, where she built clinical relationships and oversaw the development and management of Health Leads’ advocate workforce.
Sonia is a Truman Scholar, a World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper, and founding board member for the Boston Young Healthcare Professionals and Healthworks Community Fitness. Recently, she was named a Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care InciteHealth Fellow, as well as an AcademyHealth/Kresge Foundation Population Health Scholar.
She holds B.A. degrees in public health and international studies from Johns Hopkins University and an MPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She is also a published poet, with work appearing in the American Journal of Nursing and the Bellevue Literary Review, among others.